Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Hi wondering if anyone can help me? I am trying to populate my Data Studio report with analytics from Sprout Social and haven’t found a way to automate it yet. I have thought about Zapier but I’m not well versed in it! Any suggestions to stop me screenshotting and copying it over? Thanks!
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Email marketing is a mainstay for marketers. But transactional emails are a form of email marketing that brings marketing, operations, logistics, and finance teams together to communicate important information with customers.  Essentially, transactional emails initiate, confirm, facilitate, and conclude transactions related to a brand’s product or service delivery. It’s a unique channel and very different…
The post Everything You Need to Know About Transactional Emails appeared first on Benchmark Email.

Last Updated on July 26, 2021 by Rakesh Gupta One of the biggest challenges companies face is the difficulty of making changes safely and quickly to their IT systems. As companies move to becoming digital enterprises, more and more departments are building competency in creating and managing their own systems.
The post Copado – Low Code DevOps Platform appeared first on Automation Champion.

When you begin implementing a social media strategy for your business, one of the first questions you’ll ask yourself is this one — Should my business be on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram?
Those three social media sites offer considerable opportunities to connect and engage with a network, increase brand awareness, and drive traffic to your site. But they’re also incredibly different in terms of purpose.
Ultimately, Facebook’s purpose is to connect people with their personal networks including friends and family. People use Facebook to share photos, videos, and general updates on their lives.

Twitter, on the other hand, is used to share ideas, real-time information, and trending news. While people may also use Twitter to connect with friends and family, they largely use it for a bigger purpose — to connect to the wider world and discover what’s happening (in 140 characters or less).
Instagram is used to share photos and videos. People mainly use this app to post their “highlight reel” and follow friends as well as influencers. This is how users become a part of a social media community.
Of course, this still begs the question — where does your business fit into all this? To explore the pros and cons of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, we’ve created a comprehensive breakdown of the three platforms.
Keep reading to figure out which platform is a better business investment for your company.

And what about Instagram?

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram Users
Let’s start by taking a look at Twitter versus Facebook versus Instagram users.
Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram Demographics
To start, let’s consider the potential demographic your business could reach on each platform.
Here are some quick and informative facts:
Twitter Demographic Facts:

24% of U.S. adults are on Twitter.

40% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18-29.
Less than 20% of people ages 50 and up use Twitter.

Facebook Demographic Facts:

70% of U.S. adults are on Facebook.
80% of Facebook users are between the ages of 18-29.
65% of people ages 50 and up use Facebook.

Instagram Demographic Facts:

37% of U.S. adults are on Instagram.

75% of Instagram users are 18-24.

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram Engagement
It’s equally critical you determine quality over quantity — how long does each site’s audience stay on the platform? Or, alternatively, how many minutes per day do they spend on each?
Twitter Engagement Facts:

As of Q1 2019, Twitter averaged 330 million monthly active users.
About 71% of Twitter users say they use the platform to get news. 
You have no choice but to engage users with quickly digestible content since the platform has a 140-character limit. 

Facebook Engagement Facts:

Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. 
As of Q1 of 2021, Facebook reported nearly 1.88 billion daily active users. 
In the U.S., Facebook accounts for over 60% of monthly social media visits. 

Instagram Engagement Facts:

59% of Instagram users visit the app daily.

Accounts with 1,000-5,000 followers typically have a 5.6% engagement rate. On the other hand, accounts with over 1 million followers, average a 1.97% engagement rate.

With all of the above stats in mind, no matter how many followers you have, if you can appeal to your audience with the right content, you’ll likely have the best engagement rates on Facebook. Here’s some research by Statista to prove it. This is a look at the most popular mobile social networking apps in the U.S., as of September 2019, by user engagement (in minutes/ month). Facebook wins by a substantial amount. 

Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram Usage
Here are some points to consider while choosing the right platform for your business to use:

With less than 140 characters to convey your brand’s message, you might think of Twitter as your business’ “elevator pitch”. What do you want to get across to your audience quickly and succinctly?
Facebook is your opportunity to engage more in-depth with an audience. You can create full business pages, share videos, and images, and further incentivize prospects to engage with your brand (by offering 10% off if they “like” your business page, for instance).
With Instagram, you can create an interactive community. This is the platform where users are more likely to engage. People go to Instagram and expect to see influencers and follow brands they like.

Twitter Ads vs Facebook vs Instagram Ads
In general, advertising on Facebook and Instagram allows you to reach a larger audience. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, they offer similar ad tools. Additionally, Facebook ads come with some impressive targeting tools, so you’re able to narrow down salary, purchase behavior, hobbies, Facebook communities, and more.
Facebook advertising’s interface is relatively easy and intuitive for the user. Facebook ads can be relatively cheap, as well — in fact, Facebook points out that, “Some people spend more on coffee each day than they do on their ad campaigns”. While it depends on the campaign you’re running, you can often set a budget as little as $2 to $3 per day.
Twitter also offers targeting capabilities, including purchase behavior, language, interest, and followers. However, Twitter advertising is typically more expensive than Facebook.
It may be worth the extra money, though — engagement rates for Twitter ads can be as high as 1-3%, much higher than Facebook’s average CTR of 0.119%.
Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram for Business
Ultimately, it’s likely best to try Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for a while if you’re unsure which one works better for your brand. Over time, you’ll gain valuable insights into how well your posts perform on these sites, enabling you to dedicate more time to one over the other. Since they’re free to use, there’s no harm in initially trying all three.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

One of the best ways to deliver valve to and engage with your subscribers — those who already like, know, and trust your brand — is through an email newsletter. With the strategy in place, newsletters help you keep your contacts engaged with your business, establish your brand authority and trustworthiness, and ultimately drive more leads.
Once you have an email marketing plan for engaging your subscribers, the next step is choosing newsletter software to support your efforts.

Newsletter software is essential since it allows you to beautifully design a newsletter email and deliver the email to your subscribers with features such as:

A/B testing
Smart content
Templates and customizability
Analytics

However, not all email newsletter tools are created equal.
What’s the best newsletter software?
There’s no one reigning champion of email newsletter tools. Ultimately, you’ll need to make the best decision for your unique needs based on the following criteria:

Price – This one goes without saying, but if you want ROI from your email efforts, you’ll need to choose a solution that fits your budget.

Features – If you’re new to email marketing, you’ll want a solution with a simple interface and easy-to-use features (like drag-and-drop email design). More advanced users may require more robust functionality.

Subscriber Limits – Many solutions will base their pricing around the size of the database or the number of monthly email sends. Consider the size of your current audience and the rate at which you want to grow to choose a provider that offers plans to accommodate that.

With differences in features, pricing, and availability, choosing an email newsletter can be hard — especially with the number of options available. Additionally, newsletter tools differ in how much of the customer journey they can cover.
Ultimately, when choosing your email newsletter tool, you’ll want to ensure the tool matches your business’s goals — which is why we wanted to take out the guesswork and highlight the top email newsletters out there for your business.
1. HubSpot’s Email Marketing Tool

Pricing: Starts Free

Designing, sending, and analyzing email newsletters has never been easier with the HubSpot Email tool. HubSpot offers a drag-and-drop email editor so you can easily create a polished email newsletter that you can personalize to fit your brand’s design without needing a designer or IT professional.
Additionally, you can experiment with smart content rules, personalization, A/B testing, and advanced reporting — ensuring your email newsletters are optimized for your business. You can also see who’s engaging with each newsletter email and when, what device they’re using, the most popular links and documents, and more. You can use these insights to design tests that will take conversion rates to new heights for your business.
Ultimately, what makes HubSpot’s Email tool so exceptional is its ability to pair with HubSpot’s free forms tool to easily collect email leads, as well as HubSpot’s free CRM to give you insight into how your marketing emails are performing.
For example, you can use an email subscriber’s lifecycle stage, list membership, or any information in their contact records to automatically serve up the most relevant subject lines, content, links, attachments, and calls-to-action.
Best of all, it can grow with you as you grow.
2. Moosend

