UK marketers lack
confidence in their personalisation capabilities with nine out of ten
(88 per cent) marketers believing that their brand is behind competitors
in their use of personalisation, according to Greenlight’s
Brand Personalisation Index. With European governments working on an
EU-wide data privacy law that is expected to bring in tougher
legislation on how technology companies can use personal data by the end
of the year, there are wide concerns industry crackdowns will curb
marketing innovation further.
Personal data hacks send marketers into fight or flight
Nearly
two-thirds (63 per cent) of C-suite executives report that their
companies experience significant cyber-attacks daily or weekly according
to a recent Accenture study. For marketers, this is a worrying
stumbling block on the road to innovation.
They face two responses: fight or flight. Marketers must either:
a) Stand
up and provide your customers with reassurance – they need guarantees
around how their data will be used and comfort in the benefits they’ll
receive in exchange.
b) Or embark on a rash U-turn and curb more progressive data strategies.
Andreas Pouros, COO and Greenlightco-founder shares his advice, “A
commitment to continue marketing innovation but also a reassurance on
data privacy is the most sustainable reaction to these data hacks. If
marketers are to work towards the Holy Grail of true personalisation
then they cannot give up on getting a closer customer view. Programmatic
advertising will have to evolve and more platforms will be needed to
offer up the level of personalised inventory needed. This requires
greater access to consumer data – a big ask in a climate of consumer
anxiety – but one that is reasonable if there is a clear value
exchange.”
Marketers must sustain innovation
Marketers
are most advanced in their use of personalisation on websites and email
with over half (54 per cent) personalising on both these channels.
Mobile continues to lag behind with just a quarter (24 per
cent) of marketers personalising on mobile devices or in-app but there
is some evidence for a new customer data-collection tactics which could
help marketers achieve the nirvana of personalisation.
It’s
out with age, gender and search history and in with location data as
where you are becomes the most important data capture for marketers when
personalising campaigns. More than a third of marketers (36 per
cent) are using location insights to tailor campaigns, with individual
purchase history or the purchase history of similar people being the
next most important factors when planning.
“This
research from Greenlight emphasises how location data is becoming one
of the most important tools for marketing innovation and it reflects how
we are seeing brand marketers behave across Europe,” said James Davies, EMEA Head of Strategic Partnership, xAd,the global location marketplace. “Our recent Global Location Snapshot reveals that 77 per
cent of agencies and marketers in Western Europe are using location
targeting – this is a number that is only set to rise as more and more
brands realise the power of location to supercharge their mobile
campaigns. With mobile location data effectively acting a cookie for the
real world, this real-time data source is the future of effective
personalisation – it goes far beyond just informing where someone is, to
define who a person is and what they might be interested in.”
Looking forward, Pouros advises marketers that, “To
serve the customer, we must strike the balance right between useful and
creepy. In most cases, consumers are happy to continue being targeted
with relevant content by brands that they have a relationship with,
however it is a different kettle of fish when unknown brands start
entering your online life or adverts feel intrusive (and consumers will
be especially sensitive to this in reaction to recent data hacks). As
long as you live by that mantra to focus on customer needs over
commercial ambitions, you won’t cross this line yourself.”
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