Are your online interactions building trust with your consumers? If you’re not sure, then this article is for you.
Consumers are increasingly aware of brands collecting and using personal data. Why? Because recent years have led to new privacy regulations. Now, more than ever, brands emphasize transparency when addressing how personal data will be used. That means that each time a consumer downloads an app, signs up for a newsletter or opens a web browser, user consent is required, and a list of data privacy options pops up immediately before consumers proceed to a site. These options allow the consumer to decide when and how brands can interact with them.
Consent management systems offer a compliant resource to help you maintain data privacy and conduct business. At the same time, the transparent process for data collection is a respectful approach to gaining consumer trust and developing more successful advertising campaigns.
Understanding the Importance of Consent Management for Advertising Campaigns
By following consent management regulations, you’re reassuring consumers that their privacy matters and is safe with your company. In turn, consumers opt-in to let you track personal data. Once users respond and provide personal data, they expect brands to deliver advertising campaigns with more personally relevant messages and experiences.
The information consumers share is essential to develop an effective advertising campaign. Brands can get trustworthy insights thanks to consent management practices. You can create digital marketing campaigns based on: what consumers want to know, how often they wish to receive communication, their preferred communication style, and their preferences. Finally, brands can put that data to work to stay relevant.
Your efforts to interact with consumers when it’s convenient and where they prefer can lead to even greater buy-in. Often brands can maximize retargeting to share unique opportunities that engage consumers further.
- Sign up for our newsletter.
- Shop the online sale.
- Register for the event.
These prompts require a consumer to opt-in further and share more personal data. That’s a good thing for you because the more you know about your consumers, the more you can connect. And the more you click, the more you will see increased loyalty and revenues.
Developing a Comprehensive Consent Management Policy
So, what’s the first step to developing a consent management policy? Know the compliance requirements. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) covers today’s most stringent global privacy laws. Since 2018, the GDPR privacy standards have built a framework to protect user data. That means any information that makes someone personally identifiable is covered by privacy laws.
With today’s tracking technologies, your digital footprint offers insight into many personally identifiable data, leaving a trail that is easy to follow. A decade ago, brands could turn on “spy mode” and follow this digital trail without anyone knowing. However, today the opposite is true. Current consent practices have ingrained a sense of choice in consumers. So, savvy searchers will shrink from brands not following best practice standards.
Follow the compliance and give consumers what they expect – a chance to select their privacy preferences.
To properly implement consent management, companies need a policy that fulfills the following criteria:
- Have proof that a customer consented to the collection and processing of personal data
- Give the customer the right to withdraw consent at any time
- Ensure the process to remove is as simple as the consent process
- Maintain free consent, meaning conditional requirements cannot dictate the processing of personal data to receive performance.
This list is just a high-level overview of a more complex compliance policy. The GDPR checklist published by Cybersecurity Insiders can lead you through a step-by-step process to ensure your compliance meets all criteria. Remember, most companies also benefit from bringing experts in to help. We all know compliance shifts quickly. Don’t let it shake you. Have a team dedicated to the process and helping you automate as changes in compliance occur.
Choosing the Right Consent Management Platform for Your Campaigns
The best way to bring an expert into the fold with you is to partner with a consent management platform. A platform like Axeptio can help put compliance language in a more user-friendly format. Picture a sleek pop-up that is visually engaging. Sprinkle in some light humor, and soon you’ll have engaged users that offer consent without hesitation.
Whether adding a cookie banner, disclosing appropriate terms and conditions, or developing informed, optimized opt-in subscriptions, your consent management platform removes the guesswork. ADA-compliant software is utilized, easy-to-understand language is shared, and visual stimulation satisfies users’ digital experience.
More than the aesthetic value and easy-to-understand compliance language, a consent management platform can remove the burdens of regulating changes in consent management. Your consent management platform is an extension of your team. Professionals work diligently to stay up-to-date with data privacy regulations, maintain user data protection, and automate the process to keep your workload light.
Implementing Your Consent Management Strategy
The implementation process is straightforward once you identify the best technology to meet your needs.
A company with over 15 employees processes personal data and is responsible for employing a data protection officer. Generally, this officer will oversee the adoption and implementation of the consent management platform.
Under the guidance of the officer, consistent practices are put in place. So, no matter if you roll out a new product or implement a compliance update, you’ll operate at the same level of precision. In this step, your company must decide if you will process data by default or design. You can easily do either; you have to recognize the difference.
Next, you’ll address data governance. Once you collect personal data, your platform must be equipped to handle proper documentation. It’s up to your team to know what data is collected, where it is stored, how it is secured, how access is managed, and the steps to erase data upon request. So, maintain current data flow maps and inventories. In case of a data breach, have a plan in place. Your team should know the platform better than anyone. So, it’s essential to test the processes and prove GDPR compliance continuously.
Before you begin collecting user data, you should have your team in place, your consent management fully operational, consistent practices implemented, and governance ready to go. Because once the data starts rolling in, you want to turn your attention to mining the data.
Monitoring and Adjusting Your Consent Management Approach Over Time
The consent management strategy does the heavy lifting to collect personal data. And it makes light work of understanding and exercising user data privacy rights. It also helps you garner insights unique to your brand and pertinent to your campaign management.
Personal user data will help you develop the best-targeted advertising strategies to maximize reach and profitability. When you create a digital marketing campaign, you get to use relevant demographic and psychographic details to target and engage with your audience successfully.
The insights from the personal user data will help you set up the campaigns. Then, you’ll use your consent management system to monitor analytics and trends in personal data your company collects. Over time, this will help you precisely define and reach your target audience. You’ll see trends that can help you assess which strategies are working well and which are less effective. In turn, you can reallocate resources to continually improve your return on investment.
Building Consumer Trust with Transparency
Consumers today are concerned about protecting personal data. Companies are concerned about collecting user data to improve reach and increase brand loyalty. The beauty of today’s digital standards is that both are achievable with the proper consent management system. When brands operate with transparency, consumers respond more favorably. According to MarTech, 70% of consumers say it’s more important than ever to trust the brands we buy from. So, there’s never been a better time to adopt a consent management system to help you achieve your goals and enhance consumer trust.