Pricing: Free up to 2,000 subscribers

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Moosend is a well-rounded email marketing newsletter tool that requires no technical skill whatsoever. Through Moosend’s email editor, you can easily build personalized email newsletters using interactive elements like videos and images. Alternatively, you can get started immediately by picking one of the ready-made templates available in the platform’s template library.
The tool also comes with landing pages and subscription forms to boost your lead generation efforts. You also get detailed reporting and analytics that allow you to make data-driven decisions.
Finally, to top it off, Moosend’s platform allows you to create or use some ready-made automation recipes to boost conversion.
3. Benchmark

Pricing: Free up to 250 emails per month

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Benchmark offers the ability to easily create email newsletters via drag-and-drop functionality, giving non-technical marketers the power to create beautiful newsletters. There’s also a good selection of newsletter templates that you can choose from in the Benchmark template library.
Some of Benchmark’s most valuable features include detailed analytics on how each email campaign performs, A/B split testing to ensure you’re sending the best emails, spam testing tools that ensure your emails get to inboxes, responsive designs and templates, list segmentation tools, and auto-responders.
4. SendInBlue

Pricing: Free up to 300 emails per day

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With SendInBlue, you don’t need technical skills to create well-designed email newsletters. The drag-and-drop functionality, HTML editor, and expansive template gallery gives you the tools you need to create stunning emails.
You can personalize the design of your newsletters with easy builders, choose the form fields for your subscription form, and design many ways for your visitors to opt-in. SendInBlue has a robust automation pipeline, allowing you to send different emails based on specific actions taken by your contacts. However, SendInBlue does not have a CRM, so it’s not the best option for scaling teams.
5. Stripo

Pricing: Starts free

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Stripo is an email template builder that allows you to design HTML email templates and export them to your email newsletter software of choice. If you’re not a fan of working in HTML, you also have the option to use the drag-and-drop editor, or even combine the two editing formats, depending on your preference. With Stripo, you’ll have access to interactive elements (such as rollover effects on buttons and images) and features for embedded dynamic content and personalization.
Stripo also offers over 350 prebuilt templates with over 100,000 free stock images and 1,000 prebuilt modules that you can use across your campaigns.
You can use the embedded email testing tool so you know how your newsletters will render across your contacts’ email clients.
Additionally, Stripo has a native integration with HubSpot, which allows you to push all your emails from Stripo to HubSpot with just a few clicks.
6. GetResponse

Pricing: Starts at $15 per month

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GetResponse offers features that become available as you need them, from a range of starter features all the way to enterprise features such as webinars and landing pages. Hosting landing pages in GetResponse will further enable you to capture email subscribers for your newsletter.
GetResponse also allows you to create well-designed email newsletters with their drag-and-drop email editor, segment contacts tool, campaigns creator, and A/B testing tool. With a ton of templates to choose from, you can create an email to match your brand, and send emails more efficiently.
7. Mailjet

Pricing: Free up to 6,000 email sends per month

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Mailjet offers email solutions for fast-moving teams, especially in Europe, and great scaling opportunities for larger companies. The service is keen on being developer-friendly with a powerful API solution for engineers to build on their email platform. One appealing feature of Mailjet is the ability to create dynamic content that is personalized for each recipient based on data such as name and location.
If your team demands email newsletters are built together and reviewed often before sending, Mailjet’s collaborative tools make it easy for teams to work together on emails. For example, you can create a draft of your newsletter in Mailjet, and your teammates can suggest edits before it’s sent — all within the app.
8. Pabbly Email Marketing

Pricing: Starts free

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Pabbly Email Marketing is a powerful bulk emailing tool that provides features like built-in email templates, auto-followups, custom fields, subscription forms, integrations, all included in the basic plan.
Pabbly provides the ability to choose from more than 50 SMTPs for sending emails. Using the SMTP routing feature, you can divide your email campaign into smaller segments of subscribers and use different SMTPs for each segment. Sending emails using different SMTPs can improve the deliverability of your emails.
9. MailChimp

