Identifying the right rental data consent – how a data broker can help you ensure your cold campaigns are compliant

Three square boxes stacked vertically on a sheet of white paper with a red tick in the top one, against a pale blue background. Image by Tara Winstead on Pexels

Recently I had a conversation with a large organisation about whether they could release data for third party mailings under the basis of legitimate interests. This was an audience who had opted in by giving their consent to receive mail from the organisation, but the perception was that legitimate interests was a lower scale consent and so moving to this basis with these people would be okay.  

In fact, all bases of consent (and there are six in total) hold equal importance – there is no scale. For marketing purposes however, we’re talking about two of them: consent and legitimate interests.

Consent vs legitimate interests

While consent is primarily used for digital marketing, it is possible to use it for direct mail. Under this basis, the data can still be supplied to a third party, but only if the third party is named at the outset.

Direct mail can also use legitimate interests. This is a more flexible basis that tells the consumer you intend to contact them with relevant communications, and you can also say you intend to supply their name and address to a third party for mailing or to receive a live phone call (providing there is no TPS/CTPS registration or objection).

Whether you use consent or legitimate interests depends on your purpose and the audience, and the consumer must always be told which legal basis is being used at the first point of contact. At this stage they must also be given the opportunity to “opt-out of any future marketing contact”.

What was interesting to me here, was that the organisation felt consent was stricter than legitimate interests and so there would be no problem moving toward what they perceived to be a weaker basis. This however is not the case, and you can’t swap an audience from one basis to another – the consent basis recorded when someone first interacts with you is the one you must then stick to.

In opting-in, these consumers had consented to being contacted solely by this particular organisation, as they had made no mention of any other brands that might contact the consumer. 

Assessing permissions

This got me thinking. What if this organisation had gone ahead and rented out their data? How likely would it be that those considering using it would probe enough to discover it wasn’t properly consented? The assumption is probably going to be that as the data is on the market, it must be legally consent compliant.

So how would you work out that it wasn’t? A starting point when renting data would be to look at their privacy policy to ensure that it not only clearly mentions sharing data with third parties but lists the categories of these organisations too. But there’s lot more to working out whether data is safe to use or not and it can be a complex issue to solve. 

How a data broker can help

This is where working with a data broker really adds value. For a start, a good broker will know the market and be able to source the best possible data for your requirements.

In addition, an experienced broker will take care of the due diligence that’s needed to ensure the data you rent is correctly consented, so you don’t risk a data protection breach.

They’ll not only know what questions to ask, such as how the data’s been sourced, but will review everything from privacy policies, and the permission statements the organisation uses when initially capturing the data, to mailing samples. They’ll also make sure the DMA’s compliance checklists (for list owner and user) and the data processing contracts are completed. It’s a process that can be quite onerous if you’re new to it, but one that a broker will be used to managing.

In addition, working with a data expert can help you get the most from the data you use by identifying selections within it with the greatest potential for your cause, helping you understand what does and doesn’t work with cold mail, and guiding you through testing phases and rollout.   

If you’d like to learn more about how Arc Data can help you source the right data for your cold mail campaigns – and use it well, please get in touch.