Internet technology has completely changed the way companies market their products and services. Today, it is easier for companies to interact with consumers and provide them with personalized offers. This helps improve the consumer’s shopping experience while allowing companies to sell more products.

However, the data collection and sharing capabilities brought about by Internet technology have also brought challenges: network security. Digital interaction between enterprises and consumers usually involves the latter exchanging confidential information.

The recent data breach scandal involving large companies and their millions of customers shows that data does indeed risk falling into the wrong hands.
This is why different jurisdictions (such as California and the European Union) have passed strict laws to guide companies on how to collect, store, use, and protect customer information.

With the implementation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other similar laws, how online marketing will be affected becomes a question.

In this article, you will get an overview of what you need to know about CCPA and how to make your online marketing activities comply with these regulations.

Data Regulation in the United States

In the United States, data protection is mainly regulated by their respective industries and states. In this regard, California took the lead in enacting the CCPA to protect the personal information of California residents.

According to regulations, consumers have the right to choose companies to process their information. If consumers allow your company to process their information, they have the right to ask them how to process the data and who to share it with.

CCPA is only applicable to for-profit organizations that meet one of the following conditions:
– 50% of revenue comes from sales of customer data
– Annual revenue of $25 million and above
– Companies, devices, or households that manage data of at least 50,000 Californians

Non-compliance CCPA may be fined up to $7,500 for deliberate violations.

Data Regulation in the EU

Unlike the United States, the EU has implemented the GDPR, which standardizes the data protection rules of all EU member states. Then ask each country / region to adjust its national data policy to reflect the GDPR.

Under the GDPR, companies must obtain permission before processing consumer data, and then consumers must confirm their approval by email. In addition, the GDPR applies to all companies that provide services in the European Union.

Data protection and legal online marketing

Data plays a vital role in the success of digital marketing campaigns. By analyzing consumer data, online marketers can understand market needs based on customer behavior.

This also enables them to understand the unique preferences of each customer, so as to carry out targeted marketing activities. By using personalized marketing techniques, more than 80% of marketers can achieve up to 5 times the return on investment (ROI) of marketing expenditures.

As data regulations will affect marketers’ access and use of data, there are concerns that digital marketing may be severely affected. However, this may not necessarily be true.

Although CCPA and GDPR may differ in some respects, they operate on the same principles. Its main purpose is to ensure the security of customers’ personal information. This is achieved by letting consumers control their data.

Although this seems to be limited for digital marketers because consumers may refuse to process their data, research shows that this is not the case. Recent survey results indicate that more than 60% of Americans would rather receive a personalized offer than restrict company access to their data.
This shows that your challenge is not to access customer data, but to use it well and ensure that unauthorized third parties will not access it. Essentially, these regulations only write down what you should have practiced as a good digital marketer.

Compliance with data regulations

In the first half of 2019, 3,183 breaches were reported, resulting in the exposure of approximately 4.1 billion records. To ensure that companies dedicate more resources to protecting consumer data, the GDPR and CCPA impose huge penalties for violations.

To ensure that you comply with data regulations, pay attention to the following areas.

1. License

Like CCPA and GDPR, it is expected that the following data regulations will also enable consumers to better control their data. Therefore, you must take steps to ensure that you only use the data that you are allowed to use.

Automate processes where possible to avoid any unnecessary contact with human data, and gain the trust of customers in the following ways:

– Create a page for your security policy that displays all your data security tools, technologies, and         certification
– Notify customers how their data will be used
– Comply with customers’ requests to access their data or not use it

To ensure that you can allow consumers to access their data when necessary, please properly catalog the data they have. This will make it easier to track specific files when the need arises.

2. Data Focus

Businesses collect large amounts of data every day, but most of it ultimately goes unused. Even with the best data security measures, keeping the data you don’t use is an unnecessary responsibility.

The first thing to do is evaluate the data you currently have. Delete all unnecessary data. Once done, define your data needs to know which data sets to collect and which data sets to discard.

It is even better if you then structure the data collection process to focus only on the data you need. By taking these measures, you can not only eliminate unnecessary responsibilities, but also promote data cataloging and protection.

Does data security hinder marketing?

Digital marketing revolves around data. Although data regulation policies impose some restrictions on how companies handle customer data, they do not necessarily depress marketers.

All you have to do is to ensure that the data is processed accordingly from collection to processing and storage. In addition, check all your data security measures from time to time to ensure that all requirements are met.