Pricing: Free up to 2,000 subscribers

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MailChimp offers a free email marketing service with a large selection of templates to choose from for newsletters. MailChimp is ideal for small and medium-sized businesses looking to get their feet wet in email marketing but is not suited for scaling teams since it lacks powerful automation and segmenting features.
MailChimp is a valuable tool nonetheless, especially since its free plan generously offers up to 12,000 free email sends per month. You’ll also like the variety of newsletter templates that MailChimp offers, and the drag-and-drop builder that lets you rework the designs.
10. Constant Contact

Pricing: Starts at $20 per month

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Constant Contact provides a reliable email newsletter solution for small to large businesses. Constant Contact provides a helpful user onboarding for anyone looking to get started quickly and offers easy-to-use features. If you think you’ll be running into complexity with the email marketing tool, you’ll be happy to know that Constant Contact’s multi-channel support system can help walk you through most issues.
In Constant Contact, you can use their email builder to create newsletters that match your brand, select from a variety of templates, and edit to ensure it looks exactly how you want it — although I’m not a big fan of the templates since most of the templates look outdated. Additionally, if you need sophisticated automation features and workflows, I would advise staying away from Constant Contact because it lacks a strong automation system.
11. MailUp

Pricing: 470 € per year

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MailUp offers plenty of the same functionality as what you’d expect from an email marketing service, including a drag-and-drop email builder, beautifully designed templates, and an HTML editor.
However, it’s critical to note — you get more value from MailUp if you choose to send out emails at a slower pace since the price varies depending on delivery speed. So, if your business has a specific number of contacts and doesn’t mind sending newsletters slower, you could save money by using MailUp. If you use WordPress, MailUp also offers a WordPress plugin that you can use to capture newsletter subscribers on your website.
12. Zoho Campaigns

Pricing: Starts at $3 per month

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Zoho offers a great email solution for marketers looking to utilize automation features, including auto-responders and workflows. If you’re already a Zoho CRM customer, it might be worth checking out Zoho Campaigns for an email newsletter tool, since they work better together.
Zoho includes many modern and well-designed templates to choose from. If you’re worried about how your newsletter will look on different mobile devices or browsers, Zoho gives you the ability to check to see how your newsletters look on various devices to ensure your newsletter is optimized for mobile, tablet, and desktop.
13. AWeber

Pricing: Free up to 500 subscribers

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AWeber delivers a well-established email marketing newsletter tool with an array of features for your business, including email designs, list segmentation, automation tools, and detailed reporting. To make design easier, AWeber has more than 6,000 royalty-free stock photos to include in your emails. Of course, you can also upload your own images and gifs.
AWeber is a great solution if your business uses WordPress since AWeber easily integrates with WordPress. However, it’s important to note you can’t specify multiple segments at once when sending an email newsletter — plus, AWeber lacks some powerful automation features.
14. Campaigner

Pricing: $59 per month up to 5,000 subscribers

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Campaigner is a good option if you work for a growing team since the tool offers robust automation and workflow features available at the enterprise tier. You can set up systems that send email newsletters when contacts fill out specific forms, make a purchase, or engage with a previous email.
As with most of the email newsletter tools in this list, Campaigner offers easy-to-use email builders and a large selection of templates to get you started. If you run into trouble, their support is noted as being helpful at solving technical challenges.
15. Drip

Pricing: Starts at $19 per month up to 500 contacts

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Drip is ideal for more experienced email marketers since it’s not as intuitive and easy to use as some of the others in the list. For example, there’s a limited email template library, so you’ll have to spend time designing your email newsletter. With that said, Drip comes packed with automation features that could be beneficial for your business, particularly if you work in e-commerce.
With Drip’s “ECRM”, you can run personalized email newsletter campaigns that work with information gathered from contact purchases and checkout information, like abandoned cart details. One thing to note — Drip does not offer phone support, so you won’t have that added peace of mind.
16. Postcards

