• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 20, 2018

Want to slither through the tangled regulatory web? Use email. That’s the main takeaway of a Marketers Plan to Shift to New Marketing Channels Post ePrivacy, a study commissioned by the email service provider Mailjet and conducted by Morar Consulting.  

Email is now the top channel used by brands, with 58% saying they always use it and 29% using it often, the study reports. In contrast, only 43% always use cookie-based advertising, while 33% use it often. Facebook ads are further down the list.

And given the EU's ePrivacy restrictions on collecting cookie data, 77% plan to use email more.

But cookies aren’t going away — by those that use them. Some 63% do so to drive display ads, paid search and retargeting 

In addition, 55% deploy cookies to use in tandem with Google Analytics. That data is rated as the most important information by 31%.

Separate from General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Directive replaces the digital rules that took effect in 2012, and reflects the technological changes that have occurred since then.

Mailjet surveyed 400 marketers in the UK and France to determine the impact of the ePrivacy directive. Of that sample, 85% feel they know the difference between the ePrivacy Directive and GDPR.

Overall, 91% expect the pop-up rule in the Directive to cause a drop in global web traffic, but 57% think the falloff will be 10% or less. Such pop-ups block access to websites until visitors consent to cookie use.

Another issue is the use of third-party data. The survey found that 54% purchase third-party customer data. But the practice is 15% more common in France than the UK, and is routine among B2B respondents, particularly those in financial services (76%) and technology (61%).

Why do they buy outside lists? For 79%, it’s for marketing campaigns. And 70% cite sales prospecting.

That said, marketers feel the ePrivacy will be good for business in the end. Almost 60% say that they will become more transparent about the data they track on their websites — and this will lead to greater customer trust.

Another 56.81% say it will lead them to rely less on tactics like retargeting advertising and more on qualitative marketing.