GDPR what it really means for Direct Marketers

I am not going to bore you with a dialogue of what the GDPR means for your business or the potential fines or provide our views on what you need to do to prepare. This information is all available FREE online via various chat forums such as the Data Privacy Network on Linkedin or other specific channels such as the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s planning white paper or you can follow the UK’s Information commissioner’s 12 step guide to prepare for the GDPR However the UK Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, made a very interesting statement in her regular blogs which states as follows and this is particularly relevant to Data driven Marketers, ” The rules around consent only apply if you are relying on consent as your basis to process personal data”. She then went on to say that: ”So let’s be clear. Consent is one way to comply with the GDPR, but it’s not the only way.” There are 6 legal principles allowing you to process data post GDPR but the one that is of real interest to data driven marketers relates to the term ”Legitimate interest” Defined as : If you are a private-sector organisation, you can process personal data without consent if you have a genuine and legitimate reason (including commercial benefit), unless this is outweighed by harm to the individual’s rights and interests. Other factors to consider: You cannot make consent a condition to avail of a service You cannot use pre ticked consent boxes or soft or implied consent as it is known But rather than go into the detail of what your consent process should look like and to relate back to the original headline here are my summary thoughts on the impact of GDPR to Direct Marketing: – B to B data, sole traders will be treated the same way as B to C data so explicit consent will be required to use or share such data. – All your data including legacy data must have an audit trail proving explicit, unambiguous consent by marketing channel so email, postal,telephone,sms with a date stamp to confirm the point at which the consumer provided such consent. Some people in the industry refer to this as ‘Individual Channel Consent’ – There will be allot less third party data available and the opportunity costs to collect new data will rise and in turn the CPM rates. – Lead generation particularly co – reg lead generation will grow considerably as the consumer provides a positive opt in by brand, to receive marketing contact in addition to explicit consent making this form of data collection fully compliant with all aspects of the GDPR for third party use by the brand. – Negative data products such as deceased data will grow as the appetite to continuously clean data will gain more traction post GDPR. Have a great week Lorcan www.dataxcel.ie