Placing our trust in technology giants to help us drive leads and sales will increasingly become more difficult as data collection becomes more scrutinised. We need to start thinking about how to future-proof our digital marketing so that we become immune to any new algorithm changes. We say goodbye to spammy ads and emails, and we welcome marketing strategies that respect consumers’ time and attention spans. The honeymoon period for ‘third party cookies’ is over.

With the upcoming iOS15 planned upgrades that is going to change how email marketing is tracked; and a soon-to-be introduced removal of Google cookie tracking, these actions will leave many marketers going back to their whiteboards – planning new growth hacks without their data levers from these tech giants. 

David Ogilvy, known as the “Father of Advertising” famously said this:

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The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife

His statement serves as a reminder for marketers to put their customers first and stop relying on third party cookies to drive sales. 

The use of third-party cookies made many consumers feel exposed and vulnerable. The over-use of cookie tracking by some advertisers, forced the European Regulators to introduce stricter privacy laws around data protection. 

In this ever changing digital landscape, business owners might be wondering what they can do to future-proof their digital marketing efforts. 

I’ve listed 5 key things you could do right now to future-proof your digital marketing efforts:

Build your own runway and future-proof your digital marketing

When it comes to digital marketing, we seem to put all our faith into these big tech giants. Here’s a very simple example to illustrate this point. When we want to get new leads, we go to Facebook to advertise. There is an acquisition cost associated with this. If you’re paying for each lead, it would make sense for you to collect this lead and store it on your own database. 

However, we’ve met many businesses who don’t do anything with these leads. They pay for them and leave them on Facebook. When the time comes to get leads again, they would go back and pay Facebook again to acquire them. And so on.

Imagine if you could capture these leads and learn more about them. You could collect more data so that you can segment them into ‘buckets’ in order to help you improve your advertising efforts. By owning your own customer data, you start to build an asset that is yours – as opposed to ‘leasing’ it from the tech giants and being at their mercy when they decide to change algorithms to suit them. 

Even during turbulent times, when tides change, you can always nurture your customers into a transaction when you own your own customer data.  You can learn more from an article I published a few years ago titled: The Power of Segmentation.

Ask your consumers for permission first

Have you ever signed up to receive updates from a brand that you love? That’s an example of permission based marketing. 

Just because someone fills out an enquiry form on your website, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve given you permission to market to them. 

Even when you meet someone at a networking event, you collect their business card, this doesn’t mean they give you permission to add their details to a Newsletter so you can email them random content. 

Permission marketing is about customers opting in to receive marketing offers and promotions. 

This term was originally coined by Seth Godin (refer my previous article to learn more) who stated that customers should have power to choose how they are being marketed to. 

Permission based marketing is a way for businesses to offer incentives that align with their customers interests. Receiving permission to market to your contacts is a way to build trust, value and brand loyalty. Likewise, if your contact hasn’t given you the permission to market to them, it can result in customer frustration, privacy violations and lost business. 

By asking for permission, you get to qualify your leads better which helps you achieve a quality database of leads that you can trust. 

Having a trusted database of leads becomes important if you’re looking to future-proof your digital marketing efforts. To simplify this point further, your next email won’t be marked as spam. 

Future-proof your digital marketing by collecting quality data

With all the changes that are occurring now with Apple Privacy Updates and browser third-party cookies dying out, it’s time to start building a baseline of your own data. 

Start creating metrics to track your email marketing and advertising efforts now, so you can easily benchmark how the new changes will impact your business.

In the US, when Apple rolled out an iOS14 update that prevented Facebook collecting cookies for advertising purposes, it is reported that more than 80% of Apple’s users chose “No” when asked if they gave their permission for third party apps to collect their data.  

Having your own customer data platform that you can rely on is the key to future-proofing your digital marketing efforts.

Social Media Examiner published a great article on what strategies you have in terms of advertising success metrics titled Facebook Ad Success Without Apple: Rethinking Your Data. In here, they discuss what options marketers have when it comes to retargeting, given that many relied on Facebook’s third party cookie tracking information to reach new audiences.

Invest in a smart marketing automation platform

Great marketing automation platforms can collect more than just an email address from your visitors and subscribers. 

You can create smart data capture forms that can assist you in collecting more data from your customers. The key is to ask in the way of a survey. When a customer decides to give their name, email address, phone number, date of birth etc. it’s what we refer to as “first-party” data.

A smart marketing automation platform can help you segment leads and customers, as well as automate steps so you can nurture them with information they are interested in receiving.  

So in order to stay ahead of any algorithm changes, it is a must to invest in a great marketing automation platform. If you need help finding one for your business, let us know here – we’re happy to show you what tech is best fit for this purpose. 

Build a 360-degree view of your leads and customers

And lastly, by having a smart marketing automation platform and a strategy on how to collect and nurture your leads, you can start to build a 360-degree view of your subscribers profiles. 

You will also be able to segment and categorize them based on how frequently they engage with you. Not only how they engage with you via email, but also on other channels and platforms. You will have a fully integrated marketing system that shows the whole view of your customers. Your marketing will start to feel personal and you will be able to stay front of mind with your customers by sending them the right messages at the right time. 

By knowing all of the 5 key things, you will be able to build your own marketing growth system that is designed to help you attract the right leads to your business to drive sales and business success. 

As you can see, there are quite a few things you have to consider if you want to future-proof your digital marketing efforts. For real growth, marketing needs to operate in synchronisation with the complete business. Once you put together a plan of action that is focused on helping you build your own digital runway, you can achieve sustainable growth. 

We’re happy to help you out on this journey. If you’re looking to have someone objectively advise you on what data points to collect, just book in for a chat with us.