How Data Privacy is Shaping the Future of Marketing

Are you confident about your understanding of data privacy and how that’s going to influence your business’s marketing strategy? It’s an important thing for you to understand, because the world of marketing and data is ever-evolving, and with ongoing changes concerning online privacy, you might be left kind of scratching your head on what this actually means for your business and for your strategy.

So on today’s podcast, we’re going to take a look through this labyrinth of online privacy and cookies and their role in marketing, and also the concerns that they raise. We’re then going to explore how online privacy policy changes can actually impact your marketing approach. And I’m going to give you some insights into some strategies to be able to thrive in a cookie-less world.

Hi, my name is Jordan McFadyen. Welcome to the Marketing Mindset podcast. This podcast is designed to help you navigate this cluttered world of digital marketing and help challenge you to move away from random acts of marketing towards planning an intentional marketing strategy.

And today, I want to try to share a little bit of an insight on what might be a topic that you might have overlooked in the past. And I really encourage you to listen through and get a bit of an understanding about how data privacy can affect your marketing strategy, your website, your advertising, your social media and everything like that. Because it is really important that we get a bit of an understanding. As I fully appreciate that as a topic, it’s not the most interesting topic, but it’s still one that we really need to get a bit of an understanding on, and be able to adapt and adjust as time goes on.

Because there are changes happening all the time with data and privacy. Apple have made massive changes in the past with Safari and also their emails, to Google even changing and moving towards a cookie-less world. 2024 is when they’re going to be starting to make tests on this cookie-less world. And obviously, with the change that we’ve had with Google Analytics moving to GA4, they’ve moved away from being able to use cookies on analytics to really focusing on Google Signals and different data.

So it really is a bit of a minefield, and it’s one of those things that I think you need to have a real good think about. So that’s the crux of today’s podcast that I really want to uncover with you today, as well as actually provide you with a few insights into how you can actually make changes to your strategy to be able to be compliant with data and privacy as well. Because it is always, obviously, a big concern when it comes to modern-day marketing in general. But I think the main feeling I get is, how much do business owners and marketers actually understand about the space, and how it can actually affect your marketing strategy?

Because let’s just break it down. If I said to you right now, and we’re going to sit down and have a chat about cookies, and what cookies actually did, and how they’re related to marketing, what would you answer? What would be the first thing you’d think of? Because chances are it wouldn’t be about data and it wouldn’t be about privacy. So the thing is, when Google announces changing the use of cookies, I’m sure that just means for you and a lot of other business owners about you’re left scratching your head, wondering, what are they even talking about? How is this going to affect my business? What type of impact is it going to have on me and my current business strategy?

So let’s break this down. Firstly, let’s have a bit of a look at cookies. Obviously, as I mentioned at the top of the podcast, we’re kind of moving into a world now where we’re actually moving away from cookies. We’re coming into a cookie-less world. But I still think it’s really good that we have that understanding about what even cookies were in the first place. Because the most common types of cookies that we see in modern digital marketing now is first-party cookies and third-party cookies. So we’re going to try and explain this in a way, into an everyday scenario that hopefully makes sense with you, starting with first-party cookies.

So with first-party cookies, let’s say you own a physical store or a physical business where people have to come in and see you. You have regular customers who come in often. And over time, what you do as the business owner, the shopkeeper behind those doors, is you actually learn more about your customers’ preferences. So essentially, when they walk into your store, you might greet them by name because you know them. Or you might show them or direct them directly to the items that you know that they’re going to like, or that they’re going to need. They’re your regulars, and they come in with specific requirements.

So now compare that concept to when someone visits your website or your online store. Essentially, cookies are like those little notes that you build as a business owner, and your website makes these notes to remember who your visitors actually are. These notes are saved on the visitor’s computer in the form of little text files called a cookie. So that’s first-party cookies. It’s essentially remembering information about a user’s visit to your website, to your store, and then makes the user’s experience smoother and more personalised the next time that they come to your website.

