Data-driven advertising can be perceived as a boon for accelerating business growth. Bespoke content can help create a seamless online experience where ads are put in order with the interests and needs of the business. Irrelevant commercials have no significance or value. Instead, customers seek to get recommendations that genuinely add value to their lives. A digital marketer or brand heavily depends on customer data to provide customers with customised recommendations or offers. Digital marketers’ goal is to create personalised experiences for customers while protecting their privacy and data. However, with the rise of privacy regulations such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the digital marketing world has become more complex than ever.
This forced marketers to walk on a tightrope, balancing consumers’ discomfort with sharing personal information and their wish to have a seamless experience with the brands they prefer. Further, marketers must stay ahead of changes in the platform due to restrictive data regulations and third-party cookie deprecation.
To explore the balancing act of customer preferences and to unveil how consumers feel about the way data is collected, BCG (Boston Consulting Group) and Google collaborated to survey consumers and interview marketers. The opinions of consumers about how their data will be utilised influence their desire to share it in the first place. They would rather want their data to utilised for developing brief, informative, and engaging advertising material or to assist firms in understanding what product innovations they would want to see. However, they are considerably less comfortable with their data being shared with other companies, especially with it being sold. Additionally, consumers do not completely understand what brands are doing with their personal information, as 57% of consumers think that companies are selling their data.
The BCG & Google survey has uncovered an interesting fact: Many customers are willing to share their personal information with companies, but most of them want a value exchange to do so. Nearly 30% of respondents said that they can share their email address with a specific company, while 90% seek the right value exchange for sharing personal data.
As per the survey, the challenges marketers face are customer mistrust and stricter regulations. As per the survey conducted on more than 1000 consumers, two-thirds of consumers want ads that are personalised to their interests, while 45% of consumers are uncomfortable with sharing their data to create personalised ads. This is an outcome of mistrust. When customers trust a brand, they are willing to share their email addresses, but 64% of consumers said that they have concerns about businesses in at least a single sector protecting their personal information and privacy online.
With all of these facts, the journey to win in marketing with a durable, privacy-ready approach can feel overwhelming. But the investment is worthwhile, and it can’t wait. Organisations need to move quickly and take a test-and-learn approach while also preparing for longer-term shifts. To do so, they should start aligning on a privacy-readiness roadmap.
Due to increasing data restrictions and shifts in the digital advertising landscape, Meta is making significant efforts to maintain its ad revenue streams. This has led the company to re-evaluate its staffing, realign its priorities, and modify how its ad systems operate.
As a result of these changes, there have been fluctuations in the results seen on both Facebook and Instagram. Many advertisers have found it frustrating to adapt their campaigns due to the frequent adjustments required.
Meta is aware of these challenges and is actively realigning its systems accordingly. Meta recently introduced its new ‘Performance 5’ framework as part of this effort. This framework consists of five data-proven tactics designed to enhance advertising performance on Meta platforms.
