TLDR: The EU General Data Protection Regulation will come into force in 2018. Data protection violations can then cost up to EUR 20 million or 4% of annual sales. Does this spell the end of data-driven marketing? Not at all. If you don't let yourself be swayed by the doomsday incantations of ad tech experts, but respect data protection and approach it professionally, you can take off. Acquisa, the trade magazine for marketing and sales, interviewed us about this.
Are marketing clouds more of an opportunity or a risk for digital marketing?
"Marketing clouds are a huge opportunity for companies to make their processes more efficient, but not without internal reorganization.
Creation, content, and planning processes must no longer take place in media silos. If not reorganized, marketing clouds are simply unproductive "golf course software." That is,
big visions are successfully sold to the top management, but in the day-to-day business only burning houses and new problems arise for a lot of money. Typical examples are dashboards that
integrate 10 different KPI systems in one place. You then just need 1 login instead of 10 logins to admire the whole chaos. Anyone who ends up like this doesn't have a tool problem - they have a leadership problem that makes the marketing cloud visible."
And for the users?
"Technology is not relevant to users, but data protection is. No Internet user is interested in marketing clouds, just as no car driver is interested in engine blocks, or are you buying your next car because of the injection pump?
What influences user trust and thus also marketing success is a clear and offensively communicated commitment to privacy protection. Only the legally required data protection notices are not a marketing argument. "With us, you're not a data animal" will become a USP for premium products."
How can data protection be successfully realized?
"Companies and legislators need to develop a new understanding of data protection . With marketing clouds, some of the principles of data protection, such as data economy and purpose limitation, are being undermined. In view of technical developments, these principles should be questioned and possibly revised. However, this by no means applies to data protection in general, which is becoming increasingly important in times of post-privacy nonsense and autocratic tendencies. Advertisers also have a political responsibility for our society - and they can exercise this responsibility when it comes to data protection.
Data protection urgently needs to change its role in companies. From preventer to enabler, however, is easier said than done; just think of the traditional role problems of IT."
What should advertisers look out for when they first go live with a cloud-based solution?
"First of all, that they actually risk fines of 4% of annual revenue for the first time if they violate the new data protection regulations, no matter what relativizations come from any "digital experts" today who are either naïve, or corrupt.
It is very important to conclude legally compliant contracts for all links in the data processing chain - that is a huge task. To do this, they must reorganize their data protection staff internally. Preventers must become enablers. Every company needs not only a service center for date science, but also one for data compliance."
Still important:
- To understand that "cloud" means nothing more than: Other people's server - somewhere.
- That ONLY hosted within the legally secure EU.
- That companies should never use solutions that give Google or Facebook access to their own customer data. That would be suicide in installments.
- That companies seek discussion with their SAP experts when technological risks to the business model from marketing clouds need to be assessed. In this environment, you can hope for sufficiently well-founded and serious answers.
- That there is no IT solution that cannot be hacked and will be hacked.
- That the biggest security leak is always the user and will always remain so. (By the way, the password for Donald Trump's Twitter account was n9y25ah7 until January 26 - his press spokesman tweeted it by mistake when logging in).
By the way, the whole article from Acquisa is available here (pdf)