Customers Know When Their Data Is Not Respected
This is part two of a two-part series. Part one: The Best Creative in the World Can't Fix Bad Data
In the last post I wrote about data quality and what happens when bad data gets fed into your marketing machinery. Let's go a bit deeper. Cleaning your data is only half the story. The other half is what you do with it once it's clean. Who has access to it, and do you have the right to use it the way you want?
Enter GDPR. The regulation most people have heard of, but everyone quietly hopes never applies to their business.
"We're too small for this to matter."
Wrong. This is the number one myth in small and medium-sized businesses in Norway. GDPR applies to any business collecting and processing personal data about people in the EU and EEA. That includes the beautiful hotel by the fjord in Sogn, the combined webshop and brick-and-mortar store in Oslo, and the Michelin-starred restaurant in Trondheim.
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority, Datatilsynet, has become increasingly active. They are looking at everyone: small, large, public and private.
Then there is AI.
When you feed customer data into third-party AI tools, whether that is Meta's ad optimisation, Google's Performance Max or a ChatGPT prompt you typed this morning: do you know where that customer data goes? And does your customer know?
Most marketers see the huge possibilities and don't think much about the consequences. Customers, on the other hand, see the consequences: an ad following them around the internet, a company popping up on their Instagram after they talked to a friend about it, and personalisation crossing the line from helpful to unsettling. Trust once broken does not come back with a discount code.
Norway is a high-trust country, and customers' expectations of privacy are just as high. Done right, that is a real competitive advantage. Be transparent about what data you collect and how you use it, be honest when fuck-ups happen, and follow up to fix them. Brands that do this build strong customer relationships. Customers are not naive. They know the value of their data and their money. Treat them with the same respect.
How to start?
Know what data you have and where it lives. Control who has access, keep consent in order, and read the terms of service for every place customer data might end up. Boring, simple, but good advice. Data quality and data security go hand in hand. Get both right and you are ahead.
Curious what your own data is telling you? Test your site with Kamben Kompass and get a free analysis in two minutes. Or reach out directly.
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