- Welcome to episode five of the "Cerebrations Podcast". A few weeks ago, in episode two, we spoke about learning more about our customers and understanding their needs and pain points. That was the management discussion about market research.

- Today, I'd like to look at the customer from the opposite side of the coin. The main question I want to tackle in this podcast episode is, how can we protect our customers' privacy? There have been a lot of important changes taking place. Both in Europe and North America over the past few years that can impact what we do as marketing executives but even as sales executives too. What's more, there is more change on the horizon. So what do we do?

- I have invited Judy Gordon, the Vice President of Marketing at WireWheel. A company that provides technology and services related to customer privacy. She brings a very strong perspective on privacy based on her professional experience.

- I'm sure you'll find our interview informative. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Judy Gordon to our virtual stage.

- Hi Judy, how are you?

- Good, how are you?

- I'm doing great, thanks. I'm very excited to have you on my episodes for my new podcast. Thanks for agreeing to participate.

- Yeah I'm really excited to talk about privacy with other marketers.

- Great, great. Well since you actually mentioned already the topic of our podcast episode, why don't we start with the typical question that I always ask in the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What do you do? How does what you do relate to customer privacy?

- So my name is Judy Gordon. I am the VP of Marketing at WireWheel. WireWheel is a data privacy and marketing compliance software company. Software as a service. We offer three products that help companies comply with privacy regulations. The first one is a. The first one is a product that enables customers to make requests about their privacy. I'm not sure how many of you in the audience live in California or live in Europe but if you live in California or you live in Europe, you're able to make a request about your personal data. What that means is if you're a large company, and someone makes a request, I have to tell you what kind of data I have on you and our software helps companies. You can imagine companies have customer data in multiple databases throughout the company. Our software helps companies collect and distribute that information. So that's our first product that helps with customer requests. The second product talks about, helps companies do privacy assessments. So as you're looking to improve or implement a privacy program, many companies like to do privacy assessments to understand where personal data is stored. To understand where personal data is stored and how it's used. And that's our second product, helps companies do that. And then our third product which is really aimed at marketers helps companies manage consents and preferences. So as customers come and tell you how they want to be communicated to, how they want to use their data, our product acts as that golden record, the source of truth and distributes that information to multiple, throughout your martech stack.

- Great, thanks for kind of walking me through what WireWheel does and we'll get back to that a little bit later in the episode where I'll ask you exactly how organizations like WireWheel can help. But before that, just to you know, provide a little more context for everyone about customer privacy. I have a few questions that we'll probably answer some questions or even inform people about new things that they are not aware of about customer privacy. So I guess the number one thing for me when I think about it, purely from my own personal and professional perspective is, you know, why do people think poorly of marketing in the context of customer privacy? Why is the marketing always the culprit for customer privacy?

- Do you know, that is a good question and it's funny. Because in this role, I have attended a lot of privacy conferences and marketing is always the bad guy. Do you believe that?

- Well I can believe it. I don't want to know.

- So I think marketing is the bad guy because we're all compensated on bringing in names and driving revenue ultimately and one of the ways we do that is to collect information about people. And advertise or market to them in a personalized way. And one of the ways we do that is we collect information about people. And sometimes it's with their knowledge, sometimes it's with their permission but sometimes it's in surreptitious ways. By, and I think some of it is ways that consumers aren't used to. But for example, you know, as we all know, I go shopping. Next thing I know the ad shows up on my social media feed. Or even more sort of, I guess, privacy related. I go shopping and my, the thing I've been looking at appears on my husband's social media feed. Because they're looking at our IP address or suddenly I'm seeing things on my phone because of things I've been shopping for. So we as marketers are trying to drive people to kind of make that transaction. To try to drive revenue and make the sale. And because of that, we're using some advertising tools that are marginally you know, difficult. Can be difficult to think about if you're really thinking about someone's privacy. When you use information about their IP address. Where they live, where they are, what you learn about them. What they post on social media, et cetera, to market. It can be, it's a challenge from a privacy perspective

