In a world increasingly conscious of data privacy, marketing is at a crossroads. Strict compliance regulations such as GDPR and CCPA are being introduced almost daily. Marketers worldwide continue to feel the pressure to remain on the right side of the law while also delivering the personalized experiences their customers expect from them.
Most marketers are, of course, diligently trying to do the right thing. As we come up to the fourth anniversary of GDPR, we can see that there have been fundamental shifts in how marketing consent is collected from customers to follow the letter and the spirit of the law.
See More: Data Privacy: A Business Playground or Management Minefield?
But there is a big problem lurking behind the checkboxes — one that could cost marketers dearly.
The Downfall of the Over-confident Marketer
In Q4 2021, Zeotap commissioned a survey of 500 senior marketers to understand what data privacy practices were in play and how they corresponded to marketing success.
Respondents were asked how far above (or below) they achieved on their 2021 targets. According to their attainment, they were then sorted into five distinct success archetypes: from the ‘Top 1%’ (achieving 70-100% above target) to the ‘Bottom Tier Marketer’ who achieved 60-100% less than their target.
The study found, perhaps surprisingly, that marketers have a high level of confidence in their data compliance standards, with nearly 100% confidence amongst the front-runners:
However, as we dig deeper into these numbers, high confidence in ‘data focus’ is actually not as promising as it looks. Here is why.
The Compliance Castle Built on Sand
Balancing marketing objectives with data privacy always requires one thing at its base: a single customer viewOpens a new window . This is when data is unified into a ‘golden record’ of the individual user and their associated data points drawn from every touchpoint.
This is critical to delivering on data privacy because of how consent is captured in today’s multi-touch, multi-channel journeys. Put simply, it is highly likely that consent is captured across multiple tools (for example, a consent management platform, a loyalty program, and email marketing), which means an individual can express (and withdraw) consent in many different places. Unless those choices are resolved into a single view, it is likely that activating that data can fall foul of regulations.
This is why the single customer view is important: it means having a comprehensive view of a customer’s consent preferences across those multiple touchpoints and channels. This is why the marketer without a ‘golden record’ might have misplaced confidence in their compliance.
Here is the good news: our research showed that, in general, the more successful the marketer, the more likely they are to already have this ‘golden record’ — with adoption falling off a cliff when we begin to look at ‘less successful’ marketers:
But here is the problem: if we cross-reference our findings around who has achieved a single customer view, we see that there is a significant proportion of those marketers who DON’T have a golden record who DO express confidence about their data compliance. Nearly one-third of the confident ‘Struggling Marketers’ fall under this category:
This means that there is a significant proportion of marketers out there who believe that they have their data privacy practices locked down when in reality, they could be making mistakes with the potential to earn hefty fines.
How to Balance Ambition With Action
To avoid becoming one of the groups of over-confident marketers, those who want to succeed in 2022 need to challenge what kind of data they collect, how they manage it and what they use that data for.
The end result should be a useful, transparent dataset that delivers value to both the marketer and the customer. Here is a set of best practices to follow to achieve this:
- Critique your data collection practices. Take stock of the data you are collecting indexed against what you use it for, and see if the two truly line up.
- Get serious about data storage and access. Not everyone in your business should have the same level of access to customer data, nor should it necessarily be used for every purpose. Take steps to audit this with your Data Protection Officer (DPO).
- Review the consent collection process and messaging to the consumer. Ask yourself: does the messaging cover all aspects of data collected? Are the purposes reflecting what you really do? Is the language easily understandable for consumers, and does it build trust in a relationship around the use of customer data?
- Adopt the right tools to manage and unify the consent journey. Data privacy is about more than collecting consent: to create the all-important single customer view, invest in a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to help you manage cross-channel consent preferences, enabling them to be automatically reflected in all marketing campaigns all times.
See More: Share and Bolster Data in a Privacy Safe Way With a Clean Room
The Way Forward
While data privacy measures may feel like a limitation, it is actually an opportunity to refine the customer experience even more in 2022. Marketers who are well-equipped with a strong foundation of consented data are already ahead of the curve, while those who still have work to do will start to fall behind in the coming year.
What steps have you taken to e compliant with data privacy laws? Share with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .
Â