Pricing: Starts free

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Used by major brands like Nike, Disney, and T Mobile, Postcards is a drag-and-drop email builder that enables you to create impressive email newsletters. The tool features a “modular system”, meaning you can stack and re-arrange pre-made designs to create a custom newsletter that fits your brand. Customizable modules include a header and footer, CTA, and menu options.
Additionally, the tool enables you to collaborate with teammates to ensure the newsletter is up to everyone’s standards and gives you a 30-day version history if you decide to revert to an older format. Plus, you’ll get unlimited exports.
17. Campaign Monitor

Pricing: Starts at $9 per month

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Campaign Monitor’s email marketing tool enables you to create an engaging and high-quality email newsletter with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Additionally, the tool includes sign-up forms you can embed on your blog pages to encourage new readers to sign-up for daily content delivered to their inboxes.
Along with unique and customizable templates, Campaign Monitor provides a full analytics suite to help you track the performance of your newsletters over time. You can measure engagement to improve the content you include in your newsletters for the long haul.
18. BEE Pro

Pricing: Starts free

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If you’re a freelance designer or work at an email agency, this tool could be a good fit for you. BEE Pro lets you create mobile-ready emails quickly with smart design tools — plus, you can save custom templates, and even assign projects to specific clients’ to ensure an easy workflow if you’re using this one email tool for multiple brands. Additionally, the tool enables you to invite clients or colleagues to review and make comments on email newsletter drafts to get approval faster.
19. MailerLite

Pricing: Free up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 sends per month

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MailerLite is a great free option for starting a newsletter. Its newsletter editor features pre-built design blocks and drag-and-drop functionality, allowing you to build attractive and mobile-friendly emails quickly and easily. To top things off, you get built-in photo editing to help you create without leaving the platform. Mailerlite also has the capability to segment audiences, add personalization, and create dynamic content so you can continually deliver a great experience.
Premium plans include unlimited sends, a custom HTML editor, and the removal of the MailerLite logo. You can also get a Stripe integration for monetizing your newsletter with digital products.
20. ConvertKit

Pricing: Free up to 1,000 subscribers

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ConvertKit offers a whole suite of products for building and growing an email newsletter. With the free version, you’ll be able to create unlimited landing pages and forms to build your subscriber list. You’ll also be able to draw from a library of templates for email creation.
One interesting thing about ConvertKit is that you can sell digital products and memberships without an integration or added premium, giving you monetization capability out of the gate.
Premium plans include automation, subscriber scoring, and even a referral system through SparkLoop.
Growing Your Newsletter
That’s it! These are the best email newsletter tools that I recommend. You can’t go wrong with any of these tools since they all offer similar features, but there will be one that’s best suited for your business. The great thing about HubSpot is that we offer a free solution to get you started — and then, once your business grows, we have plenty of advanced features you’ll need in order to deliver a successful newsletter marketing strategy down the road.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

If you’re anything like me, you probably mainly consider Wikipedia a good source for a behind-the-scenes look at the production of Game of Thrones, or a collection of random facts on Zebras.
In short, you likely haven’t given it much thought as a channel for brand awareness.
But, if you think about it, Wikipedia is one of the best third-party sources for ranking on page one of Google. Typically, when you search an intended keyword, you don’t have to scroll far before you see its accompanying Wikipedia page:

Additionally, it’s a recognizable website, so it’s often one of the first pages someone will click on if they want to learn more about what your business does.
If you want to boost your business’s visibility online, take a look at this quick guide so you can create a Wikipedia page for your company, today.