- Yeah, it's interesting. I mean people somehow, 'cause they've gotten in a way, a little used to. I mean too used to actually seeing some of the examples that you've described in terms of they go shopping for something, then they see some retargeting ads and they may irritate them one way or another but they kind of take it for granted these days. But then I, I hear sometimes, and a few years ago especially. There was an example in one of my previous jobs where someone else in the company who's a fairly senior person on the executive team but outside of marketing came to me and he was very concerned because his daughter has come to the website to look for internships and now she was getting retargeted and he was like, "Why is she getting ads about products "that don't have anything to do with her?" And I explained to him, she came to our website. Apparently she didn't just go to the careers page. She spend time somewhere else on the website and that's why. But some, people just don't realize that it happens all the time. Across the board, not just when it comes to shopping. So it's interesting that you mentioned it.

- Yeah.

- I have kind of, like a followup question on that. That relates more to sales because obviously as I design a lot of podcast episodes, I want to ensure that what we talk about is relevant to both sides of the coin. Sales and marketing. If you're an executive that drives revenue within the organization, especially on the B2B sides. A lot of times these roles, at one point, start merging and there's a lot of correlation. So I just wanted to make sure that this is also raising awareness among the other demographic group that I'm targeting with this podcast. So from my perspective at least, when it comes to customer privacy, at least on the marketing sides, we are getting more and more aware of it. Being in the U.S. versus Europe, I think we still have a little more laxity in terms of what we can do. And I'm sure you have some comments about it too but we are more or less aware about customer privacy but my impression has been that on the sales sides, sales executives do not always understand the repercussions of customer privacy and I you know, just wondering what your thoughts are on this. I mean, if they see information somewhere. How should they treat it? Or what's kind of, things they should run through their think process. Before they decide whether to use that customer contact information or not.

- Yeah I mean, we talk a lot about and I know we're gonna talk about this a little bit later, trust. So in marketing, we really want to build trust. Build a relationship with the customer so that they feel comfortable making that purchase and I think sales should think about that too. As you're thinking about reaching out, how did you? You know there's all kinds of sources, data sources for names and I get a lot of calls, I'm sure you get a lot of calls as well but I think sales should approach it with thinking about you know, how am I going to build a relationship with this person? And so should be thoughtful about that as they reach out and as they use customer information.

- Yeah I mean I think one of the very obvious examples is basically, if you see someone's cellphone number and there are databases out there that list personal cellphone numbers as well. Probably don't use that on your first call. Maybe once you get to know the person on the other end and maybe you've even gotten some sort of permission from that person then you can use it. But I've personally been called many a times on my cell. It's not my work cell. It's actually my personal cellphone number and any time a vendor calls me that way, it always you know, that conversation doesn't go anywhere.

- Yeah.

- I think that's just the lesson that they'd like to communicate here. So let's switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit more about what's coming up in the future. I mean you mentioned Europe. You mentioned California. Obviously a lot of people that are targeted for this podcast may actually reside outside of these regions. So what else is coming up? Why should they care more about customer privacy now than they used to?

