With the rise of the internet and new media, businesses have changed and adapted their marketing strategies. One such example of a new marketing tool is lead magnets. Lead magnets are a popular form of advertising to add contact details and grow a mailing list with the ultimate goal of creating sales leads. But, are your lead magnets GDPR compliant?
These lead magnets can be in the form of free consultations, prize giveaways, PDFs, e-newsletters, ebooks, video tutorials, webinars and many more.
But did you know there are rules with lead magnets within the Data Protection laws? It’s true, not everyone realises the data protection implications. How you structure the lead magnet in order to comply with the data protection legislation is crucial.
Using a lead magnet to build an email list didn’t pose a problem five years ago. But since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in May 2018, it changed how lead magnets are used to grow an email list.
GDPR and Lead Magnets
Your website visitors are automatically added to your email list once they sign up for your lead magnet. But with the GDPR, and if your website users reside in the UK or European Union, you have to make the following changes to remain compliant:
First and foremost, the consent given by the web visitor has to be freely given and separate from the lead magnet and joining the email list.
Ultimately, you can add two different email lists of lead magnets: those who reside in the UK and EU and those who don’t.
Here is a question-answer example of options to comply with GDPR:
A question cropped up in one of the membership groups we are in recently. So we thought it would be helpful to get the right information out there. The question centered around data collection competitions. But the same rules apply to all lead magnets regardless of what the person is entering/receiving. The poster asked:
“I wonder if anyone has run any data collection giveaways etc., and can share any insights!
Have you ever run anything like this? I think it would be simple if I were just signing up to my own list, but for two? Any suggestions on how to do it in a GDPR-compliant way would be gratefully received. I’ve seen this from Juno Mag using Woo Box, which seems like it would do everything for me – anyone used it?”
Our answer was:
From a GDPR perspective, you will need to consider the following:
Under the GDPR, consent must be freely given to opt-in to a mailing list. You cannot legally add someone to your mailing list just because they’ve requested a free download, entered a prize giveaway, or any other form of lead magnet.
You can only ask for their email address to send them the content you are offering or confirm their entry into a prize draw. But you cannot send them any further emails unless they freely consent to be added to your mailing list by opting in.
Essentially the free content, entering the prize draw, has to be separate from opting into a mailing list.
The easiest way to deal with this is by having a separate tick box on the lead magnet inviting them to also sign up for the mailing list. If they freely consent, they tick the box. But if they don’t, then they still get the lead magnet, enter the prize draw etc.
The other way to deal with it is to ask them to opt-in within the body of the email you send to them with the lead magnet or confirmation of entering the prize draw.
However, we are unsure which is more effective from a marketing perspective. This is largely going to depend on your processes and the platform or software you use to deal with your lead magnet and marketing list.
What you should never do it “pre-tick” the opt-in box. This is a big no no and will mean you are in breach of the regulations.
Conclusion
Finally, complying with GDPR doesn’t mean losing sales leads. In fact, your email list will be full of subscribers. Those that have a genuine interest in your products or services and who will actually open and read your emails. However, you need to be aware of how you obtained the leads. Remember, consent must be freely given. This will ensure that you are complying with the legislation.
We hope the information we provided above answers your questions and shows clearly how to comply with the GDPR when using lead magnets.
If you are still unsure, please let us know. You can schedule a 15-30 minutes virtual consultation and have your questions answered.