Marketers want to capture as much zero- and first-party data as possible, whether that’s email addresses, marketing opt-ins and other consent, or more granular data about who a customer is and what they’re interested in. But consumers have more power to be selective about who they share data with and when and have become wary of companies harvesting their data using secret and sometimes deceptive processes. Marketers must work that much harder to collect more customer data while maintaining consumer trust.

We’ve written about the benefits of collaborating on an enterprise data strategy, one that pulls in valuable datasets from beyond marketing’s walls and that taps the knowledge and resources from collaborative departments. Today, we published a new report that dives into how to translate that enterprise data strategy into a data roadmap, titled How To Collect Zero- And First-Party Data You’ll Actually Use.

Building a roadmap starts by defining exactly what data you’ll actually use to benefit the customer and the business. Collecting data that you can’t activate creates a negative customer experience. And data hoarding — collecting too much data and storing it indefinitely — is costly from technical, privacy, and risk perspectives. Our new report lays out just how to set your marketing goals, identify the data needed, and then build a data roadmap that factors in customer experience, privacy and security, and your tech stack.

Check out the new report here. And thank you to the many Forrester colleagues who contributed to the report and to the brands and agencies that participated in the research. For a deeper dive, feel free to set up an analyst inquiry or guidance session.