A recent report published by consent management platform Quantcast Choice has revealed that, for European Union (EU) domains an average consent rate over 90 percent is being experienced.
The signifigance of this is further emphasized when it is considered that the San Francisco-based organization is the most widely implemented GDPR consent solution among top US and UK sites. However there are a few provisos to take into account with this news.
The result reported, higher than 90 percent consent rate, is actually the rate averaged across EU-based web domains that provided consent screens to all visitors, including those with European Union IP addresses. There was no further breakdown of the results for visitors specifically from the US or with non-EU registered IP addresses or those who consented to some aspects but not to other. So the reported rate just included both those who said yes to everything and those who said yes to some things.
However, Quantcast were able to state that around 81 percent of all users said yes to everything. The remaining 8 percent said yes to some things.
Despite the fact that Quancast’s consent solution supports about 9,000 unique domains worldwide, the company was unable to give a specific figure on the consent rate recorded by EU-based domains included in the 81 percent.
The revelation published by Quncast also significant as it comes in the aftemath of an earlier report in July by publishing and performance marketing platform Purch which revealed the user consent rate for EU-based visitors to their site was about 70 percent, for at least some use of personal data for marketing.
Quantcast’s head of product and privacy Somer Simpson told me she had been expecting something in the 60 to 70 percent range. She said “Equally, advertisers need to know whether the audiences they are targeting have consented and typically find those audiences to be more valuable. The more forward-thinking companies on both sides have already taken action, and we’re now seeing a larger number wake up to the fact that they need to adapt.”
The results of this poll follow on from a earlier survey result, from Quantcast, that indicated that 33% of global chief marketing officers are of the opinion that utilizing data to target individual consumers will be a top strategic priority over the next three years. This is depsite the fact that the result of the same survey show that 29% of those in that role are fearful of suffering a large scale data breach.
Following the introduction of GDPR on May 25 companies now possible possible penalties up to 4% of global revenue or €20m, whichever figure is higher.
Speaking to technogy website The Drum Mark Keddie, global data protection officer, at Dentsu Aegis said:“As petabytes of data flow through marketing departments, it’s no surprise that chief marketing officers identify data breach or misuse as the number one strategic risk.
“The reputational and financial impacts for getting it wrong are well-documented. The subsequent opportunity-cost when an organisation loses confidence in its ability to manage and use data responsibly should not be underestimated.
“There’s a significant dividend that can be delivered through the responsible use of data, but marketers will continue to be held accountable as they come to terms with GDPR and as law makers – most recently in California – ratchet-up obligations on business and organisations in general.”