1. Create an account.
Go to Wikipedia’s homepage and click “Create account” in the top right.

Enter the necessary information, including username and password, then click “Create your account”.
2. Get promoted to an autoconfirmed user.
When you first join Wikipedia, you’ll see a box pop-up that reads, “Help improve Wikipedia” with a link to start editing an article:

Before creating your page, you’ll need to become an autoconfirmed user.
These are Wikipedia’s typical guidelines for an autoconfirmed user: “Although the precise requirements for autoconfirmed status vary according to circumstances, most English Wikipedia user accounts that are more than four days old and have made at least 10 edits (including deleted ones) are considered autoconfirmed.”
Here, you’ll need to practice patience — spend the first couple days once you open an account editing other people’s pages. Once you click “Edit a page”, there are links on the top right of every paragraph with the word “Edit”, so it shouldn’t be too time-consuming.
Once you’re autoconfirmed, proceed to the next step.
3. Create the page.
Now we’ve reached the most challenging part — creating the page.
First, go to Wikipedia’s “Writing an article” page. As you scroll down the page, you’ll see a blue button that reads, “Article wizard: an easy way to create articles.” Click this button (as long as you’re autoconfirmed):

Next, you’ll be redirected to Wikipedia’s Article Wizard. Here, you have two options — immediately begin creating your page by clicking “Next”, or practicing editing your page in Wikipedia’s sandbox, first.
For our purposes, we’ll click “Next”:

It’s important to note — since there’s likely no Wikipedia page already available for your company, you can include as much or as little information as you want. Additionally, you’ll want to structure the page for easy readability, featuring some of the most important and basic information (like what your company does), first.

For instance, take a look at how HubSpot’s Wikipedia page is structured:

The page starts with a two sentence overview of what HubSpot does, followed by a table of contents on the left, and a “fact sheet” on the right. Below the table of contents you’ll first find HubSpot’s history, followed by a description of HubSpot’s software and services.
On HubSpot’s Wikipedia page, the information that is above-the-fold is likely most useful for a new visitor who hasn’t heard of HubSpot before — a quick glance at the page can tell her, for instance, what HubSpot does, how much revenue HubSpot makes, what third-party sources such as Forbes say about HubSpot, and who HubSpot’s founders are.
While readers can continue scrolling for more product-specific information, it’s critical Wikipedia is mainly used as a broad brand awareness platform.
We’ll look at more examples later on.
4. Provide citations.
Wikipedia is ultimately an encyclopedia, so to prove the validity of your topic, you must include citations to various articles and third-party sources.
Before you begin creating your page, Wikipedia warns you of this, stating — “the topic of an article must already be covered in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. These include journals, books, newspapers, magazines, and websites with a reputation for fact checking. Social media, press releases, or corporate/professional profiles do not qualify”:

Ultimately, citations give your business credibility and allow the reader to trust your company is real. Look for magazine or newspaper articles that mention your company, other websites that backlink to your website as a resource, or directories that link to your company’s profile.

5. Submit the page for review.
When you’re finished with your page, submit it for review. Once Wikipedia deems it a credible source, it will be uploaded as an official Wikipedia page.
6. Update it regularly.
Remember — the hard work isn’t over, just yet. As your Wikipedia page begins ranking on page one of Google for your company name, it’s vital you regularly update it to ensure it provides the most up-to-date information regarding your products or services.
Additionally, by updating it regularly with company developments, you’re maintaining transparency, which is comforting for both your customers and leads.

Examples of Company Pages on Wikipedia
There are over 6 million articles in the English Wikipedia. A good chunk of those are company pages. The best company pages share the following characteristics:

adequately describe the company
maintain a neutral point of view

include references to notable, independent sources
includes a link to company website

Below we’ll take a look at two examples of company pages that can inspire your own. 
World Wide Technology

World Wide Technology’s wikipedia page is an excellent example of a company page. First, it offers a brief overview describing what type of company it is, how much revenue it earns, and how many people it employs. It then offers a timeline of notable events, starting with when it was founded and ending with its latest recognition in TIME magazine in 2021. 
The page ends with a comprehensive list of independent reliable sources, which have been published about the organization. Such a list helps Wikipedia understand why the organization is notable and avoids the appearance of a conflict of interest. Without such a list of references, your company page could be deleted. 
Urban One

