In today's digital world, where customer contacts and interactions take place across multiple channels, it is crucial for companies to engage in effective marketing. Marketing automation tools are playing an increasingly vital role in this effort. However, while marketing automation offers many benefits, it is equally important to ensure the security of personal data. In this blog article, we would like to explain what marketing automation is, what benefits it offers to companies, and how you can protect your personal data in HubSpot with the eperi® Gateway.

WHAT IS MARKETING AUTOMATION?

Marketing Automation refers to the use of software platforms like HubSpot to automate marketing activities and personalize customer dialog. With marketing automation, companies can generate, nurture and convert leads into paying customers by creating targeted campaigns, setting up automated workflows and measuring the success of their marketing activities. According to a study by Nucleus Research, the use of marketing automation has led to a 148% increase in user productivity, lead generation, and customer retention for surveyed companies.   

Benefits of marketing automation for businesses:                                                            

• Increase efficiency: By automating repetitive tasks, marketing teams can use their time and resources more efficiently and focus on strategic initiatives.
• Customization: Marketing automation enables the creation and delivery of personalized content and offers to target customers in order to improve the customer experience.
• Lead Nurturing: Automated workflows enable companies to increase engagement of potential customers with relevant information and offers to support the sales process.
• Data-driven decisions: Marketing automation tools provide detailed analytics and insights that enable companies to measure the success of their marketing campaigns and make informed decisions.  

WHICH DATA PROTECTION CHALLENGES ARISE FROM THE USE OF MARKETING AUTOMATION?

One of the biggest challenges when using marketing automation is data protection. Following the annulment of the Privacy Shield agreement in July 2020 by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the transfer of personal data to the US is no longer in accordance to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). US law allows US authorities to access all data held and controlled by US companies without a judicial warrant. This poses a problem because the level of data protection in the US is considered insufficient.

WITH EPERI® YOU ENSURE THE DATA PROTECTION-COMPLIANT USE OF HUBSPOT!

To ensure privacy-compliant use of marketing automation tools such as HubSpot, eperi® offers a solution. The eperi® Gateway encrypts and tokenizes personal data in HubSpot, the most popular marketing automation software. With the eperi® REST Protection Proxy, policies can be configured for individual REST endpoints in HubSpot to ensure security. Features like search remain available despite field-level encryption and tokenization.

With eperi®, companies can continue to leverage all of HubSpot's powerful marketing automation features while ensuring that their customers' and partners' data is protected. By using HubSpot in a legally compliant manner, companies can avoid reputational damage and meet the requirements of the GDPR.

Fazit:

Marketing automation is an indispensable tool for successful marketing communication. It enables companies to create more individualized customer experiences and make their marketing and sales processes more efficient. However, it is important to keep data protection in mind and to use data protection-compliant solutions such as the eperi® Gateway to ensure the security of personal data.