The Future of Marketing is Consensual.

Digital marketing has been creeping dangerously close to legal stalking in the last few years, and consumers are finally starting to notice.?

The marketing industry is no longer the creative and strategic machine it once was. It’s now more about understanding how to harvest data on a target audience and less about delivering value through consent and creativity. Ads are automatically targeted, optimized, and served while algorithms busily gather massive amounts of information about anyone interacting with websites and brands.?

Consumers see ads in their feeds that somehow relate to the offhand comment they overheard from their neighbor’s neighbor in the grocery store. They see this as some form of invasive forced personalization, while people within the digital marketing industry know the truth. Devices may not be listening to consumer conversations (at least not admittedly), but the data being gathered is just as potent.

The double-sided sword of data aggregation

Digital marketers rely on tools that give them the power to watch someone click an ad, go to their page, navigate to certain buttons, navigate away from their website, track other pages they visit, and retarget them with advertisements. Personas are now an amalgamation of data points carefully cultivated from the behaviors of real people.

Consumer research still isn’t exactly simple, but marketers have become reliant on data aggregation tools to do much of the heavy lifting.?

And therein lies a serious problem.

Any place where data is collected, stored, and used becomes another weak point that exposes people to the invasion of privacy perpetuated by poor security practices. Not to mention the ethical gymnastics some marketers do to justify the acquisition of data through less than wholesome means.

Back alley data collection (purchasing email lists without opt-ins, accessing databases containing PII that’s been sold and resold, etc.) is another seedy practice that’s become all too common as some professionals value conversions over consumers.

While all of the focus remains on gathering data, many marketers drift further and further away from the development of the skills truly necessary to hone their craft. And this is – for lack of a better word – lazy.

Yes, accessing the personal information of consumers is effective. But at some point we have to accept the fact that nonconsensual marketing needs to stop being a thing.?

Privacy isn’t just another trend.

People aren’t sleeping on their data anymore. We’ve seen enough generations cycle through interconnected technology for them to gain a growing awareness of their right to privacy -- on and offline.

This new awareness isn’t going away, and as marketers, we must embrace the change. Far too many professionals view new data constraints as a challenge instead of a permanent shift towards a consumer-centered internet.

And these changes have been supported legally by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other ongoing legislations.

The combination of government interventions and consumer advocacy define a more pertinent challenge for current and future digital marketers: How do we reach consumers without relying on invasive tracking and PII?

We can start with consensual marketing.

The answer to this question isn’t all or nothing. Consumers shouldn’t be forced to give up the personalized internet they’ve come to expect. Instead, they should be able to opt-in to this personalization through transparency and proper education.

In fact, consensual marketing can allow for a hyper-personalized consumer experience as it requires their participation and permission before serving them any marketing materials. A person who has chosen to receive brand updates is someone who is more likely to be engaged with the content.?

Consensual marketing is about building relationships between brands and their consumers through open and honest communication. In doing so, marketers can also gather the data they need to effectively do their jobs.

However, instead of knowing the minute details of an ideal consumer’s life for the purpose of building a persona, marketers can use contextual and behavioral data to build out target audiences and use case based targeting.

It’s not about infiltrating daily activities to insert advertising or brand materials. It’s about meeting the consumer at the point of decision making to offer them value, a solution, or a remedy to a pain point.

Privacy is a competitive advantage, not a disadvantage.

Privacy is a human right. There’s no qualifier to that statement. It is simply a fact that we, as marketers, must respect and support as we move forward. Digital marketing must evolve, much like any other platform reaching an expiration date based on the new needs and preferences of the people we serve – consumers.