The Best GDPR Email Campaigns We’ve Seen So Far

As it seems the whole world is scrambling to become GDPR friendly before May 25, 2018, some marketers are making the most of compliance. As we stated in our controversial post about why marketers should celebrate the GDPR “The new regulations strengthen data consent and aim to penalize any company misusing the personal data of European citizens, regardless of where they’re located.” For anyone with an email account, this means the last few weeks have been filled with opt-in campaigns, privacy policy updates and other types of communications geared towards GDPR compliance from businesses far and wide. For any marketers, the era of compliance has meant having to create these GDPR email campaigns and communications to re-engage their already existing audience. Some campaigns have been better than others… Here are the top five best and brightest GDPR emails we’ve seen so far:

1  act-on Gets to the Point with a Little Added CRO

What We Like Most

• They focus on driving opt-in campaign results by injecting some best practices for CRO into their email (Notice the big blue header driving you towards the shiny green button?)
• We like that while reiterating the value their communications provides, act-on keeps their email short and sweet

2 Auto Trader Stands Up for Privacy and Listens to Preference

What We Like Most

• Again with CRO principles embedded into this eye-catching email, AutoTrader gets users to stay subscribed by putting them first and creating a user preference center. Ensuring  audience preferences are heard and met will definitely increase the success of any marketer’s opt-in campaign.
• AutoTrader highlights that these changes are to better protect people in the UK and it’s rad that they’re standing up for the rights of citizens there (even though GDPR is for the EU, this communication was likely targeted to just the UK region… and if that’s the case that’s definitely another thing we love!)

3 IFRA World Publishing Expo and DCX Digital Content Expo Show Face

What We Like Most

• IFRA and DCX created a colourful email that natively demonstrates their core value of news about their industry events (See the Berlin event in the header?). By showing updates about their upcoming trade shows in a way that blends in with the email experience, they demonstrate value while not being too pushy or over-selling.
• What we liked most though was that at the bottom of the email we get to see the faces of the team sending the communications. In the era of data privacy and transparency, consumers want to know they’re talking to a real person more than ever. By putting the teams signatures in the bottom of the email with photos, readers feel greater trust and accountability from the brand.

4 dialogtech Simplifies GDPR for its Users

What We Like Most

• While the GDPR email from dialogtech is all business, it bolds the key information for the subscriber. GDPR is complicated and anyone doing business with technology providers that touch the EU have to consider their indirect accountability through these information exchanges; therefore, anyone cutting through the noise to tell you exactly what you need to know is key in these GDPR communications.
• We also like that despite their clear and pertinent message that they leave the conversation open to protect themselves as well as their clients and subscribers. While this isn’t a true opt-in campaign, it’s how the information is presented that is most important in this GDPR email.

5 Uberflip Takes the (Wedding) Cake

What We Like Most

• Uberflips email is the winner of all the GDPR related communications we’ve seen. They absolutely won our heart with their romantic gesture to earn our subscription. We love the light-hearted campaign centered around renewing our opt-in vows.
• They even make marketer-consumer metaphors with romantic relationships by saying “This new law protects your privacy and encourages us to make this a mutually beneficial relationship. One-sided love is never that great anyway.”
• We just can’t get enough of Uberflips GDPR email, from it’s concept and theme to how it’s executed beautifully and wonderfully worded. If we had opt-in email award, they would win.

What About Your GDPR Email Campaigns?

Marketers can’t always take liberties like Uberflip to be fun when communicating about important updates like GDPR, it all depends on brand voice. If your brand culture and image is light hearted we definitely encourage you to get inspired from Uberflip’s campaign featured above. If not, you can take pointers from the other examples in this post, like getting the most important information out there first, applying conversion optimization principles and even putting your team’s face on the email. We wish everyone the most success with their GDPR opt-in campaigns and communications!

Have you seen a GDPR campaign that deserves a shout out? Mention it in the comments below! And if you’re interested in the topic of compliance, sign up for our upcoming webinar: 5 Marketing Agency Horror Stories of Non-Compliance

Image Credits

Feature Image: Unsplash/rawpixel

All screenshots by Chandal Nolasco da Silva. Taken May 2018.

Image 1, 3-5: Personal screenshots from Chandal’s inbox

Image 2: Screenshot via Really Good Emails