How will GDPR affect online marketing? A lot!

The area that will be hit hard by the regulation is online marketing. This is where we work with huge amounts of personal data, which we use primarily for commercial purposes. Here are some examples of where the big changes will take place. Don't panic, if you prepare in time, you will be fine.

GDPR, the European Data Protection Regulation, is currently one of the most debated topics ever. An area that will be hit by the regulation literally overwhelmingly is online marketing. It is here that we work with a huge amount of personal data, which we use primarily for commercial purposes. In many cases, data controllers or marketers don't have permission to do this, or at least not enough relevance.

It has to be said that regulation and clear new rules are clearly needed in this area. However, GDPR is perhaps too strict, fundamental, demanding and perhaps unnecessarily restrictive. In other words, with the advent of GDPR, marketers are in for a rough time and getting and using contacts for commercial outreach will not be easy. On the one hand, we will get rid of chronic data collectors who have been making excuses for contacting customers in a less than fair way; on the other hand, we will lose many contacts that we would normally have obtained in a fair way.

In the following we will outline the problem areas and what changes are in store. It should be stated at the outset that we must prepare carefully for all the changes that are coming, which means major and often complicated methodological, procedural and technological adjustments.

Discussed areas:

• Database of contacts for sending commercial communications and request for deletion
  If a customer asks you to delete them from the database, even though they have voluntarily registered here, and furthermore to delete all data, you are obliged to do so immediately. This is not only from the marketing database, but from all other places where it appears, except where required by law. For example, you do not have to delete him from the invoice database if he has ever bought something from you, but you must notify him that his personal data will remain there for legal reasons, but that it cannot be used for commercial purposes in any case.
  
  You must delete the user not only from the database you are working with, but also from all their backups, copies, tables sent by email, etc.
  
• Going to the competition
  If a client notifies you that they are switching to a competitor and want you to hand over all their data, you must do so.
  
• If you offer something on your site for free, such as an ebook
  You must not make obtaining this free product conditional on entering your email address and it must be possible to download it directly from the site without entering your email address.
  If the user chooses to send the ebook to an email address and gives you that email address, you may not use it for anything other than sending the ebook unless the user gives you explicit active consent to do so.
  
• Contests
  Prior to GDPR, we made extensive use of contacts obtained from competitions to send out commercial communications. However, this will no longer be the case. You can request contact details to send a prize, but once you do, you must delete the database because its one-time purpose has been fulfilled. However, as an option, you can offer a checkbox within the contest to actively opt-in to receive communications. However, you must not make this a condition of the competition. Unfortunately, we will lose a large source of contacts here.
  
• Discounts instead of rebates
  Here is an interesting point. You cannot condition a one-time discount on the delivery of a contact, but you can already require an email for recurring discounts, other than to send those discounts.
  
• Marketing
  A widely and very effectively used marketing tool that is used to display and remind the user at various points of the product they have searched for on your e-store. But oops! You can use cookies to make the shopping cart remember the items you have inserted, etc. However, the moment you use cookies for marketing purposes, i.e. remarketing product display based on the identification of the user by his personal data (IP address) you must already have consent. However, these consents should technically be taken care of by the remarketing providers - Google, Sklik, Facebook. We'll see...
  
• Google analytics
  Three cheers here! Google Analytics is statistical data that collects no personal data. Even geolocation, after the location of the user is determined by IP address, the IP is deleted. So there is probably no threat from GDPR here.
  
• Uploading email to Facebook audience
  Another marketer's favourite tool. There is nothing easier than taking a database of emails and uploading them to a FB audience, or then creating a similar audience and running paid advertising on top of that. BUT! But in the wake of GDPR, you will have to inform the clients and they have to approve, ideally with another checkbox, that their data will be used in this way.
  
• What about a database of legal entities.
  Here, fortunately, it is also unchanged because GDPR does not apply to legal entities. Be careful though, if you have personal data pointing to a specific person in the company, that person is already covered by GDPR.
  
• Existing databases with personal data
  In order to continue to use databases, even those for which users have approved use for marketing purposes, you must again explicitly request approval for all individual uses.

Ufff... there's a lot. But don't panic and prepare in time. Review where and how you work with personal data and define the processes you need to implement to continue to work with data securely and legally. Ideally, find an independent company that implements GDPR and consult with them. Consult and ask us too! This will make the process easier and clearer for you so you can focus on your business in peace.

Source: www.danielnytra.cz