Urban One’s wikipedia page is another excellent example of a company page. It begins by describing what the company is, who its primary audience is, and how large it is. While details like the fact that it’s the largest African-American-owned broadcasting company and one of the highest-earning African-American-owned businesses in the United States are impressive, they are stated objectively and cited properly to avoid the appearance of self-promotion. 
Wikipedia requires significant coverage in multiple independent sources for articles on organizations to be considered noticeable — a requirement which Urban One has easily met. Towards the bottom of the page you’ll find a references section with over 54 entries.
Getting Your Company on Wikipedia
Nowadays, a quick Google search provides us with an abundance of information — including social media profiles, directories, and press releases — on a given subject. By ensuring you have an up-to-date Wikipedia page, you’re covering your bases and giving viewers a trustworthy source of information related to your business or brand.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Hey! I’m the co-founder of ABtesting.ai, where we use GPT-3 to give AI-text suggestions for users to test and optimize conversions with. I thought it could be fun if you comment the URL of your landing page and I’ll hit you back with what our AI-driven tool suggests to test 🙂 Let the game begin!
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Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal advice for your company to use in complying with data privacy laws like GDPR. Instead, it provides background information to help you better understand data privacy best practices. This legal information is not the same as legal advice, where an attorney applies the law to your specific circumstances, so we insist that you consult an attorney if you’d like advice on your interpretation of this information or its accuracy.
In a nutshell, you may not rely on this as legal advice, or as a recommendation of any particular legal understanding.
GDPR instilled a catalyst of real change in 2018 — resulting in a permanent change of the data privacy landscape.
It forced companies to really take stock of their data and privacy responsibilities — and double down on the requirements to map out and account for their data practices and put processes in place to manage data and store it compliantly.
COVID-19 has also unleashed a new set of risks in relation to data privacy that companies are currently confronting.

Both significant events force a strong message to be delivered to companies that privacy and data protection should be of paramount corporate responsibility. The changes have impacted conversations around the world with different territories adopting GDPR as their standard in order to outline an internal compliance program.
Data privacy or, in particular, the application of tenets of privacy to data, is often seen as a massive hurdle to cross for an organization. Companies should embed processes as part of their culture and be willing to pivot in order to adapt to regulatory changes and technological advances.
Systemized processes using tools that are designed to instill compliance can set you up for success as well as continuing to educate internally can help with internal adoption and ensure that privacy is everyone’s responsibility.
At HubSpot, we ensure that data privacy is top of mind and built into our practices and products. Upholding respect to the privacy of individuals who use our products is paramount to our corporate responsibility and internal business model. We are continuously identifying ways in which to improve processes to instill trust in our users and creating tools for our users to be compliant in their organizations.
Below are a few examples of how good privacy can be achieved in an organization.
Data Privacy Best Practices
Privacy Program Management
Setting yourself up for success in the privacy arena requires the establishment of a strong internal team, a united front that will continue to make data privacy and GDPR compliance a priority. Close collaboration on a strategic privacy program that outlines your privacy responsibilities is key to see your business scale compliantly.
Knowing how to conduct processes compliantly in relation to your online activities, identifying risks, managing cookie compliance for your web and app products; creating specific disclosures about the treatment of data; offering visitors information on the rights available to them in a privacy policy are all good practices that every organization needs.
Granularity and types of notices that are needed along with the scope of rights that you must provide to visitors under applicable laws depend on the territories where your visitors reside and it is up to you to demystify these and instill good practices in response.
The scope of domestic and foreign privacy legislation that one company may be obliged to comply with may look different than the scope applicable to another, as there is no “one size fits all” approach to data privacy.
Having a team in place to tackle what these mean to your organization and address compliance obligations can help you communicate your commitment to privacy in this area for your users.
Adopt the Use of Compliance Tools and Practices as Part of your Company Culture
Data privacy is not one person’s responsibility.
By embedding it into your company’s culture, it can make all employees feel invested in keeping company data safe and mitigate risk.
Creating ongoing training and communicating important regulatory changes to keep employees up to date is essential to see your privacy program a success. Charging your privacy team with ongoing monitoring of how changes can affect processes and implementing required changes ensures you are kept up to date with evolving legislation and ahead of any changes in responsibilities.
Did you know that ransomware attacks are often a result of a single compromised password? Doubling down on passwords is the most basic way to operate a good privacy program within your organization.
Identifying risks in this area is key and plugging the gaps that appear can be a constant battle.
For example, having inactive accounts present in your network from a former employee can be a fault that bad actors can take advantage of. It’s a good idea for your org to invest in pass-key software to help implement multi-factor authentication and add additional security to the systems you use to reduce risk in this area.
Using tools that are built with compliance in mind can automate much of these processes needed to affect your program management. These tools can monitor your data collection processes and allow you to implement changes in response.
Integration of third-party systems into this monitoring allows you to extend your privacy controls out into a vendor ecosystem. Automating your processes in relation to subject access requests allows you to be effective within the legal timeframe and generate responses to an individual and carry out your responsibilities when you have a 360 view of the data subject’s data points.
Not only that, but you will be ready to meet any request from a regulator should they need information from you consolidated in one source, allowing you to comply effectively within the timeframe.
Privacy Does Not Stand Still — Keep Pace with Evolving Legislation and Technology 
In the European Union, many consumers are actively making use of their data protection rights granted to them under the GDPR and the ePrivacy Regulation.
In the US and beyond, consumers now have higher expectations about online privacy and are starting to adopt GDPR standards. More and more consumers are now openly concerned about how their personal data is being handled by companies. The newly passed CPRA (amending the CCPA), Privacy Acts being launched in Washington and Virginia as well as similar legislation being rolled out globally in countries like Brazil, India, and China are testament to how territories are making moves to uphold data privacy at a local level.
Some of the latest significant legal developments that companies need to know about are:

Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) — The European Commission adopted revised Standard Contractual Clauses for International Transfers on June 4, 2021. The revised version replaces those that pre-date the GDPR and are intended to be used for cross-border data transfers outside of Europe, including the US. Although these have an effective date in three months, businesses that are governed by existing SCCs have 18 months to enter into new SCCs or find another lawful means to transfer data.

Colorado Privacy Act — This Act passed the state’s legislature on June 8, 2021. It will be the third US state – after California and Virginia – with a law that provides its residents with protections when it comes to their personal information.

China’s Data Security Law (“DSL”) — This law takes effect on September 1, 2021. Many of the practical compliance steps are still to be published over the coming weeks and months but organizations can seek to rely on the draft measures until they do.

Keeping abreast of what these legal developments mean to you and what you need to do with regard to your data in response, is your responsibility. You may need to make adjustments internally to comply and work with your teams to ensure that any privacy issues are addressed.
A thorough examination of what is incumbent on you, with adjustments to processes internally or systematically, has to be done to meet changes at both local and global levels. Making sure your processes are flexible for both and having the capacity to scale with your business with such developments is equally important.
Final Thoughts
As our operations become perpetually digitized, building a privacy-by-design company should be a key priority. Implementing a comprehensive and coordinated approach to data privacy can be challenging and time-consuming but setting it out as a strategic priority across all business activities driven by leadership, is a must for future-thinking organizations.
Organizations should understand and prepare for the reputational risks that extend beyond non-compliance with the myriad of data privacy laws and regulations. Being on the pulse of regulatory change in global privacy laws, keeping up to date with enforcement decisions, and making continuous improvements to privacy programs can help create a privacy-first culture that will set you up for success in the future.
You should be asking yourself some of these thoughtful questions to see if your privacy methods are currently up to standard. Unfortunately, the consequences of failure to improve on matters are not kind, but effectiveness in this area will reward you in the long-term improving your brand image as a trusted, privacy-first organization.