GDPR compliance is the adherence to the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Union's law governing data privacy and security. This means any organization that processes the personal data of EU residents must meet its legal obligations for how that data is collected, handled, and protected. The regulation outlines key principles, including lawfulness, data minimization, and accountability, that must be at the core of any data processing activity.
The GDPR is founded on seven key principles for processing personal data. These mandate that data handling must be lawful, fair, and transparent. Organizations must also limit collection to specific purposes and only gather data that is strictly necessary, a concept known as data minimization.
Furthermore, data must be kept accurate and stored only as long as needed. The principles of integrity and confidentiality demand robust security measures. Finally, accountability requires organizations to prove their compliance with these regulations.
This is how you can begin your journey toward compliance.
While often discussed together, these two legal frameworks have distinct scopes and applications.
Navigating GDPR compliance presents several significant hurdles for organizations of all sizes.
Achieving GDPR compliance offers significant advantages beyond just avoiding fines. It enhances an organization's reputation and improves data management practices, fostering a culture of privacy that resonates with modern consumers.
Does GDPR apply to B2B marketing?
Yes, it does. Business contact information, such as names and email addresses, is considered personal data under GDPR. Companies must have a lawful basis, like legitimate interest, to process this data for marketing purposes.
What are the penalties for non-compliance?
Penalties can be substantial, reaching up to €20 million or 4% of a company's annual global turnover, whichever is higher. The severity of the fine depends on the specific nature of the violation.
Is consent always required to process personal data?
No. While consent is one legal basis, data can also be processed if it's necessary for a contract, a legal obligation, or based on the legitimate interests of the organization, among other reasons.
Learn about B2B sales, including key strategies for B2B success, types of B2B sales models, & B2B vs. B2C sales: understanding the differences.
Order management is the end-to-end process of tracking customer orders from placement to fulfillment, ensuring a seamless customer experience.
A sales dashboard is a visual tool that centralizes and displays key sales data, metrics, and KPIs to help teams track performance and goals.
A Marketing Qualified Opportunity (MQO) is a lead vetted by marketing as a genuine sales opportunity, ready for direct sales follow-up.
Learn about business development representative, including skills and qualifications for BDRs, & roles and responsibilities of a BDR.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other and exchange information.
A sales funnel is a model illustrating the customer's journey from initial awareness to the final purchase, narrowing down leads at each stage.
Sales operations analytics is the practice of analyzing sales data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.
An email cadence is a scheduled sequence of emails sent to prospects over a specific period to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Customer centricity is a business approach that puts the customer at the heart of every decision, aiming to build loyalty and long-term value.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost a business spends to gain a new customer. It includes all sales and marketing expenses.
A product champion is an internal evangelist who drives a product's adoption and success by ensuring it solves real problems for their team.
Shipping solutions are services or software that streamline the logistics of getting products to customers, from label printing to final delivery.
Predictive lead generation uses data and AI to find prospects most likely to buy, helping teams focus their efforts on high-value leads.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Expansion revenue is the extra money a business makes from its current customers via upgrades, new products, or additional services.
Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a tool that centralizes customer data to help manage interactions and nurture relationships.
A sales lead is a potential customer—an individual or organization that has shown interest in your company's products or services.
SFDC stands for Salesforce Dot Com, a popular cloud-based CRM platform that helps companies manage their customer interactions and data.
“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.
An elevator pitch is a short, memorable summary of what you do, designed to be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue kept from existing customers, including upsells, downgrades, and churn.
A User Interface (UI) is the point where humans and computers interact. It encompasses all visual elements like screens, icons, and buttons.
Learn about B2B data, including sources and types of B2B data, leveraging B2B data for sales success, & ensuring the accuracy of B2B data.
Integration testing is a software testing phase where individual modules are combined and tested together to verify their interaction.
Objection handling in sales is the process of responding to a prospect's concerns about a product or service to move the deal forward.
Retargeting marketing is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously interacted with your website or brand online.
Competitive analysis means identifying your rivals and assessing their strategies to pinpoint your own business's strengths and weaknesses.
Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.
Docker is a tool that packages applications and their dependencies into isolated environments called containers for easy deployment and scaling.
Learn about B2B intent data providers, including evaluating intent data quality, leveraging intent data for growth, & B2B intent data: key providers comparison.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) API is a web service that uses XML to exchange structured information between different applications.
