In the marketing industry, businesses often work with first-party data. This type of data is data directly from your business customers, which contains their sensitive data such as bank details and direct contact information. For this reason, these digital marketing agencies must ensure that any information they are storing is securely protected from unauthorized access to prevent the possibility of a cyber-attack. Below, we will unpack how digital marketing agencies can protect their business data.
The Importance of Data Security in Marketing
Any top digital agency must take the necessary steps to protect the standard data collected from Google Analytics — a marketing analytics tool many agencies use. This data contains sensitive customer information, like gender, interests, and age. In addition to this, these marketing agencies also need to protect data which includes sensitive information such as login details facilitating access to the control panels and front end of their site, profits and earnings data as well as confidential marketing strategies. If this data becomes compromised by a hacker or competitor, there could be serious consequences for the agency responsible for keeping the information safe and result in harm to the growth of the business overall.
Data security is of the utmost importance, especially today, where advanced methods to mount successful cyber attacks exist and are a real threat. Marketing agencies usually hold confidential information of both their customers’ and clients’ businesses, which — in the wrong hands — could result in data breaches and loss of trust in the business. Both are severe consequences directly impacting business growth and people’s livelihoods.
There are many examples of famous incidents of data leaks from major companies however the largest data breach happened in 2013 which led to over 3 billion Yahoo users having their personal information leaked over 3 years following a cyberattack, this is avoidable.
How To Protect Business Data
Restrict Unnecessary Data Collection
One of the first things you can do as a marketing agency to reduce the risk of leaking customer information is to restrict the amount of data you collect and store. By being selective with the type of information you are gathering and storing, the consequences of a cyber attack are reduced, with less sensitive information falling into the hands of someone with malicious intent. There are multiple ways you can achieve this, first of all, you can set clear data collection objectives by identifying the key information you need to store as a business, for example, a company in the e-commerce industry may only need payment information of the customer as well as either address and name. Data collection software such as Layerise, also exists which allows companies to organize the data they collect so they can streamline the process and be selective with the type of information they store.
In addition, many clients may feel put off if they must give too much personal information that they find unnecessary to share such as browsing history and social media profiles. This can reduce the number of customers choosing to work with your marketing agency, resulting in potential trust issues with current customers. So, it is always a good idea to allow the customer to have a choice when deciding whether to provide personal details.
Use Data Encryption
If you are storing sensitive data of any kind as a business, then using data encryption to secure the information is essential. Data encryption is a failsafe if a data breach occurs in your business. Even if an outside party gains access to the data you have stored, they will be unable to decipher what any of it means. This means that the information is useless to anyone other than the company holding the decryption key.
Keep Up to Date on Regulations
Another critical consideration to keep in mind while storing sensitive customer and client information is to keep up to date on data protection regulations and privacy laws. By taking the necessary time and steps to ensure that you understand the latest requirements concerning data regulation, you can ensure that your data-gathering processes and marketing strategy align with the current laws. Some examples of new requirements by the General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) include the need to keep a record of all processing activities as well as providing a Privacy Notice which is more detailed whilst collecting personal information. You can see all current and new regulations and rules by going to the GDPR website.
Perform Regular Data Audits
Performing regular data audits as a marketing agency is crucial in monitoring the type of information you are storing and the purpose for which it is being stored. This allows your marketing agency to make important decisions about potential changes that need to be made to data selection, ensuring that only necessary information is stored. In addition to this, performing regular data audits is required by data privacy laws and the General Data Protection Regulation.
Infrastructure Monitoring
Infrastructure monitoring enables you to look at how the components of your network function. This includes any device that has access to the network and the endpoints, which are likely targets by hackers due to being more vulnerable. By performing infrastructure monitoring effectively, any issues that arise will be alerted and immediately sent to the team in charge of solving problems related to the network. By constantly looking for vulnerabilities in the network and acting quickly to fix any issues, the risk of a successful cyber attack and data breach can be reduced significantly. Software used for infrastructure monitoring, such as Dynatrace, can be used to detect suspicious activity through monitoring network traffic and system logs which can be addressed quickly to prevent a potential data breach.
Protect Your Company’s Data Now
So there we have it. We’ve shared some of the best ways digital marketing agencies can protect their business data. It is in agencies’ best interest to take the steps to make their data storage as secure as possible. Not only will this lead to more trust between the business and the customer, but it will also reduce the risk of sensitive information falling into the hands of competitors who can use it to harm the growth and success of your company.
