Why should marketers be excited by privacy regulation and consent management?

Gathering the right privacy and investor-type consent is vital for asset managers

Key points:

• We looked at the top 100 global asset management sites, all from a UK user location, to see how they managed privacy consent as well as investor-type consent
• Active consent is likely to be regarded as a much more privacy friendly approach to consent by privacy regulators
• To meet GDPR requirements there has been a shift to more sites offering either a decline button or the option to make specific category level choices via a banner

With ever-changing regulatory demands for site owners to adhere to, thinking strategically about gathering the right consent is vital. Consent rates affect analytics and measurement, site engagement and the ability to reach users via marketing, so a lot depends on the strategy you choose.

Major changes to privacy regulation have already taken place in many places, such as in Europe (GDPR) and California (CCPA) and are expected in New York. We may potentially also see a Federal US privacy law. So now is the time to get ahead on your consent approach to ensure compliance while boosting engagement and opt-in rates.

Consent should be looked at in the same way the entire user journey is considered: making it easy and clear for a user to opt in while meeting all regulatory responsibilities. This will help increase the rate of analytics coverage of your users, reduce bounce rates and help support marketing activation at a later stage. In an earlier article, we explained how major industry evolutions have affected the accuracy of analytics data.

The asset management take on consent

To help understand where asset management site owners sit in terms of consent management, we conducted some research. We looked at the top 100 global asset management sites, all from a UK user location, to see how they managed privacy consent as well as investor-type consent.

Consent banner

More than three-quarters of global asset managers have a standalone banner for cookie consent, while only 12% have integrated their cookie consent into the investor-type banner. Worryingly, six asset managers did not have any means of collecting consent for cookies at all.

The Fundamental Media view: Integrating cookie consent into the investor-type consent banner will reduce clicks and improve the user journey but should only be done if all the regulatory requirements can be met.

Implied vs. active consent

Active consent could be regarded as much more in line with up-to-date privacy regulation, where the user makes a clear definable action when giving consent. However, 21% of asset managers are still utilising implied consent.

 The Fundamental Media view: Implied consent could be risky for asset managers in respect to privacy regulations where active opted-in consent is a requirement.

Cookie banner design

Following GDPR, many designs of cookie consent banners have come to the fore. We have categorised typical features to help illustrate which ones have been adopted.

A third of asset managers are still relying on browser-level settings to opt out (i.e. the site suggests that, to opt out, the user has to go into the browser settings and clear cookies), while slightly more than half presented the user with a category-level management functionality and 15% offered a button to decline all tracking.

The Fundamental Media view: To response to GDPR requirements there has been a shift to more sites offering either a decline button or the option to make specific category level choices via a banner. This is likely a more privacy friendly approach, especially compared to only offering browser-level settings to prevent tracking.

Investor-type consent

Due to strict financial regulation, it is vital that asset managers understand what type of investor is visiting their site. Ensuring that this is done smoothly is crucial in encouraging users to engage with site content. Helping a user opt in promptly should help reduce bounce rates.

Nonetheless, slightly less than half of asset managers have managed to create an investor-type capture with just one click, while all the others require two or more clicks.

The Fundamental Media view: Every unnecessary click will reduce the chances of gathering accurate data and nurturing engaged users. Asset managers should aim to streamline the process where possible, while maintaining accuracy.

So what next?

If you would like help understanding the range of approaches to consent management, the pros and cons of each and what best practice looks like, please get in touch and we can take you through the research in more detail and tailored to your website.

This research was conducted by Fundamental Media using a Chrome browser on a Windows laptop. All previous browsing history was cleared as well as all first- and third-party cookies. The research was conducted in February 2021.

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