First-party data is information an organisation collects directly from its own customers, users and operations, through channels it owns such as its website, app, point of sale or CRM. The organisation has a direct relationship with the source, knows how the data was gathered and can say what people were told when it was.
First-party and third-party data
What an organisation holds depends on its relationship to the source. First-party data comes straight from that relationship and is private to the organisation. Third-party data is collected by someone else and supplied through a vendor, with no relationship between you and the original source. The labels describe the buyer's position, not quality: first-party data is only as accurate as the process that captured it, and it covers only the customers and prospects you already have.
A second sense, used about sources
Data vendors also use the term about where they collect from. A first-party source is the entity the data describes, publishing it itself, as opposed to a reseller, aggregator or broker passing on someone else's collection. A company's own job board is a first-party source for its postings, as the note on reading job postings at the source explains.
A dataset can therefore be third-party to its buyer and first-party at source at once, so ask a vendor which sense it means. The answer decides who collected the data and under what notice, which is what a due diligence review wants to know.
First-party sources in Fokals data
Fokals sources from first-party company sources and public records and processes them in-house: what companies publish on their own websites and careers pages, what they announce and what they file. The data is company-level throughout, and each record carries the time it was observed. The sourcing statement sets out the detail.
Related terms
The other side of the distinction is third-party data. The record of where each value came from is its data provenance.
Frequently asked questions
What is an example of first-party data?
A retailer's purchase history, a software company's product usage logs, newsletter sign-ups, support tickets, survey answers and notes in a CRM. Each is collected through a channel the organisation runs and describes people or companies that dealt with it directly. That direct relationship is what makes the data first-party, whatever its format or size.
What is second-party data?
Second-party data is another organisation's first-party data, shared with you directly by agreement, for example a partner passing on aggregated customer information. You know who collected it and how, because you deal with its owner. It still describes their customers, not yours, so its use is bounded by the agreement and by what the people concerned were told.
Is first-party data better than third-party data?
Not by default. First-party data fits your own customers exactly but covers only the people and companies you already know. Third-party data reaches beyond them, for example to every company in a market, but you depend on the supplier's collection and licence. Judge each by its source, coverage, freshness and what the licence allows.