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Marketers at loggerheads with IT departments over data

Seventy-eight percent of organisations report centralising customer data management within information technology (IT) teams, with marketers bemoaning the fact that use of new tech is often restricted by their cyber overlords.

The Gartner survey of 405 marketing leaders conducted in May and June 2023 found 59% of marketers agreed with the statement that “our IT policies and/or strategy constrains our use of emerging technologies.”

“Collaboration between IT and marketing has traditionally been focused on selecting applications with their own data stores, such as a marketing automation solution which stored contacts, leads, and content,” said Benjamin Bloom, VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “Diversification of the usage of customer data, beyond marketing, forces marketers to re-evaluate how their applications interact with enterprise-wide data. Successful CMOs should seize the opportunity to re-focus and leverage a new class of cloud-based IT resources, unless they fall short of marketing’s needs.”

Marketing’s autonomy over their own technology choices is also shifting based on the vital role that data and cohesive workflows play in productivity: 78% of respondents said they must select their solutions from pre-approved vendors and platforms.

The survey also found that across key martech activities, IT is on average taking greater ownership, and the frequency of marketing teams with sole ownership is receding. This shift spans both business-centric work such as acquisition of budget for martech, and driving adoption and utilization to support customer journeys, to more technical work such as configuration and deployment of new martech, and managing vendor relationships and contracts; management of all of these shifted toward IT year-over-year.

Overall, while martech teams were open to letting marketing and IT play to each others’ relative strengths, the share of respondents stating IT had sole responsibility or was leading with marketing in support increased across every activity for which there was year-over-year data between 2022 and 2023.

“In a perfect world, marketers lead more business-focused work, and IT leads more technical and integration activities. The focus should be on getting the work done, not a territorial battle,” said Bloom. “Many marketers will welcome this shift given the dependence of many technical activities on underlying data warehouse infrastructure owned by IT, but just as encouraging is the increasing business-savvy from IT teams which can drive the ultimate goal of productive martech stacks.”

TikTok ‘needs to build trust’ and double down on data security to make headway in e-commerce

To prove itself as a legitimate ecommerce platform, TikTok must gain regulatory trust and ensure the safety of user data, say analysts at GlobalData.

Short video app TikTok, owned by ByteDance, is set to compete with the likes of Amazon, Shein, Sea Group’s Shopee, and Alibaba’s Lazada, with its live streaming ecommerce business. However, its new initiative comes at a time when the company is under scrutiny over data privacy concerns in the US and Europe.

Pinky Hiranandani, Principal Analyst at GlobalDat, said: “Security and trust are vital for ecommerce transactions. TikTok must implement strong security measures to protect user data from unauthorized access, including end-to-end encryption of sensitive data and complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US. Also, the upcoming Digital Services Act in the EU requires platforms like TikTok to limit disinformation and better protect children online.”

TikTok Shop, the company’s ecommerce platform, which allows users to discover and purchase products directly from TikTok videos, has gained popularity in the Southeast Asian market backed by its large and engaged user base. In 2022 alone, TikTok Shop expanded to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.

While its main focus will be on markets such as Indonesia, TikTok is planning to expand its ecommerce business in the US and the UK. However, the company is already facing setbacks in the US and Europe (the UK, Denmark, and Belgium), with lawmakers banning the app on government devices. In May 2023, the state of Montana made the landmark move to ban the app completely. Although such bans may not prevent TikTok or any other social media company from accessing a user’s personal data, having a comprehensive federal data privacy law in the US will help.

Hiranandani continued: “Moreover, competition in the ecommerce space, especially in the US, is intense given the scale and reach of domestic giants such as Amazon and Walmart. TikTok aims to build on its massive user base and partnerships with brands and influencers to drive ecommerce sales. It is attempting to mimic Amazon by producing in-house products and building a sales pipeline, as well as charging vendors a commission to showcase products on TikTok Shop. However, the Chinese company will require significant investment in its platform and infrastructure to compete with its rivals.”

Image by Kon Zografos from Pixabay

Dodgy website passwords driving UK fraud spike

Almost one fifth (17%) of UK adults have been the victim of fraud in the last 12 months, according to new research from Nuance 

The global study – which polled 10,000 adults across the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Spain, and Mexico – also found that the average cost for these victims is nearly £3,300. This is triple the amount typically lost to fraud in 2019, which was then costing £1,000 per victim, according to a previous Nuance study.  

In the majority of cases, the fraud threat is compounded by poor password hygiene. The study discovered that, when selecting a password, under a quarter (24%) of respondents try to have different one for every website or brand they interact with and less than one in five (19%) follow the ‘password strength’ indicators.   

Instead, 22% of those surveyed have two or three different options that they bounce between. To make matters worse, around one in ten (7%) choose the same passwords for nearly everything, irrespective of strength and uniqueness.  

According to the findings, traditional PINs and passwords are still creating challenges for UK consumers. Each month, over one third (34%) forget and have to request to reset them, whilst one in five (20%) receive notifications that they have been compromised. In light of this, it’s unsurprising that over one third (34%) of respondents reported their trust in PINs and passwords had decreased over the last 12 months. 

