From the Cambridge Analytica scandal, people worldwide got a showcase of how big tech companies make billions selling and trading personal customer data. You might think to yourself, it?s just something those big companies can do.

That was true for quite some time. However now – That is no longer the case – You can make money with your data.

After you read this piece you will know:

• What gives data its value
• How to sell your data online
• Where to sell your data
• How to sell other people’s data

Why is data valuable?

Data in the right hands can be used for many purposes, here are some of them:

Marketing: Personal data is the lifeblood of a marketing campaign. By using user data, marketers can pinpoint who to advertise to, when, and where.

Business intelligence – by knowing your customer you can not only optimize your workflow, but you can anticipate their needs and add

Examples of data you will be selling : 

• Gender
• Age
• What you buy, where, and when
• Social media posts
• And sometimes some extra, like education or employment history

An important piece of information – > Consumer data is worth a lot of money. The average email address is worth $89 to a brand over time, so it makes sense that they are willing to pay for that kind of information.  Now, data brokering is a $200 billion industry, and it isn?t showing any signs of becoming any less profitable.

How to sell your data for money?

Sell your data directly: The most straightforward method is to sell your data directly to another organization through a private interaction that either you or the other party sets up.

Join a private marketplace: You can also join a private data marketplace where companies exchange data.

Sell your data to a data aggregator: Another option is to sell your data to a data aggregator or another similar company that will then sell your data to companies that will use it.

Where to sell your data?

There are quite a few places to sell your data here are some of them:

PANEL APP

Panel App is slightly different from the other two, tracking your location rather than your online accounts. It jumbles up all your information with everyone else?s in your area, again removing anything personally identifiable, and sells the reports to different third parties.

You make money by accumulating points and using them to buy amazon gift cards

Digi me

Another company mentioned in the FT article is Digi.me, which is planning a service to allow “businesses to approach individuals who want to share their data.”

The company is in the data storage business?it backs up social media accounts for subscribers?so it’s a logical progression to take that aggregated data and sell it.

“This will allow you to share your data with whomever you like, under your control, and make money out of it and lots of other things,” Julian Ranger, chairman, and founder of Digi.me, told the Financial Times.

CitizenMe

Share your data with companies and causes you to believe in and help those who sell ideas and products to get it right. Or break some ground by taking part in medical research ? you can shape the way that businesses, researchers, and even campaign groups active in the future.

How to sell other users’ data?

Data sales are diverse, and despite a lack of a comprehensive overview of it in the press, the data sales industry is flourishing.

A few examples of industries where sales occur:

Advertising: If your user data can be linked to an interest (eg Joe likes Sports), can infer demographic/geographic information (eg. Joe lives in SFO), is an indication of purchase intent (eg. Joe is looking to buy a blender) or indicates a life event (eg. Joe is about to buy a house), this data is of interest to advertising companies. An example company that might purchase this type of information is Bluekai (now owned by Oracle).

Market Research: Similar to advertising, market research firms typically deal with aggregate trends (eg. Joe and 1000 other people like Joe tend to buy premium brands of blenders). Here, the data is used to build reports, analyses, and qualitative insight into the direction of an industry. Look at ComScore’s State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy for a great example of market research being presented.

There are many more examples, such as Insurance, Credit/Lending, Identity Management, Financial Services, Healthcare/Pharma, and more. All these industries are interested in procuring data, and they all have their own specific requirements.

Although selling your user’s data to third-party vendors can be lucrative it is advised to check with GDPR rules and data regulations in your region before doing so.

Data is a valuable commodity, if you make the right steps you might be able to make some money selling it very soon