Privacy is good….. and bad….

We’ve all come to take digital advertising for granted. As consumers, not only do we expect it, but we also seek it out. As advertisers, we drive most (if not all…..) of our budgets to the various platforms available. We can have a big impact on the cost, efficiency, and effectiveness of our digital marketing spend if we collect and understand as much data as we can about our present and potential customers. However, we are swiftly approaching (if not already there…) a period in which legitimate privacy concerns will make that process more difficult.

Over the years, significant data breaches have led to billions of people’s information being mishandled, stolen, or even changed. These occurrences emphasize the dangers of sharing data across digital platforms, as well as the necessity for us as individual consumers to better regulate who collects and uses our data, for how long, and for what purpose. As a result, businesses and governments have begun to enact new regulations in order to accommodate people’s aspirations for greater privacy and control.

The GDPR was implemented in the EU in 2018, while the California CCPA took effect in January 2020. Google also announced the commencement of its privacy-first solutions in 2020. And with the release of Apple’s IOS 14, which required apps that run on their platform to allow users to opt-out of data sharing, what were commonly accepted passive data collections methods have been significantly impacted.

As digital marketers, when we play in the Google Ads space, we need to keep in mind they also own Chrome, and when thinking about Apple, we need to remember they control the App Store. If most of our ads are being placed through Google and Facebook and presented on Chrome and those platforms are accessed by our targets on an IOS device (as is largely the case), …… well, we’ve just entered an environment where performance and attribution data is going to be very difficult to monitor.

So, how are we all going to react? First and foremost, let us be clear, a change was required, and we completely support an individual’s right to regulate access to their own data. We’ve all lived in a fast-paced society, and the convenience we’ve experienced in the digital environment lacked some safeguards that are now being addressed (and don’t expect things to stop evolving……). However, there are things that we can and should do as a company to adapt to this new paradigm.

• First, and most obviously, comply. Follow all new laws, policies, and regulations. Not only is it good business, but skirting regulations is a recipe for being sidelined from the game entirely.
• Ask for consent. Work to make it obvious why you’d want an individual’s data in the first place. This is not a new concept. Consumers have been willingly signing up for things like mailing lists and discounts for the better part of the last century.
• Be transparent. Make privacy policies easy to get to and easy to understand.
• Be responsible. Secure any data you collect and be ethical in its use.
• Be creative. Work to incent data sharing, use new ways to create segments, like geography, on-site actions, or even social media engagement.

Above all else, however, be ready to change. To get a sense of how quickly things change for us now, how would you explain a smart phone to someone in 2005?