Marketing Managers are quite aware about consent-based marketing. It’s been a staple for quite some time, but it truly started causing ripples when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took center stage in 2018. Since then, countries like Chile, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and even the state of California, with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), have joined the privacy protection bandwagon. Clearly, the trend of safeguarding user privacy and consent is staying.

If you’re a marketing maestro knee-deep in the trenches, you may be checking if your marketing framework is consent-friendly. 

As an Ad Tech partner that works with both agencies and brands, to put it bluntly – there’s probably no universal checklist on how to establish a privacy-centric marketing framework. Digital marketing is especially dynamic in terms of privacy trends (remember the days when Google labeled their Privacy Sandbox APIs with bird names?). There are however, 2 strategies that will prove consistent.

First-party data is undeniably crucial. Within Google Marketing Platform, advertisers can use consented first party data for smarter targeting and data-enhanced analytics &  insights.

Enhancing analytics insights with user-provided data collection

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has an open beta feature that allows the advertiser to send user-consented, first-party data from the website to GA4. The data is matched with other Google data, allowing the advertiser to increase the accuracy of their reports in GA4. To ensure privacy-safe processing, do note that in general data must be hashed via the SHA256 method before sending it to Google, otherwise it will not be accepted. A user-ID must also be collected, so this will need to be set up in your account property.

Targeting your actual customers programmatically

The customer match feature in Display & Video 360 (DV360) is not new, but with 3rd party cookie deprecation being in effect, it’s recommended to re-orientate with this feature. Essentially, advertisers upload customers’ contact information into the platform (with consent of course), and targets the customer via DV360. When successful, customers will see your ads in Google’s O&O sites, such as Gmail, YouTube, or even across the web. Additionally, the customer has the right to not be served such personalized ads, simply by controlling their individual Google ad setting.

Consumers demand data privacy. A Deloitte 2023 survey reports a surge in users feeling tracked, and Google’s 2021 study discloses that 43% of consumers would switch brands for enhanced privacy.

For forward-looking marketers, continual testing of intelligent technologies such as conversion modeling, data hashing, will be imperative. These privacy-preserving technologies in which AI is weaved into, are built to respect the user’s data consent while still delivering needed insights to the marketer.

Preserving measurement via data hashing method

The enhanced conversions feature in Google Analytics 4, new Search Ads 360 (SA360) & Google Ads can generate a more precision measurement of your conversions, particularly when there’s less observable data available. It “enhances” your existing conversion tags (e.g., Floodlight tag) by transmitting hashed first-party conversion data such as email addresses, from your website and aligning it with hashed Google logged-in data.

Estimate conversions with modeling technology

Conversion modeling is activated when a customer converts on your Google tagged  app/website, but does not grant consent for tracking. It aggregates the non-consented conversions using machine-learning based on observable data and historical trends, allowing the marketer insight into how or where conversions have occurred. This feature is widely available across Google Marketing Platforms.

In summary, while digital marketing itself can be dynamic and even disruptive at times, privacy-safe solutions, including those under the Google Marketing Platforms can shape a durable framework of a company’s consent-based marketing. 

If you have any questions on how to utilise the privacy-safe solutions under the Google Marketing Platforms, feel free to to connect with us via [email protected] or our contact form and we’ll review how we can meet your needs.