Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

For some time now, when we visit a website we have come across a box that alerts us about the creation of cookies. These reports are part of a list of changes expected in GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which came into force in May this year.

The Regulation significantly changes the responsibilities of professionals who handle the personal data of people located in the 28 countries of the European Union.

The main intention of the regulation is to increase security in the protection and online privacy of these individuals.

The regulation now requires a series of requirements relating to security, transparency, privacy and data confidentiality.

Most importantly, the visitor/customer now has control over the consent, collection, processing and use of their data. For example, when subscribing to a newsletter, which previously only required the visitor/customer to write their email address in the subscription field, under the new regulations, it is important for the lead to receive an email to confirm their interest in receiving the newsletter.

Any company that fails to comply with the rules may be punished with a fine of up to 4% of its annual revenue.

At its core, the GDPR is about data protection to safeguard consumers. Basically, it ensures that users are free to hand over their data only to whomever they want and, even when they do hand it over, they remain the owners of it, and can change or remove it whenever they see fit.

It is worth remembering that, until now, data on consumers and service users constituted an extremely valuable asset in defining digital marketing strategies, since with correct data processing it is possible to define a person's profile and predict their preferences, behavior and future attitudes.

In other words, consumer data is an immense asset for companies, as it allows for the correct segmentation of a target.

And you may be wondering: will the new rules of this Regulation be a problem for my company? Well, if your company's Digital Marketing is carried out without a strategy, only concerned with hard selling, it will undoubtedly be a problem.

On the other hand, if Digital Marketing is strategically designed to accompany the target audience in its different stages, it will not be.

Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

In short, from now on, with the new data protection law, companies must effectively collect data legitimately and must also guarantee consumer rights regarding the analysis and use of their personal data.

Of the various changes implemented, the most notable are:

“Breach Notification” – In other words, in the event of a personal data breach, there is now an obligation and need to communicate with the competent authorities and affected consumers within 72 hours;

“Right to Access” – Guarantees anyone the right to access their personal data, and they can request a copy of all data held by the organization;

“Right to be forgotten” – This is the right to be forgotten, by requesting the deletion of your personal data directly from organizations, and this right must be granted as soon as possible.

“Data Portability” – This is the right that the consumer has to request that their personal data be transmitted to another entity;

“Data Protection Officer” – This involves ensuring that companies have human resources that record and maintain effective data protection;

Consent from those providing personal information must be in clear language and without any embellishments (at this point you should analyze the usage and privacy policy available on your website).

In conclusion: the GDPR requires that, for all data processing, consent be explicit – this is the new feature –, in addition to maintaining the current characteristics of consent having to constitute a manifestation of free, specific and informed will.

Consequences of GDPR on digital marketing actions

What are the main consequences of GDPR for your company?

From everything we’ve said above, you’ve probably already realized that the implementation of the GDPR will imply several changes in companies’ digital marketing strategies. We can mention a few:

1 – Shrinking of available databases

The more explicit the consumer's permission is, and the simpler it is to cancel companies' access to this data, the more complicated it will be to generate and expand databases, especially when they are to be used by third parties (as is the case with companies that sell databases).

2 – Limit on the reach of certain channels

There are numerous digital marketing strategies (such as cookies and remarketing) that were not based on explicit consumer acceptance.

In this way, the databases will be even more limited. Consequence: the smaller the target audience, the smaller the reach achieved.

3 – Increased cost per click

Another indirect impact of the GDPR essentially involves the average price per click on paid advertisements (namely on Google and Facebook).

Additionally, applying data clustering to third-party databases will be much more expensive, making the entire paid advertising model more expensive and less accurate.

These three issues have a greater impact on companies' digital marketing strategy, as the law of supply and demand will be impacted.

The conclusion reached is that, with the implementation of the new data protection law, companies must implement a digital marketing strategy with greater weight in the medium and long term, to the detriment of immediate actions.

Therefore, the investment in SEO, content marketing, Inbound Marketing and everything that allows your company to strengthen and strengthen its relationship with the customer, are effectively the strategies that your company should focus on immediately, as these are the ones that in the medium and long term will bring a greater return for your business.

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