As consumer behavior has continued to shift online, privacy concerns remain front and center. It’s no surprise that one of Gartner’s more recent strategic predictions highlights a growing trend: consumers are actively pushing back on how their data is collected and used in the digital marketing ecosystem.
Marketers today are navigating a complex and evolving privacy landscape. Regulations such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have now been joined by additional state-level laws and international frameworks. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework and Google’s phased rollout of Privacy Sandbox — replacing third-party cookies — have further limited the traditional tools marketers relied on to track and target users.
What’s more, consumers are increasingly using tools like VPNs, privacy browsers, and ad blockers to mask their behavior, reflecting a clear desire to reclaim control over their personal data. This evolution signals a broader cultural shift where trust, transparency, and consent are no longer optional — they’re expectations.
How marketers can prepare for the future of consumer privacy
To better understand their audiences while building trust, marketers must create digital experiences that are not only seamless and engaging, but also privacy-first. Your CMS can play a pivotal role in that transformation. Here are some key considerations:
- Invest in first-party data strategies by leveraging content, engagement, and user sign-ups to build direct relationships
- Use personalization tools responsibly to deliver relevant content without overstepping privacy boundaries
- Ensure your CMS supports compliance with evolving data protection laws across regions
- Make consent management and transparency part of the user experience to build long-term trust and loyalty
In a world where privacy is paramount, marketers who prioritize responsible data practices — and have the right technology foundation — will be best positioned to succeed. Let’s delve in deeper on a few other ways marketers can set expectations and build connections with their customers.
Adjust how you build trust
First and foremost, it’s essential that your target audience trusts you and your brand — if they do, they likely won’t feel inclined to manipulate the data they choose to share. This includes them feeling that their data is safe and that you’re not overstepping or abusing information-on-hand.
The death of the third-party cookie is already a forcing function in marketers adjusting their strategy for how they build both rapport and trust.
If you’re an organization and you want to prepare for this post third-party cookie world you’ve got to get started with managing your own data in a privacy-safe way and do consent management actively around your own data.
To this, an important step is embracing first-party data (i.e. the gold standard as it’s high quality AND the user has consented to sharing it). First-party data can be used to create audience segments and personalize content in a way that protects user privacy.
That way, marketers can get the best of both worlds with strong content marketing ROI that respects users’ privacy and earns and maintains their trust.
Don’t underestimate the power of personalization
The Brightspot CMS can collect first-party data, which supports adding user registration, authentication, profiles and affinity features in order to collect relevant data. Then, through the platform’s segmentation capabilities, CMS users can group audiences and deliver personalized content and curated experiences to the respective audiences across devices — with the first-party data rolling up into audience segments to better inform the message.
Brightspot also has modular content capabilities, which provides consistency and efficiency in the messages conveyed. Modular messages are reusable and repeatable, meaning the messaging stays consistent across segments and channels.
This trinity of capabilities — user registration and affinity features, segmentation and modular content — has many benefits, including speeding up the marketing team’s work and increasing messaging effectiveness with customers while also improving the end user’s overall experience.
I believe many businesses should focus predominantly on building better customer experiences, and they should start with that. Once they’ve done that they can then look at leveraging the tools that are out there to support it. How many times have you unsubscribed from an email that was well written had relevant content and was well timed? Never.
Invest in agile and adaptable technology
With all the various consumer data protection changes in the pipeline, the good news is that there are tools and technologies to help marketers adjust their strategies and ensure they’re responsibly using their consumers’ information.
The Brightspot CMS is API-first to make integrations easy — integrations that can help marketers easily maintain compliance and adjust to new guidelines. For example, Brightspot works with various Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) such as Tealium, which advocates for unification of first-party cookie data and can name site visitor attributes based on behaviors, which helps to create audience segments.
Our view is to work with people in two major areas around this subject. One is how do you think about creating the best content to get to your audience? So how do you create the right modular content, the right segmented content and then how do you measure the effectiveness of that to ultimately be a better marketer to the people you care about? Then secondly, when you select your best-of-breed tools, how do you integrate those seamlessly, so the workflow is still yours?
At Brightspot, it’s important that our flexible, future-forward CMS supports marketers through this next wave of consumer data protection changes. We keep a pulse on all these shifts, and we’re here to help you adjust your strategy so that your consumers continue to trust your brand and feel connected to your message.
