Remaining CCPA Compliant on Facebook

In the world of digital marketing, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have unlocked new opportunities to reach audiences. For insurance marketing, Facebook stands as a powerful tool, allowing direct and personal interaction with consumers. As powerful as these platforms can be, their increasing use comes with regulatory considerations. Social media marketing professionals must understand the implications of these regulations, especially concerning data privacy. For advertisers doing business in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has had an outsized impact on social media marketing. Here’s how to remain compliant with CCPA while leveraging the incredible potential of Facebook insurance marketing.

CCPA: The California Consumer Privacy Act

Signed into law in June, 2018 and going into effect on January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a state statute intended to reinforce consumer privacy protections for residents living in California. The CCPA applies to any business or organization that collects consumer data, does business in California, and meets certain criteria in terms of business practices. Under the CCPA, consumers have several important rights, including:

• Knowing about what personal data is being collected about them.
• Knowing how the data is being used, including whether said data is being sold and to whom it is sold.
• Granting access to personal data being collected.
• Allowing for an individual to request deletion of personal information being collected.
• Opting out of sales of personal data entirely.

Businesses that meet the criteria under the CCPA are required to post notices about their privacy practices and to provide consumers with methods by which to request data, request data deletions, and to opt out of data sales. It is important to note that a business does not have to be domiciled or headquartered in the state of California to be bound by the provisions of the CCPA. Any business that collects data from California residents may, and which meets CCPA criteria, must comply with the statute.

Facebook’s Limited Data Use Setting

Facebook is the premier social media platform, boasting over 2.7 billion monthly active users. As Facebook is headquartered in California, the company is especially aware of the CCPA and how it affects user privacy. To enhance user privacy protections, Facebook automatically opted advertisers into a setting known as Limited Data Use (LDU) beginning July 1, 2020. When the setting is enabled – here, enabled by default – the social media platform restricts the way California resident data is collected, stored, and processed.

The default setting is only temporary, extending to October 20, 2020. After that point, advertisers must enable the setting to remain in compliance with CCPA unless certain conditions apply to the business or businesses represented by advertisers.

Once the LDU setting became automatic, advertisers saw immediate effects, with costs per acquisition rising by a factor of 500% and conversion rates dropping by nearly 85%. These effects left social media marketing teams scrambling to recover.

Ensuring Compliance with CCPA

Businesses must carefully evaluate their responsibilities in light of the CCPA. Facebook’s LDU setting is only one option to remain in compliance with the law; social media marketing teams need to also consider whether:

• CCPA is applicable to a given business or business practice;
• Businesses are already complying with CCPA in another way, such as filtering events before posting them to Facebook profiles; and,
• LDU is already enabled for a particular data source and data handling practices.

Search Engine Land, one of the leading resources for digital marketers, has compiled an extensive overview of CCPA compliance, including code snippets that can be used to enable or disable certain aspects of Facebook’s LDU. This resource also provides a handy risk-tolerance reference guide for businesses that may be affected by the CCPA.

It is imperative that businesses protect personally-identifying data of consumers to avoid liabilities. Failures to adapt to the provisions of the CCPA can result in steep penalties, not to mention the increased potential of legal claims by consumers against violators. Consumer data is a precious commodity in social media marketing. By ensuring compliance with CCPA and other data privacy laws, insurance companies and insurance marketing firms can continue to do business without the regulatory headaches and liability exposures that can cripple operations.

About Agency Tsunami

Agency Tsunami is the digital marketing division of Neilson Marketing Services, who has provided the insurance distribution sector with innovative marketing and communication solutions for over twenty-five years. With our Agency Tsunami program, we have implemented an integrated marketing strategy that includes optimized, professional websites supported by high-quality SEO and Social Media for hundreds of insurance retailers and wholesalers. Our goal is to help your insurance business perform and generate new opportunities. Give us a call at (800) 736-9741 to learn more about how we can do that for you.