Permission is now second only to cash, and that's a good thing for publishers as they increasingly use their direct relationships with audiences to build better customer experiences. Back at Piano Academy this past March, we were joined by Hanna Waldenmaier, VP of Global Partnerships at our addressability partner Usercentrics, for a discussion on how to turn consent into competitive advantage. Read below for the highlights, and watch the video above for the full presentation. 

Your website is compliance risk #1

Anyone can detect and document breaches on your website within seconds and even provoke a warning very easily and without much technical expertise, Waldenmaier said. This leaves you super vulnerable. While there are extensions and different tools that can help you discover which kind of third-party requests are coming from your website, it’s a big legal risk to use them. 

The GDPR and other legal regulations state that for web technologies like cookies, pixel fingerprints, plugins and really any tools that collect and process personal data, you need a legal basis such as consent. And the data is not necessarily about an email address or telephone number — even a specific characteristic like an IP address can count as personal data. It's important to ask for consent and preference and permission in order to process that data.

The 3 reasons you need consent management 

Companies who professionalize consent management secure the trust of their users and can then turn privacy into a competitive advantage. The opt-in rate is the new KPI, as Waldenmaier put it. The three main reasons you need consent management are:

1. because of the global legal situation referenced above;
2. to make sure that the data is available, and that you're gathering clean data; and
3. to better optimize your subscription and marketing efforts across your channels. 

This especially comes to bear as publishers and brands move to a first-party basis for identity as third-party cookies go away. As we’ve talked about before, you need consent to collect that data. The more consent you get, the more data you can collect, leading to more personalized content and offers for your users. 

How to optimize opt-in rate

You can gather more consent by making some design and technical adjustments to your web properties depending on your audience — you can even show some personality. There are things like making sure that the consent banner is not disturbing what else is on the page, using textual influence and offering incentives like newsletter sign-ups. You can also ask for consent along the user journey by requesting it “just in time,” such as when a user wants to see a specific video, a strategy Piano also recommends for collecting zero- and first-party data in general. The value exchange you provide should start at that very first moment of request for consent. 

Shifting from third-party data to first-party data provides the perfect opportunity to get your consent strategy under control. Companies are going to get better-quality data that they can do more with — which will benefit the publisher, the brand and the consumer in the end.