At Cheetah Digital, we have a 20-year legacy of helping build meaningful relationships between brands and consumers — relationships that are grounded in consumer permission and preferences. Today we are moving forward with the next step in that journey.
I am thrilled to announce that Cheetah Digital has acquired Wayin, a global leader in zero-party data collection and activation.
As an industry pioneer in zero-party data — data that customers own and willingly provide to brands — Wayin helps non-technical marketers quickly and easily create interactive experiences that engage audiences and collect first- and zero-party data across the customer lifecycle on all digital touchpoints.
The importance of zero-party data
Data is the lifeblood of modern marketing. It allows marketers to create relevant, personalized content and fuels meaningful customer experiences. Unfortunately, questionable collection practices and misuse of data have fostered an environment of ineffective personalization and consumer mistrust. As a result, we’ve seen a surge in privacy regulation that’s stricter and more comprehensive than anything that existed previously.
Consumers are still willing to share their data, but they want control over how their data will be used — and they want to be confident that they’ll receive some value (e.g., personalized offers, content, etc.) in exchange for the data they share. This concept of a “value exchange” is the foundation of zero-party data collection — and that’s where Wayin comes in.
My new colleague, Wayin CEO Richard Jones, sums it up nicely in today’s press release: “Privacy and personalization can only exist in the future with a first- and zero-party data strategy, rather than third-party data that is increasingly incomplete, inaccurate, and breaches consumer trust. That’s why many of the world’s biggest brands are continuing to turn to Wayin for interactive experiences, audience building, and profiling that helps them identify customers, drive rich personalization, and keep data accurate, relevant, and current, because it’s coming directly from their customers.”
Why we’re so excited about Wayin
Quite simply, Wayin is the perfect complement to Cheetah Digital’s existing product offerings. With this acquisition, marketers will now be able to capture first- and zero-party data through participatory campaign experiences like sweepstakes and quizzes. The Wayin solution is intuitive, beautiful, and includes a library of more than 80 pre-built experiences that non-technical marketers can quickly activate without involving their IT team. These experiences can be launched across owned, earned, and paid channels, including:
- Websites
- Social stories
- Advertising
- Microsites
- Mobile applications
- In-venue and onsite
- In-store digital
Each experience gives marketers the opportunity to collect deep, self-reported information on people’s motivations, intentions, and interests. Rather than just “acquiring” a new audience member, marketers can really get to know their customers. This data will then flow directly into the Cheetah Digital platform, helping brands build detailed segments to execute highly-personalized future campaigns, promotions, and triggered messages in any channel. This is a game-changer for companies in industries like health & beauty and consumer packaged goods, which have distribution channels that aren’t always direct.
With the combined capabilities of Wayin and Cheetah Digital, marketers now have a comprehensive, end-to-end customer engagement solution to acquire customer data, unify it in a single customer view, and put it to work in real time to deliver immersive experiences across all channels and stages of the customer lifecycle.
We invite you to celebrate with us!
This development is great news for Cheetah Digital clients and partners. We are firmly committed to helping marketers create meaningful customer experiences, and providing our partners with tools to advance their products and services. This acquisition is a clear signal of that commitment, and we believe it opens up incredible opportunities to deepen our relationships with both clients and partners.
You can learn more about this exciting announcement here — or contact us!
