Targeted marketing in compliance with the current data protection regulations and the future Swiss data protection law. Is that possible? And if so, how? We discuss this in this article.
Why Should Your Customers Agree?
Do you know this? You want to find out about products and purchase options on a website with a linked online shop and are first asked to fill out a questionnaire that deals with the disclosure of your data.
Transferred to real life, this would mean the following: At the entrance of a shop, you would first have to fill out a questionnaire before you could enter the shop. How many people do you think would think twice about buying something in that shop?
Unlike in the offline world, however, online marketing requires an opt-in so that potential customers are informed about the use of their data and can be supported until they make a purchase decision.
Internet users are particularly concerned with the following questions:
„Why should I give my data to the company whose website I am about to visit?“
„What advantage do I gain from the data transfer?“
„What will this company do with my data?“
And already we are in the middle of the tension between marketing, IT and legal. The challenge here is how to reconcile your marketing and data strategy with the legal requirements. Especially in view of the totally revised Swiss Data Protection Act (DSG), which will come into force in 2022.
We are convinced that it is possible to conduct successful marketing while complying with European data protection regulations and the new Swiss data protection law.
We are convinced that it is possible to conduct successful marketing while complying with European data protection regulations and the new Swiss data protection law.
The Opt-in Rate Fuels Your Marketing
Your motivation should be to reach the really interested people from a vast target group and to get in touch with them in a content-relevant way. To do this, you need information or data from the people. In order to send specific information, you need an active opt-in, as it is not allowed to send unsolicited commercial e-mails (spam), for example. Based on a solid database, achieved through a high consent rate in the opt-in process, you will be able to react in a very targeted way.
Thanks to analytics functions, you will get to know your customers better on an ongoing basis. Remarketing and retargeting increase your sales. Thanks to the analysis of conversion rates and the performance of individual pages, your products can be presented much better.
What Does a Consent Management Platform Do?
How can website providers meet these requirements? The management and especially the documentation of consents are complex. In the event of an audit, it must be proven who gave consent to what and when. Consent management platforms offer a solution. They are a software that can be used to obtain consent from visitors to a website and thus use the data in a manner that complies with the GDPR.
The validity period of the opt-in is 13 months (the life cycle of a legally accepted cookie). As far as the opt-out is concerned, there is currently no provision in any legal text that would specify its validity period. This is reason alone for companies to sense a good opportunity to ask individuals to opt-out again at each of their visits. This is how telephone harassment is reinvented in the digital age....
However, this is not the only method that circumvention advocates resort to: there is also the page-by-page display of the different categories of cookies. This is intended to wear down a person visiting a website and get them to accept everything as quickly as possible. A behaviour that, in our opinion, corresponds to a not very efficient flight to the front, which may even harm the brand. Because the process of obtaining consent is becoming – and this is undeniable – one of the criteria used to decide whether or not a brand is trustworthy and to what degree. The "culture of consent" that internet users are gradually adopting should not be underestimated. Target groups are not fooled by these tactics for too long.
The process of obtaining consent is becoming one of the criteria used to decide whether or not a brand is trustworthy and to what degree.
Switching from Consent to Preference Management
Since consent is no longer just about someone confirming an already completed window, it seems logical to consider consent as a separate stage of the user experience. And to use this stage not only to obtain consent, but also to offer visitors the opportunity to specify all their preferences: Do you want to receive web notifications? Do you accept the display of advertisements on social networks? Do you want to receive emails with an overview of the latest information? With what frequency?
These examples make it clear that a much more comprehensive and "useful" management of preferences becomes possible when the user is logged in. In any case, the following development is emerging: The "Privacy Centre" (the page where internet users can view their consents) is evolving into a "Preferences Centre". That is, the place where each person finds a global overview of all touchpoints and data that they can or cannot share. A place that the person does not visit automatically, but only to define his or her relationship with the brand.
Setting the Scene for Consent
With soft consent now a thing of the past, every company needs to prepare for a much more explicit way of obtaining consent. And for this, for a significant drop in the consent rate. To what point?
Nearly 32% of the websites surveyed hold to „super soft" type consent (confirming consent by scrolling or clicking on an item for the first time) and 31% hold to „soft“ type consent (confirming by visiting the second page). This results in approval rates between 66% and 91% in sectors such as „Fashion & Retail“ or „Travel“ (Voyages)! These rates are in sharp contrast to those of financial players. These tend more towards „Strict Consent“ (explicit click on an accept button) and achieve an average consent rate of... 29%. This gives an indication of what website operators can expect after the end of „Soft Consent“.
With an approval rate divided by 2 or 3, the staging of consent solicitation becomes a no-brainer. Without a taboo question.
Should consent be requested on the first page?
If consent is refused, should it be systematically requested again at each visit?
In the case of partial consent, can one afford to ask visitors again?
In practice, a logic comparable to that of marketing automation, involving scenarios and tests linked to conditions, will certainly gradually emerge for obtaining and concluding consent. A discipline in its own right? Definitely an area in which every company must make its own experiences and implement optimisation measures. We are happy to support you in this with our expertise.
Your Cookie Banner – Our Support
Talk to us about the design options for your cookie consent banner with a view to a high opt-in rate.
Does it make sense to use a Consent Management Platform (CMP) to centrally manage all your domains?
Do you want to ensure accessibility according to WCAG 2.0 directly in the CMP?
Templates for banners and data protection declarations (examples: rev. DSG; DSGVO) also help to make your work easier.
Let's take a look at your collected data together and evaluate it. If you can name the value of your data, you can make an informed decision about how much you want to spend on opt-in optimisation options.
Contact for your Digital Solution with Unic
Book an appointmentAre you keen too discuss your digital tasks with us? We would be happy to exchange ideas with you: Jörg Nölke and Gerrit Taaks (from left to right).
Contact for your Digital Solution
Book an appointmentAre you keen to talk about your next project? We will be happy exchange ideas with you: Melanie Klühe, Stefanie Berger, Stephan Handschin and Philippe Surber (clockwise).