- So there's two things that are coming up. One is new privacy laws. And the second is changes in advertising technology. So I'll start first with new privacy laws because there are five states in the United States who have recently passed privacy laws and have those laws go into effect starting in January 1 2023, all the way through the end of the year and each of them, sadly has slightly different regulations when it comes to what you can with customer data, how you can advertise, how you can use people's information and at WireWheel we actually have a list of the different states and what the different consents are. What's required and I'll share it. We'll share a link to that at the end of the podcast. But customers need to be aware, marketers need to start thinking about how am I gonna comply with those privacy regulations? And then if that wasn't enough, there's all these privacy-related changes coming to the advertising ecosystem. The first is as many people have experienced this year, Apple implementing new technology that enables consumers to opt out of the collection of their data. This has caused, I mean there have been a lot of articles written about how much this has cost companies like Facebook in terms of advertising dollars. The second thing that's happening is the deprecation of third party cookies and some of the browsers have already implemented it. Like Safari and of course the big behemoth, Google. Still has not implemented and is sort of kicking the can down the road. But I think it's just something that people need to keep in mind. Again there is this changes in the privacy laws and changes in this ad tech ecosystem that you know, whether it comes today or you know, at the end of next year or in the future. I think privacy teams really need to keep it in mind. When it comes to the state privacy laws, recently the California Attorney General fined, or assessed a fine on a company, Sephora for the way they marketed to consumers and it was kind of a new, a new finding. Because there were some things in the law that weren't clear but what they made clear is that retargeting of advertising, putting Pixels, putting tags, et cetera on your website is considered the sale of data. And what that means is you have to, if you have business in California and you have data on, I can't remember exactly off the top of my head but we, again I can share all that information out with you after the podcast. You have to enable your customers to opt out of the sale of data which means you have to be able to sort of block those cookies before they fire. So you know, the challenging part is that we have GDPR where we all know you have to opt in to cookies. Now we have to enable the opt out. So there's just a lot of changes, both driven by regulation and technology coming.

- Yeah, I mean, when I listen to this and then also compare notes with what I already knew and what I've experienced over the past couple of years, it almost feels like from a marketer's perspective, especially a digital marketer's perspective, things have kind of gone back to where they were more than 10 years ago. We had a fairly limited toolbox. Digital toolbox, 10, 15 years ago and it was mostly emails and things like that and then you know, there was an explosion of advertising technology, retargeting, all kinds of stuff that you could do on social, organically and through paid channels and more or less, a lot of these have been stripped over the past few years and now we're moving back more to the basics. That's just how I see it.

- Yeah, yeah. Hopefully not all the way back, but yes.

- Hopefully not all the way back, but yeah.

- Yeah.

- But it's kind of, it is, it's something that a lot of people just have to take into account because it is changing quickly and a lot of things that we knew, that worked in a couple of years ago would not be working anymore or will be working differently. So we just have to be careful.

- Yeah, to be prepared.

- Yeah so that kind of leads into my next question. How can an organization, any kind of organization, become an exemplary guardian of customer privacy? How can they accomplish the things that, the challenges, they overcome the challenges that are coming, that you mentioned and at the same time, maybe still continue to be effective in terms of marketing and sales?

- So I think, you know it's interesting. There's a lot of talk in privacy about just make sure you know, the data you have, optimize the data that you're collecting, collect only what you need. So I think if you, if an organization starts to think in those terms rather than I'm gonna collect everything and kind of figure it out from there, what do I actually need? So as you're building an application for example, what is it that I actually need to get from that person? And collect only the minimum. So that's kind of the first step I think and that then, you know, if you're only collecting the minimum and you're securing the minimum, you're already taking a good step with privacy. So from a marketer's perspective, I think it's really important to start thinking about how do I build enough trust with you that you're willing to give me information? And what do I really need from you in order to market to you? Do I need to know your location? Do I need to know your IP address? Or are there, is there other information I can collect from you that benefits me in the way I sell to you and that also gives benefit to you. For example, there are makeup companies that ask questions about your skin tone and your age and what your needs are in order to suggest products and in that case, I'm learning about you as the makeup company and you're getting a benefit. So I think it's about minimizing the amount of data and also thinking about a fair exchange of data. So that I'm asking you for information that adds value to both of us. Me in the way I market to you but also you in the way you experience my product.

- I see. One thing that I'm sure is on the minds of folks that represent smaller organizations, startups or small and medium-sized businesses is how can they do this? I mean, GDPR and privacy in general for a large company is you know, you can create a department, you can have someone that's dedicated to this and you know, you can work through that but if you're a small company, you have a team of three or four marketers. All wearing multiple hats. How can you do that? So maybe we can go back to what you were mentioning earlier about WireWheel and how can products like WireWheel help manage customer privacy? What can be done?

