Legal Aspects of Privacy and Data Protection in Digital Marketing
You’re trying to build up your marketing business and while everything is going well, it’s important to build up your social media followers, find new customers and clients, and make sure that your marketing campaign is heading in the right direction.
However, some marketers might not think too much about data privacy, but this is a big mistake since it’s becoming more important than ever to comply with data protection policies. In fact, 85% of global adults are more concerned than ever about their online privacy.
As you scale your business, it’s essential to solidify data privacy policies and procedures in place. Your customers and clients are trusting you with their personal information. Therefore, it’s now time to make it a priority, and in this article, we’ll learn more about legal aspects of privacy and data protection in digital marketing.
General rules when establishing your data privacy policy procedures for your marketing agency
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Your marketing agency is highly concerned about gathering new clients and setting up the right campaigns, but it’s essential to remain compliant while doing so. Creating strict data privacy policies allow your customers to put their trust in you.
First, identify what data you are collecting and store it to know what type of marketing techniques you need to use with your customers.
It’s also important to know which type of marketing agency you have. Is it B2B or B2C? Don’t forget that different types of marketing agencies will have different campaigns and won’t collect the same information.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that each country will have a different set of rules regarding privacy policies. For instance, B2B content marketing agencies in the UK might not have to follow the same regulations as the ones in the USA.
Moreover, regardless of the type of agency you have or where you live, only gather essential information that relates to your marketing services. Information you don’t need shouldn’t be gathered.
Secondly, be transparent on how you collect and use data in your privacy policies and terms of service. Define the type of data you are gathering, how you store and protect it, and how customers can access it and delete information they don’t want to be there.
Finally, make sure you are properly training your employees for taking the right steps and data privacy and security procedures. Everyone in the team needs to understand how it’s to protect and handle customer information. After all, privacy and security measures should be an essential part of your digital marketing strategy.
4 Practices to follow for complying with data privacy regulations
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In order to effectively navigate data privacy regulations, you need to follow the best digital marketing practices:
1. Educate yourself and the team
Data privacy regulations change in each country and region. Even states in the U.S, have different privacy laws from each other. However, the two biggest data privacy regulators worldwide are:- The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Accounts for all businesses that do business within the EU region and those living in it.
- The Californian Privacy Rights Act (CPRA): Accounts for all businesses that live in the state of California, and those that do business within it.
These two large data privacy regulators will make you pay large fines if you fail to comply with their rules. Large corporations like Amazon, Meta, Google, and others, have already experienced this.
It’s important to stay updated on all changes that these two privacy regulators make. Moreover, don’t forget about your local privacy regulators too. They are the most important ones to comply with.
If you find it time consuming to keep up with all the recent updates, you can always hire someone to take care of this work if you fail to do so. Read more on government websites, legal sources, and industry publications to make sure you are following the latest practices.
2. Obtain explicit consent
Before you collect and process personal data, it’s important to communicate the purposes it’ll be used for, shared, and stored. This is the “Cookie Consent Policies” you run into when visiting a website that gives you a choice whether, or not you accept your personal information to be used and stored within the site.Obtaining explicit consent builds trust with your audience and gives them more security to know you are protecting their privacy.
You can always use a tool to do this. For instance, Google Consent Mode is a tool that allows you to communicate users' cookie consent choices to various Google tags that can measure the website’s ad performance.
The tool allows website owners to meet compliance requirements, and automatically respect user’s choices. A user’s consent preferences will determine if Google will collect and process their full data or anonymized data that can’t personally identify the user.
Google Consent Mode was initially created for allowing businesses to remain compliant with global data privacy regulators like the GDPR and CPRA.
3. Partner up with a trusted service provider
When it comes to digital marketing, partnering with trusted service providers is the best way for ensuring that a firm's marketing efforts align with data privacy regulations and all compliance requirements. When choosing a service provider, you can try reading more about them to understand if they’re the right fit for you or not.A good service provider will give you access to a team of professionals that are well-versed in data privacy and compliance nuances. They will stay up to date with the latest regulations from the GDPR and CPRA.
4. Limit data collection
No matter how much you trust your team, it’s always best to play it safe. You can do so by limiting data collection. Not everyone should be able to access a certain amount of data. In fact, 75% of employees have stolen at least once from their employer.Moreover, it’s also important to limit data collection based on the amount you are gathering. For example, if you are selling mobile phones, you only need to gather information regarding which phone brands your customer likes, and what kind of features they want in it. Someone likes Apple, the other might prefer Samsung, OnePlus, or any other brand in the industry.
Collecting unnecessary data is risky for the organization since if a data breach occurs, it can easily violate customer privacy.
The importance of data privacy in digital marketing
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Well you may have implemented the best practices to comply with data privacy laws, you need to know their importance in digital marketing.
Builds customer trust
Respecting customer privacy is critical for building trust between customers and businesses. Individuals will allow businesses they trust to protect their personal information. This information can be used for creating personalized marketing campaigns that fit the customers preferences.44% of customers claim they’ll most likely repeat a purchase when they see the company shows interest in fulfilling their needs and personalizing services.
Protection against data breaches
Data breaches can not only destroy a company’s reputation, but they can cause large financial losses too. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout to attack your business and ruin your reputation. Especially if you look like an easy target, they’ll continuously be after you.Short said, when businesses prioritize data privacy, they can minimize data breach risk and protect customer personal information.
Enhanced customer experience
Personalized marketing campaigns can significantly deliver a better customer experience by delivering content that fits with the customer’s interests and needs. This can only be done when the business is ethically collecting, storing, and using customers data to increase retention and loyalty in the long-term.Addresses customer concerns
Customers are becoming highly aware of how important data privacy is and regulations. Many are concerned with how their data is used and who it’s being shared with. Data privacy compliance ensures that you are committed to protecting customers information at all costs.Gives a competitive advantage
In today’s competitive digital landscape, data privacy is becoming a key differentiator for companies that comply with it. Consumers are more selective than ever and when they allow brands to take care of their personal information, this helps you stand out from competitors.Especially when they are long-term customers, they’ll feel much more comfortable sharing their information with you.
Don’t forget about data accuracy
At the end of the day, when you’re worried about data breaches, the most important of all is to look at data accuracy. Any errors and inconsistencies in data can cause many problems for you. Digital marketing is all about personalizing services in order to gain long-term customers.Customers should be given the right to see whether or not their data is correct. If it’s not correct, give them the option to update it. Accurate data is the backbone for digital marketing activities, and the reason customers trust you to collect and store their data.
The Author:
Tony Ademi is a freelance SEO content and copywriter. For roughly four years, Tony has managed to write more than 500 SEO-optimized articles and most of them have ranked #1 on Google. When writing, Tony’s main focus is to carefully do research and make sure that his content is high-quality.Do You Need An Attorney?
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Posted - 01/02/2024
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