So what is third-party cookies? So with this, say you have a customer. They leave your business, and they’ve had a bit of a shop around. They’ve had a browse. Then they leave. They don’t purchase anything. But then what you do is you actually then employ someone to go out and follow that person, kind of a snoop. You go follow that person around to see, what store did they go to next? What items did they look at at that store? What did the customer even talk about or search with other people once they’d left your store? And then that employee, that snooper, comes back to you, reports that data about what they learned about that customer, and reports it back to you as a business.

And this is going to give you, obviously, a whole heap of information about your customer’s interests. But it also does feel pretty intrusive. And I guess that’s where this whole data and privacy issue even comes in. Privacy. That’s it. That’s the crux of it. Essentially, what third-party cookies set out to do is, they’re created by other websites (it’s not necessarily yours) to actually track a user’s behaviour across different sites, and then use that information to be able to then show ads that are more tailored to that user’s interests.

So the question then is, how helpful is third-party cookies to a business? And to be fair, look, as a business owner, as a marketer, cookies in general, both third-party and first-party, can actually be really helpful. It’s really useful data about your customer and what they’re doing online. And then, in turn, when used effectively, it can actually help you to actually tailor a much better experience for your customer when they visit your website as well.

However, third-party cookies can also, as I mentioned before, be seen as really invasive to privacy, and they’re actually becoming less and less popular now as well. Hence why some companies like Google, Apple, or the big tech giants are phasing them out, having a look at data and privacy based on where consumers are heading, where our heads are at, whether we want to be followed around online. As I mentioned, Apple has shown massive movements in this over the past year to protect user data, user privacy, blocking third-party cookies across Safari browser, big changes to email as well. It is all part of this broader movement towards a more privacy-focused online experience.

So, that then begs the question. If we’re all moving towards a privacy-enhanced experience online, what do we do as marketers or as business owners in this cookie-less world? Because, essentially, what’s happening now is Google and all these other big tech giants are actually coming up with different solutions around how we can still get helpful information about our website users and our customers, but without actually having to interfere with their privacy, and being able to share their data with us that they actually weren’t aware of in the first place.

So, as a good example of this, you might have heard a little thing called Google Signals. And Google Signals is a really good example. What this does is using your Google account. So, most people have a Google account of some sort, a Gmail of some sort. And what it does is it makes use of all the first-party data from users who have a Google account. But what they also have to do is they also have to enable and have a feature turned on called ad personalisation. So, as a user, you can choose to have this on or you can choose to have this off. And that’s essentially going to tell Google whether you want your data to be included within Google Signals or not.

And essentially what happens is this data includes everything like your interactions with various Google services, and browsing behaviour across websites and apps that are part of the Google advertising network, which, by the way, is estimated to literally reach about 90% of internet users worldwide anyway. However, the big thing here is you have the choice to allow sharing of that data.

So, how does it actually work with Google Signals? And so, Google Signals: let’s say, imagine a customer visits your business on a Monday. They’re using the smartphone, and then returns on Wednesday on their desktop. Normally, you might think that those are two different customers going to your website. However, Google Signals is now able to tell us, actually, that’s the same person. And that’s where Google Signals, and also GA4, the new Google Analytics, comes into play to actually become really helpful.

You can kind of think of it like, I don’t know, it’s a friendly guide for your business, and they are recognising the customer, whether they are wearing glasses that day or a hat or any other type of disguise. It’s kind of recognising if someone is kind of coming back and having various interactions with your business across different platforms. And this information is obviously really useful, because we can actually use this to understand how customers are interacting with your business across those different devices.

So, Google Signals will also allow you to show ads or messages to people who visit your online store before, remind them of what they were interested in in the first place. So, remarketing, essentially. Let’s say a customer looks at your product, decides not to buy it. Later, while they’re browsing, they see a banner ad about the same product, about you, about your business, and they come back, and it reminds them to visit your website again, or your business, so that they actually buy that product. So, it’s essentially remarketing, and Google Signals is still going to allow us to do that, again, if people opt in to ads personalisation.

