Personalisation vs Privacy: Where’s the Debate Going?

Businesses must walk away from the catch-all data collecting policy, and adapt a more privacy-first approach by collecting only what’s necessary.

Personalisation has been a game-changer in marketing—enabling businesses to deliver highly relevant content and experiences directly to individual customers. It has made marketing budgets go further, faster, creating more engagement and customer loyalty, while improving ROI. For marketing agencies, this data-driven tool has meant the ability to do more for clients, to make a bigger impact, and to deliver more successful campaigns. But it comes at a cost.

Where personalisation is used, consumer privacy is threatened, which isn’t just bad news for the consumer—it can be incredibly problematic for the business. So, how can you maximise the potential of personalisation in marketing without compromising consumer privacy?

What’s the Problem with Personalisation in Marketing?

Personalisation has brought a range of benefits to businesses and consumers alike. To one degree or another, it’s been around for decades, helping businesses put the right ads and the right products in front of the right people, freeing consumers from irrelevant content and exposing them to products and services they likely want or need.

Until recently, it’s been mutually beneficial. But with artificial intelligence (AI) creeping into all business areas, the potential for personalisation has multiplied exponentially. With this new-found ability to process endless data in a matter of moments, every piece of information held on a customer can now be used for marketing purposes. And this is increasingly leading to over-personalisation.

Where personalisation is used inappropriately, it not only results in consumers feeling intruded upon, leading to foul feelings and suspicion, which will ultimately damage brand reputation; it also limits the consumer’s field of view, preventing them from discovering new and related products and services themselves, which can damage the business’ bottom line.

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So, how can businesses balance the need for consumer privacy with the benefits of personalisation?

Strategies Supporting Privacy within Personalisation

Smarter Data Collection

What data do you really need to achieve effective personalisation? That’s the question all businesses need to be asking.

By stepping away from the catch-all data collecting policies that have been embraced by businesses for the last few decades, and adopting a privacy-first approach in its place, marketers can redefine the parameters of required data collection—leading to a scenario whereby the only data that is collected and retained is necessary to the business and beneficial to the consumer. This allows the creation of tailored, insight-driven communication and advertising without infringing on customers’ personal information or creating the impression of stalking.

Transparent Data Practices

As use of the ‘reject all’ cookie button has increased, a growing number of businesses have adopted policies to coerce consumers into sharing their data. Online newspapers are withdrawing free access to content to anyone who wishes to protect their data. Other sites only let consumers enter if they agree to their data being shared, or have aggressively adopted complex consent forms, which make it difficult to withdraw consent or to see what they’re consenting to.

While this might help businesses gain the marketing data they need in the short term, it does nothing for consumer trust or brand reputation. Clearly and concisely communicating what data is being collected, why it’s being collected, and how it will be used, is a far more effective means to ensure that customers will hit those consent buttons. Informed consent builds trust while enabling a business to continue to legitimately benefit from customer data gathering and use.

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Sensible Data Use

Most consumers don’t mind their data being collected if they know that it is going to be used for their benefit. So, rather than using personalisation for everything, brands can profit from a lighter touch. By taking steps to ensure that data is only used to refine products, enhance services, and create positive customer experiences, they can win the customer’s trust. A/B testing is already an integral part of the marketing process. It needs to be equally applied to the use of consumer data.

Personalisation has made marketing more relevant, more effective, and enhanced its returns. But AI makes it easy for marketing strategies to cross the line between personalisation and intrusion. It’s not to anyone’s benefit for that to happen. But by adopting a privacy-first approach to personalisation within marketing, brands can deliver meaningful, personalised experiences to their customers, build long-term loyalty and trust, and enhance the performance of their business, without crossing the line into snooping and intrusion.

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