Google’s decision in 2020 to phase out third-party cookies from its Chrome browser has emerged as the Big Bang for the marketing industry, changing the landscape for all time.

Amid privacy violation concerns, advertisers are today restricted in their ability to track third-party cookies without consent, making it exponentially more difficult to target messages and track users across the web.

Enter the shift to first-party data and owned media.

According to Jonathan Hopkins, founding partner at Sonder Media, the owned media market in Australia in 2024 is worth a staggering $4.3 billion in commercial potential, growing 10 per cent in the space of a year.

However, it is in the finance sector – where banks and financial institutions are waking up to exactly how much first-party data they are sitting on – that growth has been strongest at 19 per cent.

Sonder’s latest report – FY′24 Owned Media Market Report & Ranking: Owned media leverage goes mainstream – showed $181 million in media leverage potential for banks and other financial institutions.

“The secret sauce in the owned media sector is the first party data they hold,” says Hopkins. “With Google phasing out third-party cookies, paid media will be reduced in its efficacy because you can’t follow people around the open web.

“Those businesses that hold first-party transactional data are going to be in a much more powerful position.”

For banks, the opportunity to leverage owned media puts them in pole position.

“Whereas a retailer is only going to see customer spend in the products they sell, a bank or financial institution has everyone’s spend across all categories,” says Hopkins.

“A bank can then go to a grocery brand, a retail brand, a utility brand, or whatever it might be, and say we know your customers because of the richness of our transactional data.”

They can then target those segments without revealing any customer data: “They would keep that data internal – they’re leveraging it.”

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has been a case in point, aggressively pursuing initiatives in the owned media space with its Brighter magazine. The ad-funded publication, a partnership with News Corp’s commercial content operation, joins the likes of Qantas, Bunnings, Officeworks, Coles and Woolworths who already have highly successful customer magazines.

Chief marketing officer at CommBank, Jo Boundy, says owned media is driving, not only customer engagement, but also revenue using the bank’s own resources.

“If you think about the size, scale and reach of a brand like CBA and the engagement we have with our customers, there’s definitely an opportunity for us to use those channels to better communicate with our customers,” Boundy told marketing publication Mi3.

“Brighter includes some partner advertising and that’s actually helping us offset the cost of the content generation. It’s a way of using your own channels to extract greater value.”

For Hopkins, Brighter is “just the tip of the iceberg” in the financial sector. “It’s been a beacon and other financial brands are definitely following suit,” he says. The critical factor for banks and financial institutions is that their customer pool is huge and their media channels already have the highest volume on the web.

“Compared with a TV, newspaper or traditional media site, a bank is so much bigger because of the frequency of visitation,” says Hopkins.

“People are checking their cards, checking their balances. And most banks are omni-channel too, so they have branch screens, branch posters, direct mail, email, social posts, websites and apps.”

Aggregate all of this, he says, and it amounts to a vast media network. “But often it takes someone like Sonder to shine a light on this opportunity for them – to show that it is a leverage platform rather than simply a channel for communicating with customers.”

For those already active in this space, owned media’s increasing importance for marketers has never been more evident. Sweta Mehra, managing director, everyday banking for ANZ says the bank is moving at pace on its owned media strategy because – when it comes to driving revenue, reputation and customer relations – “there’s only so far you can go with paid media”.

“We had always been interested in using our own data,” she told an Mi3 podcast.

“Where Sonder has really helped us is in quantifying the value and impact of own media channels: we did not have a number, we did not know that with our own channels we can create 85 million impacts a month.”

Hopkins says there are four compelling use cases for owned media:

• Firstly, the spend in paid media is drastically reduced, for instance ANZ which is making owned media its priority.
• Secondly, owned media can be leveraged in partnership deals: Mastercard and the Australian Open tennis are a prime example here.
• Thirdly, the targeting capability of first-party data can attract more reward partners – for example Amex Offers and Mastercard Priceless.
• Fourthly, owned media can itself attract third-party advertisers and revenue: global finance app Revolut, which has a young and desirable audience, has set up a retail media network within its app.

“The third use case is huge and growing,” says Hopkins. “This is where a brand offer can be promoted through another’s channel. “For instance – and this is where the data comes in – a financial institution or bank could approach a luxury department store and say we know there’s 300,000 luxury shoppers that haven’t shopped with you for the past three months. “We can do a targeted message to them, zero wastage, and you don’t have to pay for media. It’s quite a compelling sell.”

Using first party data to identify the prospective brand and its customer base, as well as acquire new customers, is at the heart of owned media’s unique selling point. “When you advertise, you might buy a million impressions, but only a hundred thousand of these will be relevant, and you have to accept that 90 per cent of that is wastage,” Hopkins says. “The beauty of owned media is there’s zero wastage.”

To learn more, please download the Sonder Media report.