Reimagining First-Party Data Activation in Insurance: What Brands Can Learn from Our Campaign Tech Awards Finalist with Saga

Industry Recognition for a New Approach to Data Activation

AUDIENCES and Saga were proud to be recognised as finalists at the Campaign Tech Awards 2026 in the Best Use of Data – Financial & Professional Services category. The recognition highlights a challenge facing many organisations today: how to unlock the value of first-party data whilst maintaining the highest standards of privacy, governance and customer trust. For regulated industries such as insurance, financial services and healthcare, this challenge is particularly acute. The pressure to deliver more relevant marketing experiences has never been higher, yet so too are expectations around data privacy, transparency and control.

Our work with Saga demonstrated that brands no longer need to choose between effective activation and responsible data management. Beyond the industry recognition, the project offers several valuable lessons for organisations looking to make better use of their first-party data.

Lesson One: Customer Data Only Creates Value When It Is Activated

Many organisations have spent years investing in customer data infrastructure. The challenge today is not just collecting more data, it's putting it to work. Despite significant investment in CRM platforms and customer data strategies, only a small proportion of media investment is typically informed by first-party customer data. This creates a substantial opportunity for brands willing to bridge the gap between insight and activation. Saga recognised that its customer data could play a far greater role in driving marketing effectiveness, helping improve audience targeting, reduce wastage and create more relevant customer experiences. The brands seeing the greatest returns from their data investments are those finding ways to operationalise customer intelligence across marketing channels.

Lesson Two: Privacy and Performance Can Work Hand in Hand

For too long, privacy and performance have been treated as competing priorities. Increasingly, the opposite is true. As regulations evolve and consumer expectations rise, organisations that build privacy-first activation strategies are creating stronger foundations for long-term marketing success. By reducing unnecessary data movement and maintaining robust governance controls, Saga was able to activate audiences whilst ensuring customer information remained protected and under control. The project reinforces an important lesson for the wider market: privacy-first marketing is not a limitation. It is becoming a competitive advantage.

Lesson Three: The Cloud Has Changed the Rules

The rise of cloud-based data environments is transforming how brands think about audience activation. Historically, activating customer audiences often meant moving and duplicating data across multiple systems and platforms, creating additional complexity and governance challenges. Today, organisations can increasingly activate audiences directly where their data already resides. For highly regulated sectors, this represents a significant shift. It enables stronger governance and improved operational efficiency, whilst allowing brands to retain control of one of their most valuable assets: their customer data. The cloud is no longer simply where data is stored. It is becoming where activation happens.

Lesson Four: Control Matters More Than Ever

As the marketing and data ecosystem continues to evolve, brands are taking a closer look at who controls their data and how it is used. One of the most important outcomes from this project was demonstrating a model that keeps brands firmly in control. Rather than relying on multiple copies of customer data being shared across the ecosystem, activation can happen within the brand's own environment, providing greater transparency and flexibility. For organisations navigating an increasingly complex landscape, maintaining control over customer data is becoming a strategic differentiator.

Looking Ahead

Being recognised as a Campaign Tech Awards finalist was a proud moment for everyone involved in this project. More importantly, it reflects a broader shift taking place across the industry. Brands are moving beyond simply collecting customer data, they are looking for ways to activate it responsibly and securely, whilst maintaining the trust of their customers. This is key. Customer centric activation.

We're grateful to the team at Saga for their partnership and their pionering spirit in embracing a new approach to audience activation. Together, we helped demonstrate how first-party data can work harder in a privacy-first world and why the future of activation starts with keeping brands in control of their own data.

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