Balancing Privacy and User identification with First Party Tracking and what it means for Pardotters (Marketing Cloud Account Engagement).
Marketers have been using cookies with third-party tracking to identify what content is accessed, where people go, and what they do. Since the announcement, and in aid of protecting users, first-party tracking was announced to be implemented asap. Since, Google has extended the use of third-party tracking through to the end of 2023. However, Safari and other sites have already migrated over to first-party. In the meantime, many automation tools, like Pardot are improving systems to house this change.
What is Pardot doing about it?
We have options! We can either use only First Party or both First and Third-party tracking (whilst we migrate over fully to First Party). But, a migration to either is necessary to get the information you are used to seeing.
What are these cookies and what do they do?
Cookies are small pieces of tracking code placed into a website’s header or footer. When the visitor hit the site, the cookie is delivered to a prospects browser to track pages and visits of the prospect. A Pardot cookie is placed on a site and follows a visitor based on cookie tracking timeframe which inherently logs all page visits and actions that prospect takes. Once a visitor is converted, all activity will be related to this person and all future interactions will be monitored, too.
Third-Party Tracking:
Think of those annoying ads that keep appearing wherever you go on the internet – no matter which website you are visiting. Those are a cause of third-party cookies – cookies that are not directly placed on your website, for your website.
First Party Tracking:
Cookies that are placed directly on the website that the prospect has visited and provides an enhanced experience when returning to the website. This allows the owners of the website to understand your patterns and provide better and customised content, so accept those cookies!
Let’s look at the differences in implementation in a brand new org and an old one.
Brand New Org:
- Create a tracker domain that contains the root domain of your website. Ie. The Root Domain for Hello Kloud is www.hellokloud.com and our tracker domain might be www.info.hellokloud.com
- Also ensure that Tracker Domains are SSL-enabled via the Domain Management page – if an error appears on this page regarding SSL, contact your IT team for support.
- Ensure your Tracker domain is validated by handing over the validation key to your IT team to insert it to the back end of the website.
- Set the Tracker Domain to ‘primary’ via the settings cog on the right-hand side.
- Enable First Party tracking from settings in Pardot (toggle on switch)
- Once your tracker domain has been validated, scroll down to find the following:
- From the dropdown on the left hand side, select the domain you want to work with
- Choose a campaign to associate first party tracking with.
- A snippet of code will appear for you to add to your website (before the close body tag). Remember to REMOVE the old tracking code.
- Next, is to: Test, test, test.
- Open an Incognito browser, block third party cookies (on the newly opened tab page) and type in the root address related to your tracker domain. Browse the pages that have your newly added first-party tracking code.
- Navigate back to Pardot and you should see an additional visitor added to your Visitors Report.
- Lastly, Deselect the third party tracking checkbox once you’re confident everything is working.
For a Not so Brand New Org:
- Check root domain and tracker domains match. Ie. The Root Domain for Hello Kloud is www.hellokloud.com and our tracker domain might be www.info.hellokloud.com
- You can do this across brands – as long as the root domains match, you are good to go.
- Don’t forget to check that your tracker domains are HTTPS and SSL-enabled.
- Enable first party tracking in Pardot’s Settings
- Go back to Domain management and associate a campaign with a tracker domain.
- A snippet of code will appear for you to add to your website (before the close body tag). Remember to REMOVE the old tracking code.
- As always, Test, test, test.
- Open an Incognito browser, block third-party cookies (on the newly opened tab page) and type in the root address related to your tracker domain. Browse the pages that have your newly added first-party tracking code.
- Navigate back to Pardot and you should see an additional visitor added to your Visitors Report.
- Lastly, Deselect the third-party tracking checkbox once you’re confident everything is working.
How does enabling this feature help?
- brands prospects are truly interested in
- All browsers will be making the move by end of 2023!
- Helps marketers focus messaging better
FAQ’s:
- Do I lose third party data already received in the past?
No, previously collected data will remain but moving forward, only appropriate data will be brought into Pardot.
- What if I have tracker domains that have Http and Https protocols enabled?
You’d need to ensure all tracker domains are HTTPS enabled as to ensure that only net new visitor ID’s are issued and some activity may not be linked correctly.
- Will tracking continue if I have the old tracking code and the new one?
Your data will be skewed.
- What if you have two or more different brands?
Each brand needs its own tracker domains and campaigns and tracking code to be added to the website. This will then in turn produce a visitor on each separate domain and Pardot and first party tracking requires that a visitor converts on each brand domain to link all activity to a single prospect. If they only convert on one domain, only the information captured on that domain as a visitor will link to this specific prospect, there will remain another visitor for the other domain(s) along with associated information until the prospect fills in a form on that domain. Pardot will then link the two prospects thereafter.