Month: May 2012

I feel I must start this post with a disclaimer: “The content of this post is very much my opinion, and although I have done my best to state how I think this will affect real businesses in the real world, it is NOT legal advice, and should not be considered as such.” Next week (May 27th 2012 to be precise)  sees another EU law come into force. The law in question is the ” Regulation 6 of the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003″ or “The Cookie Law”. On the face of it, regulation 6 states that if your site sets cookies on a user’s computer/smartphone/device then you must obtain their permission before you set them. Ow! But before we get too excited, we need to look at what the law it trying to protect against, and the detail of what it says. I believe that the law is trying to ensure that websites which collect personal data to be used for marketing purposes (eg serving targeted adverts), must obtain people’s permission before doing so. But cookies have many uses outside of this, most of which have no privacy issues whatsoever (for example analytics that track web usage anonymously, and do not contain any private data). Although both of these uses fall under the new law, I would hope that the ICO would focus on sites  using and abusing the former, rather than those using the latter, and my experience tells me that this will be the case. I recommend that you read ICC UK Cookie guide –  by the International Chambers of commers (ICC UK) on the subject. The guide is not long, is clearly written, and I believe gives a good analysis of how the new regulations should be viewed in the real world.

But what do you need to do?

If you are concerned, the first thing to do is to download and digest the guide. Secondly, talk to your web developer (if it’s us, we are happy to chat this through with you) and ask them how cookies are used on your site if at all. I would also make the following suggestions:

1. If your site has functionality that requires users to create an account and to log in (eg an e-commerce site), make sure that you require users to agree to your sites terms and conditions when they create an account, and ensure that those terms and conditions contain the consent to collect & store cookies.
2. If you use a “re-marketing service” for example Google re-marketing an another form of web advertising targeting visitors either on your site or after they have left it, then you will need to make visitors aware of this, and gain their consent to do so. The ICC Guide gives some fairly clear advice on how to respond if you fall into this category.

A Word About Analytics One of the most prevalent uses of cookies is Google Analytics. It’s use allows the anonymous tracking of visitors to a website in order to get usage & generic visitor data.  The cookies used by Google Analytics fall under the new law, and thus require express consent before they are set. Therefore, any site using Google Analytics after May 27th, and not obtaining opt in from users will technically be in breach of the new regulations. However the following statements put out by the ICO: “Although the Information Commissioner cannot completely exclude the possibility of formal action in any area, it is highly unlikely that priority for any formal action would be given to focusing on uses of cookies where there is a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals.” and “Provided clear information is given about their activities we are highly unlikely to prioritise first party cookies used only for analytical purposes in any consideration of regulatory action.” Suggest that it is unlikely that they will prosecute sites for using Analytics, especially if you state clearly that you are doing so on your site. To this end, we have added a “cookie usage” page to our site. You are welcome to copy this and adapt this for your own use. Conclusion In the real world, unless your use of cookies falls into category 4 (according to the ICC guide) in that they are used to target & manipulate advertising, then a making it clear what cookies you are using, how you are using them and a rewording of your Terms & Conditions/Privacy statement should cover it. Again, the ICC guide give suggestions as to wording for different circumstances. I also believe that the ICO is reasonable, and will be looking to use persuasion rather than prosecution to enforce this, so in the unlikely event that you are picked up for a breach of the regulations, it is likely to be in the form of a nice letter suggesting that you look at and review your practices rather than a court summons! This said, I will finish by repeating my caveat that this is not legal advice. So if you are concerned if the detailed legalities then I would recommend talking to your legal advisor. Please note: this article refers to the impact of regulation 6 on websites and web marketing. Potential impact on email marketing will be considered in a future post.

Although a big focus of BSA Marketing’s work is helping you keep in touch with people you already know, there is no question that email marketing offers potential to make an initial contact as well. We regularly receive enquiries from people looking to use email as a cost-effective alternative to the traditional cold mailshot. A key issue for this type of project is getting hold of a target contact list which includes email addresses and is of appropriate quality. I am not going to go into the legalities of email marketing here as the rules are complex and, to a great extent, untested (call me if you wish to discuss) but needless to say, you must make sure that whatever your list source, you comply with the regulations. Interestingly, traditional Business to Business marketing list brokers have been quite slow to develop a strong email list offering with many of their lists few, or no, email addresses. Where their lists do include emails, costs are high. We recently sourced a list for a client who was looking for SME businesses in the North West of England (quite a broad spec!). The first list we found (from an established broker) contained 12000 records with email addresses – but was going to cost almost £5000 to rent. So are there any alternatives? Most of you will have received emails from a new generation of email list brokers who seem to offer big lists for (relatively) small prices. Continuing our search for SMEs in the North West we received an email from one of these specialist brokers offering 19000 records of North West SME businesses for less than £500 – 50% more data for 10% of the cost! Can this be for real? The short answer is YES! – but beware -all is not quite what it seems and you have some work to do. Here are some hints and tips for searching for B2B email lists: Before you buy: OK, so you have found a list source that looks like it fits the bill. Before you get your credit card out:

1. Does the company have a UK address and landline telephone number? If not, don’t bother going any further
2. Do a Google search on the company. If people have had bad experience, you may well find negative comments or reviews.
3. Talk to the broker! A quick phone call both confirms the listed number works and gives you an idea of how they operate. Do they sound professional?
4. What are the terms of use? Are you renting data for one-time or multiple use or are you free to use the data as you wish?
5. Ask how they gather data. A professional company should regularly check data and make sure they get the necessary approvals to use the data.
6. Ask for some sample data – and check it! The broker has complete control to give you the sample they want to but again it shows willing.

If you are comfortable that the broker and data are sound, maybe now you can consider buying the list. Remember you will almost certainly be asked to pay up front – though this is standard practice with most data companies. After you have bought the data: You will probably download the list or receive it attached to an email in a spreadsheet format. This can be useful as there are some more steps you should take to maximise the data quality:

1. Check that all the records have email addresses! In practice some may not but it is important that the number of email addresses fits with what you thought you were buying.
2. Check for duplicate addresses.
3. Check for web-email or ISP addresses (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, BTInternet, Virgin, Sky, Gmail etc) Our advice would be to delete these and not use them.
4. Randomly select a few records and check the data – you can easily get a company website URL from the right hand part of an email address.

At this stage, if you have any doubts, I would seriously consider not using the list. Yes you have paid your money but I’d go back to the broker. You may or may not get anywhere! If you have followed our suggestions above, you may well find your list has shrunk somewhat (maybe by 50% or more) but the list will be better quality, more appropriate and, if you take all these factors into account at the start, still represents value. Now all you need to do is design your email, send it and wait for the response…. ….one final thing. If you decide to give this type of email marketing a whirl, PLEASE don’t use your regular email client. Use a proper email marketing system designed for the job – and make sure their terms allow you to use your list. By no means all do. If you have any questions or wish to discuss anything, get in touch    

Gmail is a great tool, but there are times when you may want to use some of Google’s other products without having resort to GMail. A good example is if you want to add analytics to your website (and you should), but want to use an address on your corporate email account (you@yourcompany.com) as the login. and the email that receives all the account notifications. To do this, you need a Google account, and although Google do not make this obvious, it is still possible to create an account on their system without creating a GMail account. You can do this via the following link: Create an account without a Gmail Account