Beware the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse!

Just about all digital marketing channels are less effective than they were a year ago, largely because of privacy regulations, judging by the State of B2C Conversational Marketing, a study released Thursday by Spectrm. Of the B2C marketers polled, 90.75% have seen channels decline, including these: Email marketing — 10.2%; Influencer marketing — 11.5%; SMS marketing — 10.2%; Social media marketing — 16.7%; Retargeting — 8.0%; Search advertising — 8.2%; Display advertising — 10.0%; SEO — 8.0%; Affiliate marketing — 7.7%; Skip: we’ve not seen any channels decline — 9.2%. One problem is privacy — 59% of marketers say that the issue and the regulations have caused channels to become less effective. And 41% said collecting zero-party data is more important than ever to them, while 29% disagree.

LocaliQ, Gannett Co., Inc.’s Digital Marketing Solutions business, successfully achieved Service Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type II audit and certification, which validates LocaliQ’s robust controls, effective risk management and adherence to industry best practices. LocaliQ is an all-in-one marketing platform used by local businesses across the country to attract, convert and retain customers. The certification provides a greater level of trust for both current and prospective business partners and customers after an extensive review which evaluated LocaliQ’s control design, implementation and operating effectiveness. Designed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the SOC 2 Type II auditing procedure examines a company’s commitment to data privacy and information security standards through five key criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. Obtaining SOC 2 Type II certification demonstrates rigorous safeguards protecting clients’ sensitive information and reassures stakeholders that client data is in capable hands.

JICMAIL’s diary-based data captured from a panel of one thousand households every month reveals that in Q2 2023: *Mail continued to prove its value as a commercially effective marketing channel for advertisers with 9% growth year on year in the proportion of mail items prompting commercial actions among consumers, up to a level of 30.5%. *Mail proved its effectiveness at all stages of the customer journey: from driving brand discovery through brand discussions (up to 16% of mail in Q2 2023 from 14% in Q2 2022); to customer engagement through website visits (8% of mail); through to purchase fulfillment (up to 5% from 4% last year). *Given the continued challenges that the UK high-street faces in the cost-of-living crisis, it was noteworthy that mail recorded a 30% increase in effectiveness at driving consumer footfall in store.