Under GDPR guidelines, your business must have a legal basis for processing personal information, such as email addresses. Consent is a standard legal basis for email marketing, meaning you must have explicit and informed consent from customers before you send promotional emails or newsletters. The following details other ways GDPR impacts email marketing campaigns.
Data Storage and Protection: Under the GDPR, you must ensure you’re protecting customers’ personal data and storing it securely, meaning you must take the proper technical and organizational measures to prevent theft, unauthorized access, or data misuse and ensure you’re only storing the data you require most and you’re deleting it when it’s no longer needed. The GDPR also requires you to implement suitable technical measures, such as pseudonymization and encryption, to protect personal data, and you need to have procedures and processes set in place to deal with data breaches and report them to relevant authorities within 72 hours of discovery. Lastly, you need a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who’s responsible for ensuring your company’s compliance with the regulation - and they must have the proper expertise and resources to effectively handle the role.
Opt-Ins and Opt-Outs: To obtain consent from visitors, your company must give customers a chance to opt-in to receive promotional newsletters or emails; opt-ins are positive acts of agreement that show customers give explicit content to receive your emails. Alternatively, opt-outs offer customers an opportunity to remove their consent and stop receiving your emails. Under GDPR, you must give clear and straightforward opt-out methods, such as unsubscribe links in every email you send, and your customers must be able to opt out as quickly as they opted in, and you must promptly honor their request. Keep in mind that pre-ticked opt-in boxes and default options aren’t considered valid consent; you need to ensure you get clear and specific consent from customers and that you’re allowing them to opt out easily.
Segmentation and Targeting: The GDPR significantly affects how your company collects, stores, and uses customers’ personal data for segmentation and targeting. Under the GDPR, you must have a legal basis for processing customer data for segmentation and targeting, meaning you need explicit and informed consent from customers before using their information for these purposes. You also must ensure you’re not gathering or processing more information than necessary and that you’re not using it for reasons that aren’t compatible with the reason for which it was originally collected. You also must provide clear and concise information about the details you’re collecting, how you intend to use it, and how long you’ll be keeping it.
Pre-Ticked Opt-In Boxes and Default Options: Pre-ticked opt-in boxes and default options are no longer valid forms of consent with the GDPR. Now, your business must provide clear and concise details about data processing activities and allow customers to voluntarily opt-in. Your customers must take positive actions, such as ticking boxes or clicking buttons, to show they agree to receive your emails.