A look back at what GDPR has given us and what it has taken away

It will be three months since the new Data Protection Regulation came into force. How has it manifested itself, what has it given and taken away?

It will be three months since the new data protection regulation came into force. Even in such a short time, experts have noted a drop in the sending of commercial communications of up to tens of percent. What is behind this?

Although business emails and newsletters are one of the main marketing tools for e-tailers and other marketers,with the introduction of GDPR, significantly fewer are being sent. This is ultimately a good thing not only for the end recipient of the message, who is not unnecessarily bombarded with mail that does not interest them, but also for the marketers themselves, who have a better chance of reaching those who are genuinely interested in the information.

Experts believe there may be several reasons why marketers are sending less email. One is probably outdated contacts - email addresses are no longer used by users or even don't exist. But this information is actually very positive in the end. Why? Finally, there is a compelling reason to take the time to remove inactive emails and do a general database cleanup, which is often neglected.

Another reason may simply be that users were receiving irrelevant information in their email inbox. They simply "learned" which email addresses were sending them uninteresting content and did not reconfirm their consent to the company's processing of their personal data.

Given that the fines for non-compliance can be really high, one can also assume that companies have set stricter criteria and excluded some sources of contacts from their database altogether.

If you use databases with emails and send out commercial communications, make sure you check that everything is GDPR compliant. If you are unsure, we have experts on our team who will be happy to help.