Partner Content
April Mullen, Director of Brand and Content Marketing at SparkPost, discusses the ongoing concerns and challenges for marketers when it comes to privacy
Many might argue that 2021 and what we’ve had of 2022 so far have been good for marketers. The bounce back brands felt after the pandemic first hit in early 2020 led to an expansion in marketing activities. As people rushed back to the high street and restaurants as restrictions eased, marketing activities mirrored with promotional emails, more personalised content and a better experience online for consumers. Yet marketers have been battling with perhaps the most seismic change to the way they operate since the introduction of GDPR in 2016.
Concerns around consumer privacy, that have been in the shadows for years, finally resulted in Apple and Google making changes to the way they operate which has and will continue to have a significant impact on the day-to-day processes of marketers.
Apple’s iOS15 updates, which were rolled out in September 2021, allied with the ongoing industry-wide phasing out of third-party cookies mean that it is getting harder and harder for marketers to find information about their customers. These two initiatives are quite possibly the beginnings of a paradigm shift that will continue to drive marketers to rethink data collection and usage practices.
With huge changes on the horizon, marketers are having to adapt the way they collaborate with customers which means making big changes to the way they have been working for years. Earlier this year we published our annual Benchmark report, Email in 2022, which uncovered that 82% of marketing leaders were already actively preparing for privacy changes and that 67% of practitioners say they’re concerned with how privacy changes will affect their ability to perform.
But it’s not all bad, and there are things marketers can do and introduce that will see them through for years to come.
Apple and customer privacy changes
Apple has responded to increased concerns about privacy with a series of changes over the last few years. It was one of the first web browser developers to limit access to third-party cookies and in September last year, it launched Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) within the Mail app on iOS15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey devices.
MPP’s key initiative is that it prevents senders from using invisible pixels to collect information about the user. Essentially senders are unable to tell if a person has opened an email, thereby depriving them of one of the key methods of gauging the effectiveness of their communications. MPP also masks the recipient's IP address, so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.
Here are some impacts that have already been seen, as a result of MPP:
- Open rates are inflated
- Open times are random and unreliable
- Device information is unavailable
- User location is approximate
George Schlossnagle, Founder and Distinguished Engineer at SparkPost said “The privacy landscape has been changing for years as users have been clearer about their displeasure with marketers peeking into their private lives. This has taken the form of both regulations – CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CCPA – as well as moves by industry leaders to protect user privacy. Apple’s MPP is a significant advance in the latter, and with Apple’s wide reach, it will likely have impacts beyond Apple customers. It will change how the industry looks at email engagement, along with many aspects of email workflow that will impact.”
The end of third-party data
Third-party tracking has historically been a staple of the marketing and advertising world, enabling us to collect data so we can serve ad content based on previous behaviour. However, in 2021, Google announced it would be ending third-party data access from its web browser. It’s a controversial move that some pundits think will be catastrophic for the ad tech industry, especially as Google web browser has a market share of just under 70%. And it has sparked a response from German publishers who are demanding that the EU intervene over the search giant’s plans.
What is most likely to happen is that a compromise will emerge before the plug is finally pulled on third-party cookies in 2023. Google has been working on a series of alternatives and recently unveiled a concept called Topics that learns about a person’s interests by logging their moves around the web. The company categorises the sites that the user has visited and segments them into one of 300 topics. Advertisers will then be invited to display ads on one of the three topics that it has allocated based on a user’s browsing history.
So what’s next?
These changes highlight the importance of zero-party and first-party data to marketers. Now is the time for marketers to hone in on these aspects and ensure they have a strategy in place that capitalises on these previously overlooked methods of data collection.
Zero-party data is data that an individual proactively and intentionally shares with a company - the most obvious example is buying intention. First-party data concerns data that is collected directly from interactions a customer has with a channel - for example visiting a website or responding to an email.
In the ever-changing privacy landscape, getting access to third-party and second-party data will become increasingly complex – first-party and zero-party data will become the gold standard.
It is for this reason that marketers should renew their focus on email and other channels that are powered by zero and first-party data. Brands need to know their audiences as well as possible, but far better to work with consumers to create better profiles that drive longer-term loyalty and engagement.
The gateway to first-party data
Naturally, email has the ability to be the glue between consumers and brands. Everything from promotions, to educational content, to retargeting can all be done using your most precious first-party data asset: email.
In the coming years, as much as 50% of open data will become unreliable and no longer useful as a success metric due to ever-increasing consumer privacy measures. It’s time for marketers to focus their attention on first and zero-party data given willingly by consumers.
Email has always been a highly useful tool for marketers looking to build meaningful relationships with their customers. As the tech giants continue on their path towards higher levels of privacy, email and the data it generates will become ever more valuable.
The demise of third-party cookies puts a tailwind behind channels that leverage first-party data – email being the most pervasive channel using first-party data. We should all be gearing up for more investment in email and SMS because owned data is about to be more valuable than ever.