Landmark legislation like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, across the pond, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are forcing companies to adopt a privacy-first stance regarding customer data. To help marketers be compliant, search engine juggernaut Google launched its Ads Privacy Hub. It is available in select countries, including the UK, US, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Australia, and seven others.

The Hub’s main landing page summarises the ever-evolving privacy landscape, acknowledging the difficulties of keeping up with customer expectations, regulations, and platform-related changes.

Google envisions a world where third-party cookies and individual identifiers have fallen by the wayside. They encourage marketers to view this shifting landscape as an opportunity. Reinventing how you engage with customers is an approach we not only agree with, but explored in depth.

Claire Norburn, UK & Ireland ads privacy lead at Google, made a similar point when she spoke at The Drum’s 2022 Media Summit.

“Rather than seeing customer privacy as a compliance exercise, think about the bigger picture of building relationships and trust with your customers,” said Norburn. “Brands who are embracing privacy-first marketing strategies today are getting ahead.”

The data backs this approach: according to recent research by Google and Ipsos, 71% of UK consumers surveyed prefer buying from brands that are honest about their data practices. Almost half said they would switch to a more privacy-centric brand. The same study found that consumers view bad privacy experiences almost as negatively as identity theft.

But Norburn is also clear that the solution is to stay within an ad-supported Web. In fact, she argues people want an ad-supported Web. Given the popularity of browser extension ad-blockers, the suggestion seems optimistic. Until you consider the alternatives. 

A wholesale switch to contextual advertising could shift $32B - $39B of much-needed funds away from publishers (and authoritative content sources) who could not otherwise afford to keep the lights on. Likewise, moving to a pay-for-access model transforms web browsing into a luxury good, shutting the digital doors on billions of users. 

“We need to embrace the change and build an ad-supported Web fit for the future … that gives people the quality information they need, delivered with the privacy they deserve, by brands they can trust,” Norburn wrote in a recent article. “We’re here to help support that transition.”

Which brings us back to the Ads Privacy Hub. To help marketers begin their privacy-first journey, Google uses the user’s own apparently not private location to provide an at-a-glance view of which privacy laws are most likely to affect them.

From there, it’s time to strategise.

Build a Privacy Strategy

Earlier, we talked about the tremendous value of leaning into a strategy that protects data privacy. The path forward is not to replace the third-party cookie with another form of invasive IP address tracking. Instead, marketers must design sustainable long-term strategies that show customers we are trustworthy personal data custodians, beyond just avoiding data breaches. 

Building a successful privacy strategy involves clever use of first-party data. A customer's email address, phone number, and connections to social networks are typical examples of data collected, but it can be anything a customer consents to provide to your business. 

First-party data gives your organisation a competitive advantage. B2B marketing agencies can use first-party data to build rich audience lists with Google’s Customer Match to deliver relevant customer experiences. When used to assign a quality score to leads, it can also inform your business decisions. By understanding who’s engaging with your company, it lets you shape your audience strategy by identifying and tailoring messaging to your most valuable customers. 

But if consumers are unwilling to be tracked with cookies, how are B2B marketers supposed to get them to part with their most personal details - let alone any amount of data? As it turns out, a 2022 BCG study found “ninety percent of consumers are willing to share their personal information for the right incentive.”

When was the last time ninety percent of people agreed on anything?

The incentive doesn't have to be complicated. It could be as simple as an in-stock notification, or offering to keep them up to date whenever you publish another blog post on a topic they're interested in. 

No matter how you incentivise it, just ensure you’re clear about how you’ll use the data in your customers’ online accounts.

Explore Privacy Solutions

The Google Ads Privacy Hub offers tools for keeping your new privacy strategy on track. Here’s what Google recommends:

• Sitewide Tagging places first-party cookies on your site. When customers interact with an ad through organic browsing or Google search, the first-party cookie stores information about the interaction. When the customer converts through your site, the tag sees the incoming cookie and records the conversion.

• Enhanced Conversions scramble your first-party data and securely match it to signed-in Google accounts. This captures any digital footprint your organisation would have otherwise lost, feeding your machine-learning models and helping you optimise bidding strategies for your programmatic advertising campaigns.

• Consent Mode adjusts how site tags behave based on a consumer’s consent status for a site. Together with enhanced conversions, you can solve for unknowns in campaign data so that ad performance is still measured accurately, all while respecting customers’ cookie choices.

• Google Analytics 4 is already positioned to change how marketers track customers’ movement through their site. And not just because users will have no choice but to use it once Google decommissions Universal Analytics later this year. GA4 uses advanced machine learning to fill customer journey gaps via conversion modeling, even if a customer accesses your site from different platforms (like a desktop and a mobile phone).

Putting Google’s suite of tools to work will help you use first-party data to measure performance and drive results for marketing B2B products or services.

Get Interactive Ads Privacy Planner Suggestions

Powerful as Google’s tools are, they won’t be much help if you’re not even sure how to measure success. Google is keen to help here, too. They’ve built a planning tool to give you a leg up in getting started. Just answer a few simple questions about your Google Ads accounts, and you’ll get a customised list of measurement solutions for your business.

Next Steps

If, like many businesses, you have got into a habit of collecting data for data’s sake, you might find yourself in a pickle as the legislative walls close in. Google’s Ads Privacy Hub is an excellent resource if you’re ready to reap the rewards of moving from being data "owners" towards being data custodians.

But even with first-party data, we need to ask ourselves whether we need all the data we’re asking for on each form. The growing privacy movement is as much a reaction to excessive data demands and abuses from companies and B2B marketers as it is about customers protecting their data.

Businesses and marketers would do well to remember the person behind the data. Besides feeding marketing efforts, any information gathered should improve how people experience your brand. Find fresh ways of delighting customers with the data you already have rather than always asking for more. And, when you do need to go further, make sure you have permission, provide a relevant experience, and request feedback.

Because as we’ve seen, if customers don’t like how you handle their data, they’ll find someone who treats it with the respect it deserves.

Need help making your privacy pivot? 1827 Marketing would love to have a chat. Learn how we can help you combine engaging content with innovative marketing automation technologies to ensure you get the most out of your first-party data.