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5 Steps to Compete and Comply in the Privacy-First World

Brand marketers are more challenged than ever to rethink their approach to data-driven targeting, advertising, and marketing. Big tech today is pivoting to offer consumer privacy as a value proposition in response to growing concerns about data usage by advertisers. Consider Google’s planned rollback of third-party cookies, Apple’s new app and mail privacy measures, and walled gardens like Facebook and Twitter who are under scrutiny for their targeting practices. In addition, regulatory compliance demands are ever more stringent and consumer adoption of privacy tech tools is increasingly mainstream. 

On one hand, marketers are expected to deliver more relevant, user-friendly, and cohesive brand experiences than ever before despite these constraints and regulations. On the other hand, the risks of falling short of compliance and privacy expectations in the quest for personalization are equally great. Consumer tolerance for irresponsible consumer data management is at an all-time low, with 88% of consumers globally placing brand trust higher than customer service, convenience, or even loving the brand.

Even as big tech and walled gardens seek ways to support advertiser goals while protecting consumer privacy, it’s time for brands themselves to take back control of their data-driven marketing approaches. Decisive action is needed to develop privacy-first data strategies that are consumer, compliance, and commerce friendly. 

Balancing the interests of regulators and customers with business goals demands approaches that enable brand competitiveness and compliance in a constantly evolving landscape. The strategic choices you make today are crucial to address current changes effectively and prepare the business for what may come ahead. The good news is that there is still a lot of marketers can do to build privacy-first marketing approaches that don’t compromise on relevance, reach, or scale. Here are five steps to explore and get started with.

5 Immediate Steps to Compete and Comply in the Privacy-first World:
  1. Audit current data collection and storage practices: evaluate all owned and external data sources that power the reach and scale of your marketing efforts. Check for brand safety of data sources and compliance to data gathering regulations. Aside from sources, also audit each data process – gathering, storage, activation, deletion – for necessity and adherence to security standards in your industry and geographies. “Necessity” means it’s important to be sure that you are only collecting data that you can use responsibly to fulfill customer needs and expectations, and that it’s being stored in secure and compliant ways. 

    While a compliance checklist is foundational, it’s equally important for marketers to approach it from the customer journey point of view. Understanding customers and their preferences help identify what data is really needed to address their needs. Data should be gathered to fulfill customer needs, not the other way round where you first gather data and then figure out what to do with it. Data hoarding – gathering and storing data you don’t really need and will not be able to use – only makes your brand vulnerable to breaches and other reputational, trust, and regulatory hazards.
  1. Build a strong operating model to support first-party data usage: in the long run, having access to strong first-party data – both, the brand’s own and via a trusted data publisher –  is the only sustainable way to balance personalization and privacy while keeping the trust of your customers. Setting up the foundational pillars of digital trust — which KPMG defines as reliability, credibility, transparency, integrity, and security — need a robust operating model. 

    Key components of such a model include:

    Enabling people with the training to practice a privacy-first mindset in day-to-day operations and stay ahead of evolving regulatory requirements.

    Building transparent and easy-to-understand processes for data gathering and usage that empower customers to easily find and select their preferred choices; 

    Assembling a technology stack to organize first-party data, enable the free flow of data across the business, surface insights, automate predictive performance, and deliver seamless experiences to scale and optimize revenue without compromising on privacy.
  1. Adopt a privacy-by-design approach to marketing: privacy is no longer an afterthought. Brands should assume that regulations are going to get tougher and more complex across markets. The way to stay ahead of evolving regulations and customer preferences is to follow the highest data gathering, storage and usage standards, irrespective of current laws, built into every marketing process. In other words, designing marketing strategies today for an evolving privacy-first future – a future where privacy appropriate brand behaviour is not just a reactive response to law, but rather an integral and proactive part of the marketing strategy built around respect for customer data. 
  1. Develop a privacy-first intent-data vendor network: third-party cookie data has been a large part of targeting, advertising, and personalization for marketers so far. But with Google’s cookie depreciation and Apple replacing Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) with app tracking and email protection options, marketers need to develop a new network of alternative, brand-safe data sources to power marketing at scale, without compromising on compliance. 

    Vendors with the reach of a diverse first-party data network, access to brand-safe, anonymized third-party data, and the technology to connect the dots and turn it all into intelligent, actionable intent signals can be strong growth partners in an age of endless disruption. Developing an intent-data ecosystem with such partners can ensure access to granular consumer insights at individual and cohort (look-alike groups) level. It also enables reach and scale built from first-party data, and access to platforms where the insights can be activated to deliver the right messages at the right time.
  1. Champion an innovation mindset: with the data landscape still evolving, and access to third-party targeting and segmenting data increasingly restricted, marketers need to get creative! Using first-party data and brand-safe third-party data for clever contextual advertising, designing new loyalty and retention programs; activating community building initiatives – all take your brand closer to high engagement and lower dependence on third-party data. 

    Sharing insights without exchanging data is also possible by collaborating with complementary brands and delivering messages to highly engaged audiences in the right context. Finding ways to better leverage identity resolution technology, improving message delivery processes for differentiated brand experiences, and finding creative ways to collect zero-party data (where customers volunteer additional personal preferences in exchange of perks or discounts) are all areas ripe for innovation within customer experience (CX) budgets. As the scope for personalization is further curtailed, healthy innovation is critical. 

In conclusion

Data privacy and brand trust are a strategic imperative – the stakes are too high, the repercussions of failures too expensive and long-term. Collecting, storing, sharing, acting on, and deleting individual customer data responsibly involves many moving parts. Taking a page out of big tech’s book, brand marketers need to approach privacy as a powerful strategic tool to build consumer trust and cement retention-focused relationships directly with their prospects and customers. Brands that do this better will not only win consumer trust but also be able to build stronger relationships.  To get further clarity on the changes around data privacy, how they impact your business, and what you, as a B2B marketer, can do to survive and thrive in this era of disruption, download “The truth about intent data in a post-cookie world: the B2B marketers’ myth-busting guide”