"The world's most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data."
This was the title of an article by the British media mammoth, "The Economist."
This article talks about how data has, over time, surpassed oil in value and how Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have been the most profitable private firms in the world because of data.
Data has been used for good, for both the customers and the business.
None of us can live without Google's search engine and Amazon's one-day delivery. But people have reconsidered trusting companies with their personal information for the past few years due to significant incidents.
Google and Amazon have been fined $163 million by French data watchdog, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés or CNIL, for not using cookie consent on their website for the user or making it hard for the users to reject the usage of cookies on their browser.
For Google and Amazon, $163 million is like a drop in the ocean. But can you say the same for your business? Well, think again.
Data privacy is a real thing now. More stringent privacy laws will come into effect. It's just a matter of time. You must understand how to get your customers' trust and retain its long-term in a privacy-compliant world. Now let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Why is it always about cookies?
We know. Cookies are one of the dearest things to marketers, and these are what connect your ads to the user. Cookies are small text that helps your business to analyze how the user interacts with your website, their likes, and dislikes, which ultimately allows you to enhance the overall user experience.
Cookies help you execute marketing campaigns effectively and give you relevant results. But this is a thing of the past.
After huge companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook violated cookie consent laws, governments worldwide have become vigilant to the misuse of cookies and similar technologies by companies for breaching the user's privacy.
Privacy laws like the EU's GDPR, California's CCPA, and Brazil's LGPD have already been strict on businesses not using cookie consent management to take explicit consent from the user to use cookies on their browser.
Collecting cookies is becoming harder and harder day by day. And buying 3rd party cookies does work, but only for a short time. The 3rd party cookies have been phased out by Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox; Google has announced that they will do the same by 2024. What does it mean for your business? See it for yourself.
3rd party cookies are dying. Will your business too?
Imagine. Your boss tells you to run a quick Ad campaign. But you have no data to do so. What would you tell him?
You have to tell him the truth. I know it is challenging. But gather the courage and just go for it. May the force be with you. Just go and tell him that,
"3rd party cookies are dead, sir!"
Now, he might die listening to this, and you might go to jail for doing so. But Who cares. The important thing is "3rd party cookies will eventually be dead".
Jokes apart, 3rd party cookies help you run short-term campaigns quickly. But there have been studies that show not only is 3rd party cookies an expensive way to target ads, but the reason marketers love it is also its ease of access. They could be more reliable and relevant.
Also, using 3rd party cookies when almost every data privacy law in the world is working against its implementation will damage your brand in the long run.
What if you want to grow your business in today's privacy-compliant world, you need to adopt the concept of "Privacy in design" in your industry.
Privacy in design means designing privacy principles in all your business processes so that personally identified information or the user is protected by default.
Integrating it with cookie consent management is one of the best ways to introduce privacy by design in your business process. This will help you build trust with your users by giving them their consent to use cookies on their browsers.
Use simple language to educate your consumers. Instead of talking about cookies with boring jargon, you could try,
"Hey, buddy! You can turn off these cookies, but we might forget what you stored in your shopping cart!!"
This way, you collect first-party cookies with the most relevant and high-value data. Only first-party cookies will be applicable in the coming times. And the best way to get started is by integrating cookie consent management with your business.
What is cookie consent?
Cookie consent is an interaction between a website/app/business owner and user, where the latter is requested to accept, reject, change the data or change the preference, the usage of cookies on their web browser, for the collection of their personal data.
Cookie consent regulations that you shouldn't ignore
EU's GDPR is one of the most stringent and comprehensive privacy data laws produced today. It goes further in depth to articulate what constitutes eligible consent:
Article 4 of GDPR defines consent as an explicit affirmative action that should be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.
Article 7 states additional requirements for consent – proof of consent and ability to withdraw consent and that consent requests must be easily accessible and use clear and plain language.
Users who visit the website or an app under any respective data privacy regulation shall be presented with a cookie consent banner.
Under the EU's GDPR, a cookie consent banner used by website/app/business owners is required to meet specific criteria:
Use Banner, popup, or a CMP platform to collect cookies on your website.
Users must have complete control to accept, decline, or change cookie preferences on the banner.
The banner must be formatted per the devices of use, i.e., laptops, mobiles, iPad, etc.
Show the cookie table (with name, type, purpose, and duration) on the second layer for full disclosure of cookies.
Show auto-translated banners to users as per their browser language.
Cookie consent requirement in CCPA:
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) doesn't necessarily require a business to take consent to the usage of cookies on their website from the user. However, it necessarily wants companies and enterprises to mention cookies in their privacy policy.
How Adzapier helps your business grow
Adzapier's Consent management platform (CMP), designed by marketing and tech experts, enables website and business owners to comply with any data privacy law worldwide.
A robust cookie consent management platform, Adzapier helps you to build trust with customers by implementing cookie consent banners as soon as the CMP is integrated with your website.
It also helps you to design data maps, which allow you to keep track of your business's collected data, how it uses it, and how it shares or sells it legally, if any.
To summarize, this platform will help you build trust with your users. It will give you insight into how to increase the cookie consent opt-in rate, which will help you collect more data legally, giving better consumer and behavioral insight to make excellent marketing strategies.
Conclusion:
Consent will be the way for business in 2023. The faster business owners understand this, the better. When you, as a business owner, genuinely respect your consumers' privacy, the consumer will trust you more with their data. This will make you a responsible business entity, thus creating more brand awareness and reach. And brand value and reputation are everything that a business needs today. And Adzapier helps you build that.