Every day, the world produces 2.2 quintillion bytes of data, that’s 2,200,000,000,000,000,000. Um, overwhelming much? As the digital world rapidly grows around us, so does the way we share and collect data. But unfortunately, this data can be used for good and evil. The misuse of personal data in the past has prompted recent crackdowns on how data can be collected, stored, and used.
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) and the phase-out of third-party cookies are the talk of the town. Governments all over the world are moving quickly to adopt legislation to limit how companies can collect and use data, and organisations like Google are responding. This is impacting how businesses engage potential customers, including practices like email marketing.
But what does it all mean, and more importantly, how will it affect email marketers?
What is the Third-Party Cookie Phase Out?
Phasing out third-party cookies isn’t new. Web browsers like Firefox and Safari did it years ago. But recenty Google announced they would be phasing it out on their Chrome web browser. This is kind of a big deal because Chrome accounts for more than half of all global web traffic and it could have a big impact on how marketers run their campaigns.
Third-party cookies are pieces of code placed on a website by adding scripts or tags. They are essentially used by advertising companies to track users as they surf the internet. By tracking online behaviour, google builds a profile of users interests so they can serve them highly targeted ads. It is for this reason, cookies have been used by marketers to create more personalised and effective campaigns.
Now, Google is saying goodbye to third-party cookies…and hello to FLoC.
FLoC stands for Federated Learning of Cohorts and is Google’s replacement for third-party cookie data collection. It will use machine learning to assign web users to groups with similar interests and browsing behaviors. Google will store the data in the individual’s Chrome browser so it can’t be distributed and tracked by other domains.
What is CPRA?
CPRA stands for California Privacy Rights Act. It outlines significant amendments and expansions to the landmark CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act, 2018). It gives consumers in California more control over how their personal data is collected and used. Particularly when it comes to sensitive personal details like financial information, precise geolocation, racial and ethnic information, personal communications, and biometric or health information.
It has set a precedent around the world and follows similar significant legislation in the EU with the GDPR adopted in 2016. Want to learn more about data privacy and how your company should respond?
watch our free webinar: How to Prepare for Tighter Data Protection Regulations
What Does This All Mean For Email Marketing?
Data plays a big part in email marketing, from collecting contact data to personalising email campaigns. These big changes to how companies and businesses handle data is going to affect email marketing. But it also presents a great opportunity for marketers to focus on inbound lead generation strategies.
Inbound marketing relies on permissions marketing and nurturing leads and customers, rather than interrupting them with ads. As concerns increase around data privacy, marketers can turn to email marketing for lead nurturing, as well as sales.
But changes to data privacy regulations means email marketers need to be more careful. The current regulations in Australia, such as our spam regulations, list some key things that all email marketers need to comply with:
- Get permission from the person who will receive your emails, whether that’s express or inferred permission.
- Identify yourself as the sender in your emails and include correct contact details.
- Make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your mailing lists.
You can find out more about the email spam regulations on the AMCA website.
How Vision6 Helps You Navigate These Changes
You can breathe a sigh of relief if you’re using email marketing software like Vision6 though, as we make it easy to comply with these regulations. As Australia’s most reliable email and SMS marketing platform, we have plenty of systems in place, for instance:
- Any email created in Vision6 will automatically contain your company name and address by default.
- We include an automated unsubscribe facility by default in all of your email messages.
- You have detailed and easily accessible records so you can find contact details and what they consented to, as well as download and share the records.
- Plus, we have heaps of tools to help you collect expressed permissions.
Read More: Vision6 tools that make GDPR compliance easy
The Important of Data Privacy in Email Marketing
If you want customers to trust and value your business, it’s important that you are aware of current data privacy laws and how they apply to your business and marketing activities. If you fail to do so, it can lead to substantial financial penalties and cause irreparable damage to your brand reputation.
