How to Preserve Customer Privacy in Data-Driven Marketing

Relevance and personalization aren’t brand differentiators anymore—they’re a minimum requirement. Consumers expect exceptional marketing experiences from every brand they interact with—and that requires lots of data.

But here’s the trick. Consumers also expect transparency regarding how their personal information is collected and used. So how are leading brands respecting individual privacy preferences persistently across all channels and interactions and delivering the hyper-personalized customer experiences that consumers crave?

While these two objectives may seem at odds with each other, savvy marketers who embrace both have an opportunity to build customer trust and increase customer lifetime value (CLTV).

How Customer Data Can Help Build Trust

As marketing becomes increasingly data-driven, consumers are keenly aware that their data is being collected, stored, and used. To avoid creeping out your customers, you need to gain their consent, establish a connection, and keep their data secure.

Make a Connection Beyond Personalization

Personalization is powerful. Relevant product recommendations and tailored content make a difference to your consumers, who are bombarded with offers, recommendations, and product reviews all day, every day. But surface-level personalization, like adding someone’s first name to an email greeting or subject line, won’t create a genuine connection.

Relevant offers and information show consumers that you’re thoughtful in how you use their data and that you actually care about adding value to the conversation. That can help build trust.

Personalization is a fundamental piece of the marketing puzzle, but insincere personalization will make your customers run the other way. To truly connect with consumers, expert marketer Juliette Rizkallah says your messaging must strike an emotional cord:

“Even though data privacy feels like the ‘kiss of death’ to marketers, we should take it as a sign to get back to the fundamentals of marketing. At its most basic, marketing is about finding ways to truly connect with prospects with a message that hits home on an emotional level.” —Juliette Rizkallah, CMO, SailPoint Technologies

Practice Honesty and Transparency

As technology advances, so do the opportunities for data collection. Make sure your customers know what your company stands for, exactly what data you’re collecting from them, and what you intend to do with it. Provide opt-out options, too.

Even though no one enjoys reading and accepting the pop-up terms and conditions we see today, these precautions help establish trust between you and your consumer. And we all know what trust leads to (hint: loyal customers). According to customer data expert David Raab, simply providing these options helps reassure customers that you’re on their side.

“An emerging best practice is to include an option in personalized advertising that lets consumers see where the advertiser got their name. In practice, just a few people will really care, but making the option available will reassure many, many more.” —David Raab, Founder, CDP Institute

Beyond a simple opt-out, make it clear that your customers can correct and even delete the data you have about them. Empower customers to better understand how information is being collected about them.

Privacy Compliance with a CDP

Data is key for creating true connections with consumers, but if used haphazardly, your efforts can backfire. Today, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) go beyond keeping personally identifiable information (PII) secure by supporting privacy compliance across channels.

Recently, David Raab explained how CDPs are foundational privacy technology for consent management, permission and data policy enforcement, value delivery, security, and more.

With Treasure Data CDP, brands deliver relevant, timely, and highly personalized customer experiences—all without compromising consumer privacy and security.

To learn more about how CDPs are foundational to privacy compliance, check out the CDP Institute white paper: Powering Privacy Compliance with CDPs.