Privacy and Marketing part I: The value of a better privacy experience online

Cookie banners and privacy notices: at odds with transparency and control?

Privacy notices and cookie banners have become an essential part of our online
experience. This derives from new privacy regulations such as the GDPR, which
requires organizations to be transparent about the way they use personal data and aims to give individuals greater control over their data. In the online environment, this has resulted in the use of cookie banners, referring to long privacy notices. Very often, these are formulated in legal jargon, as many organizations are still in the process of attaining their privacy compliance standards, rather than focusing on optimization and full integration with their business strategy.

In addition, most organizations do not include privacy in their branding strategies. For marketeers, privacy is often an afterthought, even though cookie notices are often a consumer’s first encounter with a brand, product, or company website. These notices in the form of banners, walls or pop-ups, are frequently ugly or burdensome, resulting in a sub-optimal experience for users online.

Therefore, whether the use of cookie notices actually results in greater control and transparency is questionable. Instead, it often results in generating fatigue:
website visitors click away the notice, without considering the privacy implications of their decision. This occurs despite high levels of privacy awareness. At the same time, ill-designed or unclearly formulated pop-ups asking for permission to process personal data can make customers worry about privacy and stop them from buying online. 

Consumers are more privacy-aware, yet remain willing to share their data

According to a Deloitte survey, consumer’s level of privacy awareness is rising: 78% of consumers are aware of their privacy rights. 41% of consumers state that since the entry into force of the GDPR, they are paying more attention to privacy and cookie notices. Privacy also plays a role when it comes to the use of ad blockers: for 26% of ad blocker users, privacy concerns are a motivation.

Interestingly, this does not mean that consumers are no longer willing to share their personal data with organizations. Quite the opposite, as another Deloitte survey shows, nearly three in four consumers are willing to share personal data if they receive benefits such as better pricing, special discounts, or exclusive offers. Even more so, when consumers trust an organization, they are more likely to be open about sharing their personal data.

Privacy as a competitive advantage

Overall, 91% of consumers would like to have more control over the personal information they share with organizations and over the way in which it is stored. In this context, creating true transparency and control will make a difference when establishing consumer trust. Making the privacy experience online more consumer-centric and user-friendly is a critical step in that direction. New tooling already makes it easier to automate privacy processes, which is efficient for creating new opportunities in branding and customization. Privacy can then become a competitive advantage.

However, ultimately, this only works if organizations align internally and different departments come together in order to reconcile their sometimes conflicting requirements and objectives, choosing a comprehensive approach.

In this blog series, we will explore how organizations can achieve this. We will identify how a strategical privacy experience can create trust in your organization, so it becomes a competitive advantage.

More information

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For more information about the 'Privacy and Marketing' blog series, please contact Jeroen van den Nieuwenhof or Annika Sponselee via the contact details below.