A recent study was completed looking at European email marketers, and how consumers perceive them. The study was part of the effort to determine whether or not marketers are in compliance with an upcoming privacy law that will go into effect over the next two years. The results don’t look good for marketers. The report was completed by Edelman along with The University of Cambridge Psychometrics Center.
The report found that 71% of all consumers in the survey believe that brands use the data that they collect unethically. To make it worse, 78% responded that the risk of negative publicity is not sufficient to have brands behave better.
The study looked into other things too, including how likely people are to provide their to marketers. 58% said that they don’t provide email addresses to marketing pages, and they don’t download apps. The reason given is that they are worried about the risks associated with putting their personal information out there and it getting into the wrong hands.
This data will hopefully be used to encourage marketers to behave more ethically. Unfortunately, a few bad actors in the digital marketing industry can cause major problems for everyone. Public perception is that email marketers specifically, and digital marketing in general, is largely unethical, even though it is only a small percentage of people in the industry.
