With the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) almost upon us, a lot of marketers anticipate several changes in how they market on the social network platform Facebook. After all, once it becomes active from May 25, 2018, EU-based companies and other companies across the globe that process EU residents’ personal data become affected by this regulation.
If you’re using Facebook marketing to promote your dropshipping business and the like, the GDPR affects your marketing techniques. After all, these sweeping protections have a huge impact on the way you use Facebook’s data in order to drive more audiences, target prospects, and store their data.
Here are some things to consider once the GDPR takes effect:
Facebook Marketing Will Have a New Opt-in Feature
Right now, Facebook operates by collecting and using your data to improve your overall experience as a user as soon as you agree to use it. They will then put you in specific demographics depending on how you behave in the social network as well as the other affiliate websites you use. Some of these include:
This changes once the GDPR becomes active. Now Facebook must ask their users for their permission in order for them to start collecting their data. The users now have the power to opt-out of this if they desire.
Another new power bestowed upon users is that they can now ask Facebook to export their data and give it to them in its entirety. Even if the user opts out of the data collection, they can still use Facebook without any impact on their user experience. When users opt in to a certain aspect of this feature, the social media platform can’t opt them into all new features.
What this means is that even if the user opts in to a new feature that allows Facebook to collect their information, they need to ask the users every time they release updates. In turn, the users can get asked several times yearly, depending on the number of updates Facebook releases in that course of time. The regulation also makes it clear that the purpose of data collection is exclusively for improving the user experience.
The GDPR Will Affect Your Data Control and Processing Capabilities
How will the GDPR impacts on Facebook marketing and ads? If you upload email lists on Facebook, then you’re considered as a data controller. As you do this process, you need to ensure that the data you control complies with the GDPR regulations. This only applies if you’re collecting the information of people residing in European countries.
What you need to know is that it doesn’t matter if your business doesn’t operate in the EU. You’re under the law’s jurisdiction as long as you have some data on EU citizens. So what this means is that you need to have transparency in terms of how you collect data and how you intend to use it at the very least.
Other things you need to show will include the users that agreed to opt-in to your data collection and how long you intend to hold their information. You need to ensure that you gave your users the ability to opt-out and give them access to their collected data when they demand it.
If you use the detailed targeting features within Facebook, you don’t need to worry about compliance. Facebook becomes the controller of data and it becomes its responsibility to ensure that the data you use is compliant with the regulations set by the GDPR.
The Facebook Lead Ads and Facebook Custom Audience Become More Complicated
When you run Lead Ads that ask for the users’ personal data or you upload on Facebook lists of users to create a Custom Audience these are the only times you become a data processor. What this means is that you need to maintain GDPR compliance when handling EU citizen data. Failure to do this can result in fines of up to 4% of the total revenue of your company.
When a user fills out the form on your lead ad, you and Facebook should inform your potential customers that you’re collecting their data. These ads require you to give a link to your business’s privacy policy on your website. A good way to ensure you’re compliant is to update your privacy policy on a regular basis.
When, on the other hand, you upload a list of customers from your database to Facebook to create a Custom Audience, you have to prove that you have already collected their consent on the use of their personal data for this kind of activity.
Facebook Will Upgrade Its Privacy Settings
Once the GDPR goes live, Facebook will launch a privacy center tool that functions like a central database. It allows the users to have the power to adjust the way their personal information gets collected and shared.
Aside from this, they’ll boost posts and become more transparent. The transparency increase applies to the type of data advertisers obtain for marketing purposes. What this means is that users will now know the type of data marketers use to gain a targeted audience.
The GDPR Extends to Instagram as Well
Also, keep in mind that Facebook owns Instagram. Due to this, Instagram must also be GDPR compliant at any given time. Thankfully, you don’t need to do extra steps to ensure that your Instagram ads are in order.
Instagram doesn’t require you to ask for more consent in order to use people’s information as a means of targeting an audience. The reason behind it is that there’s a continuing trend where this photo-centric platform avoided controversy as compared to Facebook. Also, it isn’t limited to this platform–Messenger and WhatsApp will follow the same path once GDPR takes effect.
Learn More About Facebook Advertising Today!
GDPR marketing will become important once it rolls out, especially since Facebook is still one of the most effective means to develop brands. The aim of the GDPR is business data protection, but it comes with the price of convenience. Once the regulations go live, you need to ensure that your data collecting techniques have GDPR compliance to ensure that you don’t get penalized.
If you’re a business trying to get an audience in the EU, you need to follow this set of regulations. Extending it to customers from other countries can count as good practice for your business.
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