- Hey everyone, I'm Neil Patel,
and today, I'm gonna share with you how GDPR
is gonna affect your business.
(casual uplifting music)
If you guys aren't familiar with this,
GDPR came out and what it is is
for the whole European Union that's
all about data rights and privacy
to protect individuals like you.
Now here's the thing, if you don't comply
with GDPR laws and you're doing business
within the European Union, you can get
fined millions of dollars.
And it depends on what the, what rule you've broke,
and based on that, the penalty is gonna change.
But it's well into the millions,
sometimes seven million, 10 million, 20 million,
the fees are ridiculous.
So you want to make sure that you're
complying with GDPR rules.
Now, I'm not a warrior, so don't take everything
I say with, hey, this is what you need
to do, you should still consult a lawyer,
but I'm gonna give you a few GDPR tips
because it does affect marketers,
and what you can do to make sure that you're still
generating the same amount of sales
while you're complying with GDPR rules.
So the first thing is, if you're collecting
emails, which most websites are,
whether it's the checkout page
or whether it's an e-book or an opt-in,
you can't just go and email these people
promotional offers, even though they just
bought one product from you.
Because people are checking out
and buying one product, it doesn't mean
that they're opting in to continually
get emails from you.
Or on the flip side, if someone's opting
in for an e-book, it doesn't mean
that they're opting in also for your newsletter.
So if you look at the Neil Patel website,
I have two tick-boxes any time I collect emails.
I added one for people to follow
or agree to my terms of service and privacy policy.
And I also get people to agree that hey,
by opting in they're not only gonna get
this e-book or this tip, but they're also gonna
get weekly newsletters or weekly emails
that'll give them more marketing tips.
Now, if I was gonna send people advertising
through my emails, I would also have a tick-box
there that states they also
allow emails with advertisements.
But, I don't really accept advertising
or money for email blasts, so I don't have
to provide a tick-box that explicitly breaks down
that I'm gonna send promotional emails to people
when it comes to ads.
There's also cookie-related issues,
and this is the second thing for you guys to follow.
If someone's coming to your website
within the EU, have a little notice
at the bottom of your site, and you can talk
to a lawyer to figure out the right text,
something around, this site uses cookies
to provide a better experience.
They can either click the Accept button,
or the Deny button, if you don't want
to use the Deny button, you could have
a button that just says Learn More,
and that takes them to the privacy policy.
The third tip I have for you is,
in your privacy policy, let people know
what tracking solutions and third party
services that you're using.
Let them know how long the cookies
will last, if you're using an email solution.
Or if you're using analytics like Google Analytics,
let them know when they can opt out.
Let them know how they can delete their data,
because that way, if the user doesn't want
to be tracked, they can opt out.
If they want to delete their data,
they can email you, or whatever email's
in the privacy policy, and of course,
they can remove all their information
from your system or database.
The last tip that I have for you is,
make it very clear on what your data policies are.
So, when someone deletes your,
or wants their information deleted,
what will you go about to delete it,
how will you document it, what's the procedures,
how are you gonna train people on your team?
You should document all of that,
and let people know that you're doing all of this.
And by following those simple rules,
you're gonna be more GDPR compliant.
Now here's the thing, a lot of people have
been coming to me saying, "Neil, I don't want
"to add these tick-boxes for collecting emails
"and making people agree to my privacy policy,
"'cause it's just gonna cause people
"to not opt in."
Well let me tell you something interesting.
I implemented this on neilpatel.com,
my email opt-in rates did not change.
I didn't just do it for the EU,
I did it globally, because I believe
that hey, you should not just be,
take extreme privacy concerns just for the EU,
why not do it worldwide?
And by doing that, I found that hey,
my opt-in rate's not even going up or down
by including the tick-boxes, it's staying the same.
So why not just do it globally?
And that's what I did.
Now, if you want an extra bonus tip,
I would actually check out Privacy Shield.
If you're in the US, it's a program
that helps US companies be more GDPR-compliant.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know
all the technical details for it,
but I know my lawyer has made me go
and apply for it and go through all the procedures.
It just ensures that you're doing what's best for the users.
And again, I expect more countries
to follow similar frameworks, so don't just go out
there and just do GDPR stuff just for the EU,
consider doing it for everyone.
By doing that, you're gonna be more respective
of people's personal information,
their private data, and best of all,
they're gonna be happy with you.
And then when let's say the US passes
some laws, then you aren't gonna have
to go back and clean your list
being, oh, I never asked permission
for all of these people, so let me go scrub my list.
It's a pain in the butt, you don't want
to do that, so just go take the extreme measure
of being GDPR-compliant, not just
for the EU, but pretty much the whole world.
So follow those tips, hopefully you'll do well,
you should maintain the same amount of sales.
If you have questions about GDPR,
feel free to leave a comment, let me know,
I'll respond, I'll do my best.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, so you may want
to verify the facts again with a lawyer,
but thank you for watching.
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