- Yeah. So I think, you know, it's hard when you're a small company, for sure. But I think small companies you know, the benefit is, you can really start to think about it and I think this goes back to what we were talking about with the new regulations coming and new technologies. Start to think about, as a small company, maybe even as you're just starting out, how am I going to collect information? How am I going to collect the information? How am I gonna make sure I am adding value so that when Judy Gordon comes to your website and you're selling me a product, that I'm willing to give you the information. So products like WireWheel can help in a couple of ways. First like I said, and this is more for, I would say, for a large and small organizations. If you are covered by the California privacy regulations or the other state regulations and again, we'll have a link. But you know, where you can go and kind of understand. Then you will have to fulfill data requests and we can help you do that easily. You may have to create a report that you have to send to the regulator. Still kind of up in the air but they may. With the European Data Privacy Regulations you have to present a report and so you may need to do an assessment and create a report that you can send to the regulator and that's where we can help. And the last piece as you think about it, small company or kind of any company. Right now you're marketing, we're marketing to people. People are interacting with your product on all kinds of devices. On a computer or on a mobile phone app. Maybe you have a IOT device or a device like Alexa and they're telling you, consumers are telling you kind of what their preferences are and how they want to be communicated to and what they like and dislike. And consumers are giving you their privacy consents, their legal consents on all these devices and we found you know, big or large, companies come to us and say, "We're really having trouble managing all this. "Help us." And so we have a product that can help with that as well.

- I mean as you were talking about this, one thing that came to mind is there's an additional challenge, especially for my environment where I work because I'm in a B2B space. I'm targeting employees of companies and more and more people work remotely these days. So I may think that they are in a certain state because their organization is headquartered in that state or may have a location in that state but they may actually be in a completely different location. I mean perfect example is my company is based in Florida, I'm not based in Florida. I'm based out in the Washington D.C. area. But no one knows that. So I just think that this is just complicating things even more. Especially as you said, that there are different states with slightly different expectations and regulations.

- Yeah I mean I think for B2B the laws are different than for consumers. But having said that, and I don't think this is probably affects marketing that much. California does, will allow, starting Jan 1, the ability for employees to make requests about their data. So I can go to anyone, any place that I've worked and make a request and see what kind of information they have on me. Which is you know, can be quite onerous, you can imagine, for companies.

- Yeah.

- Okay, well thanks for explaining all these things and especially providing guidance as to what could be done in a relatively cost efficient way for companies that have smaller resources or limited resources. You know, one thing that I always try to do, seeing that my podcast, I want all the episodes to be educational in nature is I always like to highlight a few main takeaways that the audience should retain if you know, they can't remember anything else, three to six months later. If they think about this podcast episode, at least a couple of nuggets that they should remember. So let's get to that question. So what would you like our guests to remember the most? So I think number one, digital marketing is changing. Whether we like it or not, it's changing. Number two, so, we have to. It's changing, so we need to do something about it and one of the keys is to start thinking about customer privacy. Build a relationship with customers and collecting more first party data. So I think it's, what I would like our guests to remember the most is that it's important for us to start, us as marketers to start thinking ahead and thinking about how we can collect, we can build that trust with consumers and have, collect more first party data so that we're prepared as privacy regulations change and as advertising technology changes. Because it's five states today, I would expect there'll be more next year.

- Great, well thanks for wrapping this up and providing these key takeaways at the end Judy. One thing I wanted to mention. You said earlier that there'll be a few resources that you'll provide. I have at the bottom of the screen here a call to action to go to cerebrations.info which is the website for this podcast and for those of our listeners and viewers who are interested in finding these resources, if they go to the website, they can find an entry for the podcast episode and there we're gonna have the resources. So I just wanted to mention this. It's gonna be available online. So all this information, they can reference to later on. But thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate your joining me for my podcast episodes and I'm sure that our audience has benefited a lot from the conversation. Learned a few new things and yeah, I hope to host you again in another episode but once again, thank you very much.

- Thank you.