How to collect and use customer data for marketing

In this guide, we’ll explain what customer data is, how to collect it in simple ways, and how to use it to make smarter marketing decisions. No confusing jargon, no special tools, just clear, practical steps that work. 

Imagine knowing what your customers want before they say a word. Sounds impressive, right? You don’t need to be a tech expert or marketing pro to make it happen. With the correct customer data, even total beginners can learn what their customers like, need, and expect, and use that to grow their business faster. 

Let’s get started and make your marketing easier (and way more effective).

Customer data is a type of marketing data that includes information about the company's customers. This kind of data includes information on how customers behave, who they are, and what their personal details are. Basic data, such as identity data (name, contact details) and financial information (income, occupation, annual revenue), is typically collected and stored in CRM systems to build detailed customer profiles. Strictly speaking, customer data is any piece of information that allows you to identify who your customers are and how they are using your products or services 

Customer data collection helps brands understand their audience better. Brands can engage and communicate with their target customers more effectively when they know more about them. 

Collecting customer data opens a myriad of opportunities for a brand. There are so many things you can do with it and so many insights you can get, of course, if you know how to collect and use it in the best way possible.

User data collection can assist marketers in so many ways. Here are a few of the most popular things customer data can help a brand with:

Marketing data collection helps brands understand which of their marketing and advertising efforts are working and which are not. With the help of the correct data, you can make smarter decisions about every aspect of your products. 

For instance, imagine you are in the business of coffee pods. Your customer data shows that people who buy coffee makers usually buy coffee pods every three to four weeks.  Analyzing specific data points, such as purchase frequency and product preferences, provides quantitative data that helps identify buying behaviors and supports better decision making.

You could use these insights to:

And this is just one example of how knowing your customers can help you make smarter business decisions.

Collecting customer data opens a myriad of opportunities for a brand. There are so many things you can do with it and so many insights you can get, of course, if you know how to collect and use it in the best way possible. 

Understanding customer data is essential for gaining insight into customer needs and preferences. Here are a few of the most popular things customer data can help a brand with: understanding customers, personalizing marketing, and improving business strategies. While there are many benefits, there are also common challenges in collecting and managing customer data, such as complexity and cost.

When you collect and analyze data across every touchpoint, whether it’s your website, email campaign, social media, or offline interaction, you can tailor what you offer and how you do it to better tailor to the needs of the customers. 

Understanding your customers' behavior and preferences gives you a chance to make them heard and understood, which, in turn, increases the upsell opportunities. After all, satisfied and loyal customers are not only likely to return more often, but they are also more open to buying more products or upgrades. 

Understanding how and where your customers get acquainted with your brand, as well as how they interact with it, can help you make smarter decisions regarding how to invest your resources, including time, effort, and money. 

When you collect customer data that shows you which marketing channels, campaigns, and product features generate the most value, you can fuel high-performing platforms, types of content, or sales techniques. At the same time, you can adjust and cut out those that don’t bring value to your business. In other words, instead of spreading yourself thin, you can double down on what works best.

Using customer data to understand the behavior of the customers, like when people buy, how often they come back, and what drives their decisions, helps brands notice patterns. These patterns can further be used for predicting future sales and revenue. 

For instance, if data shows that your sales go up during certain seasons or after specific marketing campaigns, you can plan your budget, staffing, and inventory for similar future occurrences. 

Sales team forecasting also benefits from accurate customer data, as it allows them to make forecasting more accurate and adjust their campaigns in the process, without having to wait until final results are visible. In short, customer data makes forecasting more reliable, helps avoid unpleasant surprises, and helps your sales team focus on what works best.

There are different sources of consumer data collection. Here are the top five suggestions on how to get customer data: 

There are many ways to collect customer data, like direct feedback, account signups, CRM tools, behavior tracking, and POS integration. The best approach is to combine methods that fit your business. Start simple, like surveys or loyalty programs, and scale with tech like CRMs and ecommerce integration as you grow.

It is essential to ensure your data collection and storage practices remain compliant with all relevant privacy laws. Regulations such as the GDPR, CCPA, and the Colorado Privacy Act set strict requirements for how businesses handle customer data. Staying informed about these state-level and international laws helps your organization avoid penalties and maintain customer trust.

Customer data generally falls into three main categories.

First-party data is information your business gathers directly from customers through your channels, like your website, apps, or physical stores. When someone creates an account, makes a purchase, fills out a survey, or browses your site, they’re providing you with valuable first-party data. This type of data is potent because it’s accurate, reliable, and collected with complete transparency. 

Here is the list of the most popular first-party data examples you can encounter when interacting with different websites and businesses online:

First-party data allows businesses to understand their customers better and, as a result, find more suitable goods and services to offer them.

Third-party data does not come from your interaction with the customers. Third-party data is an asset you buy from a source that did not collect it in the first place. Usually, marketers buy third-party data through demographic segments for their advertising campaigns. 

Sometimes, such data is purchased to enrich customer data with details you cannot access. Third-party data can provide your business with critical demographic information. 

Third-party data is aggregated by means and from sources usually unknown to you, so you can never be sure whether every piece was collected ethically and with the customer's consent. For this reason, its accuracy and reliability are questionable. Another thing about third-party data is that numerous companies can buy it simultaneously, making the competition for customer attention based on such data tougher. 

Examples of third-party data:

Advertisers and marketing companies use this information to build comprehensive user profiles, which they use for targeted advertising. Third-party data provides audience insights, necessary for targeted advertising, retargeting campaigns, affiliate marketing, and cross-platform tracking. 

Zero-party data is information that customers voluntarily provide to a business. They willingly share it in exchange for something valuable, such as a personalized experience, special discounts, exclusive offers, membership in loyalty programs, or early access to new products.