And it’s also going to help a lot with your reporting as well. So, learning about what sections customers visit, or products that they look at, or how long they stay on your website. There’s still a lot of available data to us, as I mentioned at the start. It’s different with Google Signals, because it is classed first-party data, because it’s all part of the Google network of products. However, it’s designed to respect user privacy more, and provide aggregated and more normalised data as well. It’s not specific about a specific user. It’s offering more normalised data.

So, this begs the question about what data should we then rely on. And I think this comes back to a saying that I saw years ago. And I’ve used it on the podcast a few times as well, in reference to social media, but I think it holds true in this topic as well. Don’t build your ship on rented land. Essentially, we don’t want to build our entire business and our entire marketing strategy on data that’s essentially sitting on rented land. Let’s say you build everything around the data that you’ve learned, and Google goes out and changes the playbook again. What’s going to happen to your business then?

And this is where, honestly, traditional marketing skills and having a conventional marketing strategy are among the best or the safest bet for your overall marketing strategy. What I think we need to do is we actually need to find a nice midway point between the data that we have and have collected, but then combine it with some of the old marketing tactics and things that we’ve known and used for years and years and years.

And this includes simple things like knowing your customers by doing actual proper customer research, understanding your customers’ interests and behaviours, and understanding that yourself without purely using data to drive that understanding. And then using your knowledge of your customers and of your business to then fuel your creative and your ad campaigns to go out and attract more people like them. Because marketing is still, and even more so now, about people, not just the data. And it’s like we’re going full circle, and I honestly think we need to adopt or re-adopt or refocus some of these older marketing strategies to actually enhance what we have and the data that’s available to us now.

So here’s what I need you to think about. The key takeaways from data privacy is, don’t get lost in the sea of irrelevant data and noise. Think about how you can diversify your data and your sources. How can you research and build data about your customers that’s not always going to have to rely on looking at their online behaviour? That’s thinking about customer research, knowing truly who they are, building things like a community, using email to reach them. As long as they’ve consented to receiving your email, use email to get in touch with them.

Invest in a CRM to allow you to keep notes about your customers and to keep notes about the data. Build that data yourself, and then use that to actually give them the best service possible. Focus on building strong brands and community so that people come to you directly, instead of having to always focus on your remarketing ads or your targeted ads in the first place. And then think about how you can use all of that to create content that resonates best with the audience, to help you find more of them as well.

Because like I say, there’s a lot of noise online. However, if we can combine the use of consented data alongside your knowledge of your customer and your business, and using content that’s going to resonate with them, honestly, you’re going to thrive in this cookie-less world. But it is a bit of a minefield. So if you do have any questions, you want to reach out to a member of the team, we’re always here to be able to help you, give you some clarity to your marketing strategy. It’s what we do best.

You can find out all those details at donebynine.com. You can find all the details about our previous podcasts and blogs and everything like that. Just click the word “podcast” at the top of the menu bar as well. Or you can find out more about the services we provide. We actually sit down with clients and help build them their marketing strategy, keeping in mind all these things that we’ve spoken about, keeping in mind around the changes in privacy that we’re about to go through, the changes in social media, how we can adapt and evolve as the industry evolves as well.

And that’s what a really good marketing strategy is going to be able to allow you to do. But it’s about keeping some of those traditional things, and holding on to some of that, and then combining it with that data that we have available as well. If that still confuses you and you still need a bit of help, you can get in touch with us. You can come along to our website, donebynine.com/contact, and you’ll find all the details about how to reach out to myself or the rest of the team. And we can take you through one of those strategy sessions as well.

And look, hopefully you found this really beneficial today. Hopefully it’s given you just a little bit more clarity about how data and privacy is such a concern, why it’s a concern, and how you and your business needs to adapt. If you have got something out of this podcast today, I really would appreciate if you could just give us a follow, give us a comment, give us a rating. It would absolutely mean the world to us. But as long as you keep listening, obviously that makes it all worthwhile for us to help produce this content for you as well.

And look, thanks so much for joining us on another episode of the Marketing Mindset podcast. And we will catch you again next Thursday.