Data privacy laws are reshaping the future of marketing in the digital age. Consumer marketing opt-in consent and visibility into targeting practices require not just compliance measures, but also a change in strategy for how and when you market to your target audiences.
As a result of evolving data privacy regulations, big tech brands like Apple, Google, and Facebook are proactively implementing measures that are impacting how businesses are using their platforms and tools. Marketers will need to pivot quickly, which is why we put together an essential guide on the changes you’ll need to make.
Applying Data Governance
My previous blog post “How evolving data privacy regulations are impacting marketers” provided an overview of how data privacy is impacting most marketers today. Now it’s time to consider where and how to implement changes that will enable your brand to sustain a competitive advantage.
When trying to assess where and how you’d make changes to your marketing strategies, take a look at how your organization uses data governance to strategically activate first-party data at scale.
Start by asking these basic questions:
- Are you personalizing omnichannel content for your audiences?
- Are you collecting user-provided information in strategic frictionless ways?
- Are you leaning into website engagements as behavior triggers that activate marketing automation strategies?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, or if you’re looking to implement some of these initiatives, then scalable data governance practices will be crucial.
If you don’t have data governance strategies in place that facilitate audience segmentation for personalized experiences, then you could quickly lose out to competitors who do or who are taking action to improve on these capabilities right now. In a consumer-centric market, audiences are quick to abandon an experience that does not deliver relevancy because there is a growing marketplace of brands that are increasingly delivering personalized experiences that consumers have come to expect.
Focus on the Bigger Picture
Brands looking to meet the moment should take initial steps that will lay the foundation to thrive in the evolving data-regulated ecosystem. Building a solid data governance model will activate the capability to rely less on second- and third-party data enrichment, and more on your own first-party data fueled by an interconnected Marketing Technology stack.
Data Collection
In order to have a functioning data governance model, you first need to organize and structure governance over how you collect, normalize and activate prospect and customer data in meaningful ways. Imagine how you could better engage audiences if key behaviors from consumer omnichannel engagement were integrated into your data governance and marketing automation strategies.
Audience Profiles
Second, it’s imperative to refine your audience profile-building strategies that consider the full customer lifecycle journey, where every interaction or transaction is a part of the path towards better building a relationship. This requires you to move away from looking merely at a first-time website visit and a purchase and closer at all that happens in between.
Data Governance
Finally, harness the vision for a data governance structure that allows your marketing to focus on quality over quantity, and how you move your audience through the lifecycle journey. This will position you to lean into using Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) as a key performance indicator over merely the quantity of contacts in your database.
Gain a competitive advantage with data governance and marketing automation strategies that lean into first-party data to activate consumer-centered experiences. Otherwise, you risk falling behind in an ecosystem of evolving data privacy regulations.
Blair Edwards
Marketing Automation Lead
