Marketing Data Privacy in 2025: Building Privacy-First Strategies for Marketers

Think of three marketing channels. 

Got them in mind? 

We’re willing to bet you didn’t picture newspapers, radio, or flyers. That’s because the vast majority of marketing these days is digital (social media, websites, email, etc.) And at the heart of every digital marketing channel lies one essential ingredient: data.

You must balance personalization, targeting, and data-backed marketing with data protection. Adopting privacy-first principles can help you stay compliant with regulations, maintain customer relationships, and safeguard the trust that’s essential to your work. 

What Is Data Privacy in Marketing?

For marketers, data privacy means ensuring all personal information that’s collected during or used for marketing activities is handled according to the preferences of the person it belongs to. 

For example, when a user signs up to your email newsletter, the form they use to submit their information should include a checkbox for them to opt into marketing communications from your organization. Even though you have their information, you can’t send that to another organization to do whatever they like with it; the user has only given permission to you to contact them with marketing communications.

In general, marketing data privacy centers around obtaining proper consent to collect and use data. Equally important is providing notice to customers that communicates why you want to collect their data, what will happen to it, and what rights they have. There are exceptions, but the vast majority of the time, the safest, most compliant, and often easiest way to process consumer data legally is by providing them with the appropriate notice and consent.

Why Is it Important to Respect Data Privacy in Marketing?

Maintaining data privacy isn't just a respectful courtesy; it's the law. As customer data has become increasingly important to digital marketing strategies, a number of global laws have emerged to regulate its use. And not adhering to these can have serious consequences, both legally and reputationally. Fail to follow the rules regarding personal data, and you may find yourself facing monetary fines, injunctions, lawsuits, and other legal consequences. If you’re curious about how often this takes place or what regulators are prioritizing, you can check in our Data Privacy Enforcement Tracker.

Even worse than financial penalties, though, is the damage you could do to customer relationships.  

People are more likely to engage with your brand if they feel confident that you’ll protect their information, so respecting data privacy helps you build stronger, lasting connections with customers. It also strengthens the effectiveness of your campaigns–consumers are more likely to offer up their information (leading to more accurate insights and successful results) if they know it will be handled responsibly. 

Cisco’s Data Transparency’s Essential Role in Building Customer Trust survey revealed that 81% of respondents believe that the way an organization treats personal data is indicative of how it views and respects its customers. Unsurprisingly, consumers are reluctant to hand their data over to a company they believe doesn’t respect them.

The bottom line? It’s well worth taking a privacy-first approach to your marketing activities.

Data Privacy Regulations: Navigating Global Compliance

The idea of protecting data privacy can seem a little vague at first, but that’s what regulations are there for. Rather than being a threatening, confusing presence looming over your head, they actually provide useful frameworks to help you prioritize privacy operations. 

So, what guidelines do you need to follow? There are many data privacy laws all relating to different locations, industries, and activities. Here are some of the main ones that are likely to apply to you:

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

Let’s start with the big fish. The GDPR is probably the most influential and important data protection and privacy law enacted to date. Since taking effect in 2018, the regulation has governed how companies collect, use, share, and secure data from EU residents, even if the company is based outside the EU. 

The main thing that the GDPR demands is that companies must obtain explicit consent from users before collecting their data (e.g., through cookies; technically, consent is just one of six legal bases you can rely on for data collection, but it’s almost going to be the legal basis you use as a marketer). It also grants data subjects (i.e., the person whose data you’ve collected) eight basic privacy rights, which can be exercised via a data subject access request (DSAR).

What are the consequences of not complying with these rules? They can be significant, with fines reaching up to 20 million euros or 4% of your global turnover (whichever is highest). 

Obviously, this is worth avoiding. Learn more about the requirements of the GDPR and ensure you’re in line with our GDPR Compliance Checklist.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)

Rather than having an overarching federal data privacy law, the United States has state-specific protections to regulate the use of personal information in marketing. The first, best-known, and most important of these is the CCPA. 

While this law came into effect in 2020, it has since been amended and expanded by the CPRA, enforced since 2023. When a source refers to the CCPA, it almost always refers to the CCPA as amended by the CRPA. Similar to the GDPR in the EU, the CCPA applies not just to businesses located within California, but to anyone doing business within the state. 

The CCPA is distinct from other state privacy laws not only by being the first, but also because it’s the only state to create a specific enforcement agency for the law (known as the California Privacy Protection Agency, or CPPA), where other states defer enforcement to their Attorney General (AG). In California, both the CPPA and the AG can enforce data privacy law, but businesses can’t be penalized by both.

So, how does the CCPA differ from the GDPR other than its jurisdiction? The main variation is in its approach to user consent. 

Unlike the GDPR, which has a strict opt-in approach to data collection, US state-level privacy laws (including the CPRA/CCPA) use an opt-out model instead. This means they can collect and use user data without them initially agreeing to it, but must give the option to opt out with a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link prominently displayed on the website. 

Its other main difference is how it structures penalties for violations, with fines of up to $7,500 per intentional violation or $2,500 for unintentional breaches. Most other US privacy laws follow this structure.

Other US State Privacy Laws 

While the CCPA is arguably the most significant US privacy law, one of the challenges with achieving privacy compliance in the US is the patchwork of different privacy laws that different states have adopted.

Let’s compare the CPRA/CCPA to another prominent US data privacy law—this time based in the state of Virginia. Passed in 2021, the VCDPA has many similarities to California’s data privacy law, including being applicable to any business collecting data from state residents. It’s slightly narrower in scope, however. For example, the VCDPA only applies to companies that handle data from at least 100,000 consumers or earn over half of their revenue from selling personal data.

On the consumer rights front, the VCDPA grants Virginia residents the same rights as the CCPA and GDPR, including the ability to access, correct, delete, and obtain copies of their information. 

Its consent model, however, is slightly different. 

Where GDPR requires users to opt in and CPRA lets them opt out, the VCDPA takes an in-between approach: you can collect most data without prior permission, but sensitive information still requires a clear opt-in.

These characteristics vary across states. Some US privacy laws have higher or lower applicability thresholds. Some allow for sensitive data processing without explicit opt-in consent. Some have strict requirements around assessments. A full overview of these differences is outside of the scope of this blog, so if that’s what you’re looking for, we recommend checking out our US Data Privacy Laws Guide.