Retail & E-commerce: What ROI to expect from better consent & preference management?

According to the GDPR framework, consent is one of the 6 legal bases for collecting data. It must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. There are different use cases of consent and preference management in retail, both physical and digital. In a recent PrivSec webinar, our CEO Romain Gauthier explained the return on investment (ROI) that is gained from good consent and preference management in retail and e-commerce.

Summary 

• How does consent and preference management relate to Retail and E-commerce?

• Why should businesses care?

• How to measure the ROI (Return On Investment) from collecting consent? 

• How Didomi can help your company 

On November 10th Romain Gauthier spoke at a PrivSec webinar  What ROI to expect from better consent & preference management?, alongside Osama El-Masry (Data Protection and Privacy Officer, Vodafone Egypt) and Arielle Garcia (SVP, Business Operations & Compliance, Chief Privacy Officer, UMWW).

These privacy specialists discussed what consent management is, how brands use it, and why privacy and compliance professionals should consider investing in it. Catch the full replay here, or carry on reading for a summary of the main points discussed.

How does consent and preference management relate to retail and e-commerce?

What is consent?

Before we get started on consent and its relationship to retail, let’s define it. Since the GDPR became a privacy norm when it was first introduced in 2018, consent is described as freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.

Equally, the GDPR states that it should be as easy to refuse as it would be to accept it. Proper consent and preference management cannot exist without the respect of legal consent frameworks like the GDPR. 

What are preferences?

Preferences are choices made by users in terms of both online and offline communication with the brand. They are not a legal requirement, but are very appealing to users since they are able to make their intentions clear and have more granular choice. With the Didomi Preference Center, users are able to configure their preferences in terms of channels, frequency and topics. 

Channels refers to the channel that is used to communicate with customers. Frequency is how often to communicate with customers, followed by topics, which will vary from company to company. See examples of these preferences in our latest article, How the use of a Preference Center can build user trust and generate revenue.

Contrary to consent, preferences give businesses more creativity, and more opportunity to dive deeper into customer relationships. 

What does consent and preference management look like in Retail and E-commerce?

There are many opportunities to collect consent and preferences throughout the retail journey. It starts with the:

• First website visit: Consenting to website cookies, mobile user ID tracking or other for purposes, like retargeting or personalized advertising.

• First visit at the shop: Consenting to receive emails or SMS for purposes like promotions and special offers, after joining a loyalty program, for example.

• Nurturing: Updating frequency, format or content of communications received on a customer's Preference Center, after a purchase for example.

• Purchase: Consenting to receive purchase-specific messages, like delivery updates, on preferred channels chosen by the clients directly in-store.

If consent is correctly collected, it can build customer relationships and add value to your business. The trend seen today is that large brands and companies are moving more from a strict compliance interpretation of their obligations to a more customer-centric view of consent and preferences. This is a trend that we see increasingly with our own clients. 

Want to find out how your company can ensure consent is collected correctly, nurturing customer relationships and generating revenue? Contact us. 

Why should businesses care?

The number one answer as to why businesses should care is because their clients do! More and more internet users are educating themselves and becoming concerned about data privacy. In a recent survey carried out by the Harvard Business Review, 32% of the respondents said they care about privacy and are willing to act, and have already done so by switching companies or providers over data-sharing policies. 

What this means is that 1/3rd of people are starting to make decisions based on how brands and companies manage their privacy. This is something that is fairly new, and should be taken seriously by companies. In the beginning of GDPR enforcement, we identified from our data that this amount was significantly less which shows that this trend is rapidly growing.  

Would customers choose you based on your data-privacy policies? If you're not sure, perhaps you should consider partnering with Didomi. 

Where does return of investment (ROI) come into this equation?

Getting more out of your digital retargeting efforts

There is a direct link between privacy (consent and preferences) and revenue. For example, if you have a website with 15 million monthly unique visitors, an optimized opt-in rate can make a significant difference. How do you turn opt-in rates into an opportunity? In order to activate this audience, you will need to get consent for these cookies with your remarketing.

This example shows that each percentage of consent rates will return in revenue opportunities. In other words, a higher consent rate will result in more revenue, and a lower consent rate will lead to less marketing performance overall.

Getting more out of your direct marketing efforts

Another example that we observe often is in emailing. One of our largest retail clients built a Preference Center with the idea that they need to decrease their unsubscribe rates. They measured that the massive revenue loss from high unsubscribe rates was due to the fact that the emails sent were not relevant to the audience or sent more frequently than desired.

Based on the table below, with a contact base of 1 million users, if your unsubscribe rate is 5% then you lose about 50,000 people each time you send an email. If you examine the lifetime value, it is clear you will end up with massive revenue loss due the subject of the email not matching the interests of the audience.

If you decrease the unsubscribe rate to 3%, then you will generate another 6 million euros at the end of the year for your company.

How Didomi can help your company 

The Didomi Preference Center solution allows users to choose how frequently they want to be contacted by the brand and which for which topics. This is exactly what businesses need to consider when measuring their return on investments - privacy has a strong impact on revenue.

Every brand should develop a measuring model of their ROI. There are four things to be observed and measured from this: 

• Trust: Trust can be measured by reduced unsubscribed rates or higher clic-rates, meaning that users remain attentive to your messages.

• Performance: Consented users will undoubtedly be more engaged, which will lead to higher return-on-marketing investments, contributing to overall performance.

• Compliance: You will drastically reduce the risk of getting fined for rogue data practices, which doesn't only hit your bottom-line but also your hard-earned reputation.

• Operational efficiency: You will allocate less resources to managing things like data sanity, request to customer support service, unsubscribe requests etc.

Missing out on your client’s growing privacy concerns can lead to massive revenue loss to your business. Here at Didomi we are always one step ahead of the trends. We can help you build your customer relationship and increase your ROI all while abiding to the legal framework on consent.

Schedule a demo now with one of our experts!