PINs and passwords are an archaic tool, no longer fit for their original purpose, as this research makes clear,” said Simon Marchand, Chief Fraud Prevention Officer for Security and Biometrics at Nuance. “Every day, passwords are being sold on the dark web and exploited for fraudulent activity. The fraud committed with them – not to mention the challenge and frustrations associated with simply remembering them – is costing unfortunate businesses and individuals vast sums of money, especially in the wake of the pandemic. With fraud on the rise, brands have a responsibility to develop a more comprehensive approach to authentication.” 

As PINs and passwords continue to fail, organisations and individuals alike are increasingly looking to different, more effective and convenient ways to prevent fraud. 

According to the poll, consumer comfort over the use of biometrics is growing in the UK, with almost half (45%) saying they feel more comfortable using the technology to authenticate themselves than before the pandemic. In fact, over a third (34%) of UK consumers now trust a form of biometrics (either voice, facial, fingerprint, behavioural or a combination of these) most as a means of authentication.

Biometrics authenticate a person’s identity based on characteristics inherent to them, such as the sound of their voice, the way they speak, type, and swipe on their device, and even their word choice and sentence structure.  

As we transition into a post-pandemic world of remote working, shopping and socialising, it has never been more important for businesses to ensure that consumers are provided with a more sophisticated and secure experience,” added Marchand. “Now is the time to confine PINs and passwords to the history books. Stronger approaches to authentication, such as biometrics, have not only been proven to help reduce the cost of fraud, but will also introduce a more streamlined, seamless customer experience to deliver faster and more efficient services.” 

Half of consumers ‘will dump brands’ if they can’t log in

The majority of consumers (56%) have ditched a digital account or online service when logging in was ‘too frustrating’, with 77% having abandoned or stopped creating an online account for a variety of reasons, including being asked to provide too much personal information (40%), needing too much time to enter info (33%), and too many security steps (29%).

That’s according to a new survey from Ping Identity, Brand Loyalty Is Earned at Login, which shows that while consumers are interested in securing their online accounts four in 10 (39%) are unwilling to spend even 2 minutes adjusting privacy settings.

The news comes as Microsoft announced that users will be able to log in with biometric scanning instead of traditional passwords, in a bid to safeguard digital identities and make the user experience more convenient.

Key findings include:-

Consumers demand easy, fast experiences

  • 77% have abandoned or stopped creating an online account for a variety of reasons, including being asked to provide too much personal information (40%), needing too much time to enter info (33%), and too many security steps (29%).
  • 56% have abandoned an online service when logging in was too frustrating.
  • 63% are likely to leave an online service for a competitor who makes it significantly easier to authenticate identity.

As passwords get worse, passwordless looks even better

  • 58% are comfortable with the concept of a digital ID capability that stores personal information securely on a smartphone to share electronically.
  • 46% would prefer to use a service or site that offers an alternative to passwords.
  • 44% admit to weak password practices, including making a minor change to an old password (29%) or reusing a password from another account (15%.)

Privacy should be transparent and simple

  • 85% are interested in learning how online services share their personal information, but 72% say that information is difficult to find.
  • 72% have manually adjusted their profile settings to control privacy—including a massive 89% of Gen Z.
  • 60% have dropped an account over privacy concerns, including 46% who have done so more than once.

“With more options than ever before, businesses now need to integrate their security, privacy and user experience strategies to keep up with modern consumer expectations,” said Richard Bird, chief customer information officer, Ping Identity. “Individuals have no hesitations about finding better experiences elsewhere, so companies that prioritise customer experience now will earn loyalty in the long run.”

The Ping Identity Consumer Survey: Brand Loyalty Is Earned at Login asked more than 3,400 consumers across the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia about their typical registration and login experiences, attitudes toward online privacy and willingness to share personal information.

 

URLs cited as most important credibility factor for eCommerce sites

Online shopping ​accounts​ for almost 10% of total retail sales. With ​1% of websites infected​ by malware during any given week, these purchasing sites can post a threat to consumers.

A ​study​ by ​Panda Security​ surveyed 1,000 Americans, asking them what the most important credibility factor is when making a purchase online.

The survey found that:

●  29.3% of respondents cited a ​secure URL (https)​ as the most important factor

●  18% of respondents cited a ​testimonials and reviews​ as the most important factor

●  8.6% of respondents cited ​familiar methods of payment ​as the most important factor

●  7.3 % of respondents cited ​trust badges​ as the most important factor

●  4.9% of respondents cited ​available contact info​ as the most important factor

●  4.4 % of respondents cited ​website design​ as the most important factor

Panda says that while an ecommerce site should have all of these credibility factors to keep it secure, it’s also important to note which ones consumer’s value. The top two factors were a secure URL (https) and testimonials and reviews, so be sure you have both on your site.

For more information on these credibility factors, read the full study ​here​.