How brands should engage with digital media amid data privacy row

As the clamour for data privacy from consumer groups grows louder, advertisers need to reassess their terms of engagement with digital media

It has not been an easy last few weeks for many digital and technology companies. Globally, with issues being raised around data leaks, threat to data privacy and of course usage of all this data for targeted and precision advertising on their platforms, there has been a barrage of opinion on how users, political groups, the media owners and advertisers will have to engage with each other over the coming months. 

Indian companies are going to be as affected as their global counterparts by what happens next. As Facebook moves to assuage consumer fears and ensure that future data bleeds are dealt with more effectively, advertisers and digital media platforms will find themselves sitting across the table more often discussing, not just the return on investment or the clicks per view, but also the security of the data that is being collected on the platform for the companies. 

Facebook has pulled back on its ad-targeting offerings shutting down its partner categories that allow brands using third-party data to deliver ads. These data providers have some very deep insights into consumer behaviour across the world—information on what people buy, where they shop, what kind of cars they drive, health profiles, incomes, family makeup—and they are integral to the entire digital ad ecosystem. 

With the coming of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, the battle ground for data privacy is increasingly getting ominous for companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and the like. Today, marketers, technology providers and publishers are unnerved by the uncertainty of who controls access to their customers and data. What’s interesting is the comment made by Tim Cook of Apple that Apple’s customers are not its products. In the digital age where data has been famously compared to oil, consumers do end up being the most valuable resource for marketers.

How companies, marketers and brands respond to these new realties will be watched closely, as data-driven digital marketing is likely to go through a big change in the eco-system over the coming months. In the past, marketers of most categories have relied heavily on third-party data for getting in front of customers in digital media and digital spends too have mostly focussed on prospecting. 

Advertisers have also been concerned with efficiency of their digital media spends—cost-effective CPM buys, for instance are always discussed, but not so much attention has been paid to data privacy and data-driven effectiveness. If we look at the changes that are likely to roll out in the course of the next few months, advertisers and agencies will definitely have to spend more time on these topics. 

Look at what Facebook has listed among its concerns and things to do and it is evident that when brands and marketers talk managed audiences, they will need to demonstrate that this audience was built using first-party data.

With clamping down on third-party data operations, using and building of first-party data by brands and companies will come into larger focus. It is widely estimated that most brands and companies globally will be ramping up to build their own first-party or user database. That is how the digital eco-system is expected to undergo a seismic shift. Most brand marketers need to be preparing themselves for this change.  

And why will first party data become increasingly important in the coming months for brands and marketers?  These are data and information collected about their audience directly by brands and companies. This data could be from their websites, from the data that they have in CRM, subscription data, social data etc. 

Today, not much attention is being paid to these numbers, irrespective of whether the data is being collected from known or unknown customers. Neither is there enough debate on how this data can be used effectively. 

In the coming months, digital platforms will need to add one more dimension to the data debate:  How must data be shared without comprising PII (Personally Identifiable Information). This will need to be looked into by brands and marketers. 

What is more, there will be an increasing need for this data to be privacy compliant. This is where brands and marketers will need to invest in strong and robust data management platforms and will have to seek partnerships with strong marketing technology service providers to find ways and means to store, harness and mine all the first-party data, continuously enrich information as they conduct their digital marketing initiatives and yet build a strong data-privacy compliant model. 

So, what will it take for marketers to manage the digital eco-system of tomorrow?

• As brands scale up their digital marketing functions, they will need to bring in a strong first-party data layer and then find ways to embed data-driven thinking in their digital advertising programmes 

 

• Companies need to work  with partners who have strong knowledge of both advertising technology and marketing technology. The ability to fuse the process of ideation with data to orchestrate and enrich customer journeys and deliver meaningful cross-channel engagement will be key

 

• The digital marketing eco-system will be no more about just ad-buys. It will move into audience planning fused with data management, micro-marketing content capabilities, real-time personalisation, harnessing first-party data and customer insights 

 

• Digital marketing will be about developing appropriate customer technology. It will be centred around how customer data is managed in a data-privacy compliant environment, around intuitive work flows that are built around digital customer purchase paths and within an engagement framework that marries data, intent, insights, content and context 

 

The author is co-founder and CEO of Hansa Cequity, a digital media consultancy