Audience targeting is the process of segmenting consumers into specific groups to deliver more personalized and relevant marketing messages.
Objection handling is the process of responding to a prospect's concerns or hesitations about a product or service to move a deal forward.
A canary release is a deployment strategy where new software is rolled out to a small user group first, minimizing risk before a full release.
A commission is a service charge paid to an agent for a transaction. It's typically a percentage of the sale, rewarding performance directly.
Lead generation software helps businesses automate finding and capturing potential customers' contact information to build sales pipelines.
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation.
A qualified lead is a prospect vetted as a good fit for your product. They match your ideal customer profile and show genuine interest.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium tool helping sales teams find and engage with the right leads and accounts on the LinkedIn network.
The awareness stage is the first step in the buyer's journey, where a potential customer realizes they have a problem or an opportunity to explore.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
A messaging strategy defines what your brand says, how it says it, and where it says it to connect effectively with your target audience.
Cold calling is a sales tactic where reps contact potential customers by phone who haven't previously expressed interest in their product or service.
Closed opportunities are potential deals that have concluded. They are categorized as either 'closed-won' (a sale was made) or 'closed-lost'.
Data security protects digital information from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft throughout its entire lifecycle.
Site retargeting is a marketing strategy that shows ads to people who have previously visited your website but left without converting.
Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices.
Learn about B2B marketing attribution, including challenges in B2B marketing attribution, & key metrics for effective attribution.
Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.
Cross-selling is a sales tactic of encouraging customers to purchase products or services that are related to what they're already buying.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
Gamification applies game mechanics like points, badges, and leaderboards to non-game activities to boost engagement and motivate users.
Email verification is the process of confirming that an email address is valid and deliverable, which helps improve campaign performance.
Ramp-up time is the period a new hire takes to get fully up to speed and become a productive member of your go-to-market team.
End of Day (EOD) refers to the close of business hours. It's a common deadline for tasks and reports to be completed before the workday ends.
A RESTful API is a web service interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data, adhering to the constraints of REST architecture.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that look and feel like native mobile apps, offering features like offline access and push notifications.
The Dark Funnel describes customer buying activities that are untrackable by companies, such as private chats and word-of-mouth referrals.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment an employee has to their organization, motivating them to contribute to the company's success.
Triggers are predefined conditions that, when met, automatically launch a workflow or action, ensuring timely and relevant outreach.
An Operational CRM is a system that automates and improves customer-facing business processes like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Lead routing is the automated process of distributing incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined criteria.
Sales prospecting software automates the process of finding, contacting, and tracking potential customers to help sales teams build their pipeline.
Lead qualification is the process of determining which prospects are most likely to become paying customers based on predefined criteria.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.
Psychographics categorizes people by their attitudes, interests, and lifestyles, revealing the 'why' behind their purchasing decisions.
White labeling is when a company puts its own branding on a product or service that was actually produced by a different company.
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
Outbound lead generation means proactively reaching out to potential customers who haven't yet expressed interest to introduce them to your brand.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
Load testing is a type of performance testing that determines how a system behaves under both normal and anticipated peak load conditions.
No Cold Calls is a sales strategy that replaces unsolicited calls with warm outreach to prospects who have already demonstrated interest.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
Network monitoring is the continuous process of tracking a computer network's performance and health to detect and resolve issues proactively.
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.
A landing page is a standalone web page created for a marketing campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after clicking an ad or email link.
Customer retention refers to the strategies and activities a company uses to prevent customer churn and encourage them to continue buying.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is a key performance indicator that calculates the average revenue generated from each user or subscriber.
Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.
Cold emailing is sending unsolicited emails to potential customers you haven't contacted before, aiming to start a business conversation.
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process, from the first contact to the final sale.
Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.
Learn about bottom of the funnel, including maximizing conversions at the funnel's end, & strategies for nurturing bottom-funnel leads.
Pipeline coverage is a key sales metric. It's the ratio of your total open pipeline value to your sales quota for a specific period.
A sales intelligence platform is software that provides sales teams with data and insights about prospects to help them sell more effectively.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) software helps teams coordinate personalized marketing and sales efforts to land high-value customer accounts.
Lead scoring is the process of assigning points to leads based on their attributes and actions to determine their sales-readiness.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.