Common examples of zero-party data include:

Because zero-party data requires customers to share their information actively, it can be challenging to collect. To encourage this, businesses need to offer meaningful incentives that customers find worth their time.

This type of data is extremely valuable because it comes directly from the customer, making it accurate, trustworthy, and highly personalized. Plus, it’s collected with explicit permission, ensuring ethical use and stronger customer trust.

Every business wants to make the most of different types of consumer data, no matter where it comes from. Finding the right balance between zero-, first-, and third-party data is key to staying successful. 

You don’t need complicated tools to start collecting customer information. Start with simple, proven methods that work even if you're not tech-savvy:

1. Ask short questions through chat pop-ups or emails, right after someone makes a purchase or visits your site. These quick, friendly prompts get more responses than long surveys.

2. Use feedback forms on your website or thank-you pages to ask what worked well or what could be better.

3. Listen on social media. Customers often share their opinions in comments, reviews, or messages. Use this as a free source of honest feedback.

4. Talk to customers directly: in-store, over the phone, or via live chat. A short conversation can reveal a lot about what they want or don’t like.

5. Make it easy. Always explain why you're asking and how the info helps them, for example, better service or discounts.

Start small, focus on one or two methods, and build from there. What matters most is using what you learn to improve your marketing.

Sometimes, especially for newer marketers, there can be confusion around "what is marketing data" and "what is customer data." While they often overlap, they serve different purposes and come from different sources.

Here’s a short comparison of the two. 

As you can see, customer data and marketing data often work hand-in-hand, but they serve different purposes. While customer data helps you understand and support people who are already your customers, marketing data helps you reach new people and get to them with the right message. 

When used together, these types of data can help you make smarter business decisions and get better results. Having more data from multiple sources enables deeper analysis of customer behavior and allows for better targeting and personalization in your marketing efforts.

There are many ways you can collect data from your customers. You can find the main ones below.

There are many ways to collect customer data, like direct feedback, account signups, CRM tools, behavior tracking, and POS integration. The best approach is to combine methods that fit your business. Start simple, like surveys or loyalty programs, and scale with tech like CRMs and ecommerce integration as you grow.

There are many ways in which you can collect marketing data. Here are the top ways to get marketing data.

As you can see, marketing data can be collected and stored in many ways. With the right tools, including marketing automation, you can analyze customer behavior, improve targeting, and boost the efficiency of your marketing campaigns.

You can find a detailed overview in the article What platforms support Google Tag Manager server-side tagging on Stape’s blog.

After collecting customer data, it is essential to use it effectively. Begin by identifying patterns, such as which products are often purchased together or which emails receive the most clicks. This helps you deliver the right message to the right audience.

You can also create groups of customers, for example, new shoppers and repeat buyers, and send each group personalized offers. If a customer frequently buys children’s products, show them more options like that. For visitors who browse but do not buy, offer a small discount to encourage their first purchase.

Customer data can also help you create helpful content. If many customers ask similar questions, use those topics to make blog posts, social media updates, or FAQ pages.

Finally, measure the success of your marketing efforts and adjust based on the results. When you understand which emails, ads, or products perform best for each group, you can focus on strategies that work.

You do not need to be an expert. Start small and let customer behavior guide your marketing decisions.

Let’s get through the common mistakes in customer data collection.

1. Using too many tools without a clear plan.

There are a lot of CRM and data collection platforms out there, so many businesses make the mistake of trying everything at once. Such an approach creates confusion and makes it hard to choose the right tool and combine data from all the places.

2. Messy and inconsistent data.

When you are collecting data from different sources without having a clear system, you are likely to end up with duplicates, naming mismatches, or irrelevant events. It makes your data unreliable or even unusable in some cases. 

3. Tracking everything, everyone, and all at once

It’s easy to get confused in the beginning and understand what data to collect from customers. If you’re just starting, you might think that tracking everything is the way to go. The more information you have about your customers, the better, right? Not exactly so. Without a clear purpose, data is just clutter. So, before choosing to track any data point, decide how you will use it. 

4. Delaying upgrade. 

Upgrading your data infrastructure before the pressing need to do so appears is crucial. You don’t want to lose data while you transfer.

5. Not having a plan.

Collecting customer data without using it immediately with a definite plan is a road to data gaps and performance drops. To improve your marketing with data, you need to make a clear plan first. 

A customer data platform (CDP) is a software that brings together customer data from different tools into one place. It shows all the ways a customer has interacted with your business, so you can organize the data and use it to create more personalized marketing campaigns. 

If you're looking to set up your own solution, check out our guide on building a custom CDP and enriching event data using server-side GTM. 

A customer data platform allows a business to combine different types of customer data to create more personal experiences for the customers. A CDP collects data from many sources into one profile per customer. It helps businesses understand customer behavior, predict their future actions, and segment people better. You can connect your CDP with other tools to make your data available to the whole team, whether it’s support, IT, or marketing. 

There are many reasons why companies collect information about consumers. Firstly, they do it to offer products and services that match what each customer likes. Next, they do it for the sake of a better customer experience and targeted marketing, to send the right message to the right people. What’s more, customer data helps to make smarter decisions and find new ideas. It also helps brands develop better products and come up with new ones by finding new ideas from customer insights. 

Yes, it is legal as long as companies follow data privacy laws. Regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and CPRA require businesses to handle the collection and sharing of visitor data carefully. These laws restrict the sharing of personally identifiable information (PII) with third-party vendors without proper consent. To stay compliant and protect user data, businesses should follow data protection best practices. 

Using server-side tracking gives companies complete control over how data is collected and shared. It allows them to send only specific information to each vendor, reducing the risk of data misuse. Tools like Stape can help set up server-side tracking easily and securely, ensuring compliance with privacy laws.