I received an email today promoting a Google remarketing service. This is a marking tool whereby visitors to your website are subsequently targeted with ads for your business on other websites that they visit – clever! In itself, there is nothing wrong with this, and remarketing can be a powerful marketing tool. (If you want to know more about it please feel free to get in touch). The issue that I have with Google’s email is that it stated “remarketing is fully compliant with the new EU regulations on cookie usage”. Whilst their service may well be designed to comply with the new law, I think the claim could be a little misleading as it is the use of cookies in applications like re-marketing on which the new law is focused. If you are going to undertake a remarketing campaign, then it will be necessary to obtain a cookie opt in from web users to stay within the new regulations. This is actually not as scary as it sounds, especially if your website is built in WordPress as there is an excellent, and cost effective solution for EU cookie law compliance though use of the simple cookiecuttr plug-in (we use this on the bsamarketing.com site) Even if you are not using WordPress you can still use this excellent solution, (although it will require a small amount of coding to implement). Full details of how to implement it are here. In the real world I suspect that a modest re-marketing campaign is unlikely to draw the wrath of the Information Commissioner, (usual “I am not a lawyer” caveats apply) but with some great and simple compliance solutions out there, if you are going to use re-marketing as a tool to help your promote business, better to be safe than sorry!
