The world of digital marketing is preparing to experience major upheavals with the entry into force of the CNIL recommendations on the collection of consent. Seen by many as a new constraint, these rules can on the contrary be an opportunity for e-merchants.
This is the meaning of history. In any case, that of marketing. After mass marketing and personalized marketing, the time has come for consent marketing. What are we talking about ? Marketing that consumers accept because it serves and respects them. Admittedly, this is not always the case today. But tomorrow, any collection of personal data must be subject to the explicit and informed consent of Internet users. This provision should lead e-merchants to redesign their acquisition strategy.
Consent is at the center of our social debates, and that’s good. #MeToo movement, vaccine against Covid-19, image rights …: the examples go far beyond marketing and e-commerce. These are no exception to the rule and must be placed at the center of the “I” (the consumer): respect for private life (what I am), transparency (what I understand), integrity (what I can be confident), proximity (what I know), customer reviews (what I say).
The regulations, with the entry into force of the CNIL recommendations at the end of March, therefore “reframe” e-commerce to respond to this trend and give it a new direction: “consent commerce”. Often, it is from the constraint that original and innovative solutions are born. This is a challenge for the e-commerce sector in the coming months.
E-merchants have everything to gain by practicing a peaceful trade, which provides a service to the consumer, according to his desires and needs. It is about offering supportive marketing that places customer satisfaction and experience at the heart of the process, moving from hidden data capture to a consented exchange, from a monologue to a conversation. A conversation as a prerequisite for conversion. But conversing implies a certain closeness. And if, by nature, e-commerce (the ultimate form of distance selling) cannot boast of geographical proximity to consumers, it must find other ways of being close.
Affiliation actors are already helping brands to develop this proximity. Affiliation is an economic model which makes it possible to remunerate a business contribution linked to a service provided to consumers. These services include finding information on products, comparing prices, making savings (discount vouchers), building up a kitty during purchases (cashback), but also collecting good recommendations or ideas. By providing merchants with the close relationship that they have been able to create through their services, affiliates contribute to the enrichment of the brands / consumers conversation, without collecting personal data, in accordance with the recommendations of the Cnil.
If affiliation aims to be the cleanest acquisition method, and therefore the most “Cnil”, it is because it offers solutions in line with consumer aspirations: controlling their choices, feeling respected, protected, be properly informed… These new consumer mantras can upset or even frighten e-commerce players, but they cannot be ignored. Today, the challenge therefore lies in the ability of brands to give power back to the consumer, who, in any case, will take it back by one means or another. The craze for second hand, for local businesses on a human scale, the attraction for responsible commerce are strong signs of this trend. And everyone has every interest in moving towards a consensual trade, a trade that we “feel together”, a peaceful trade and, dare it, a joyful trade!
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