Last updated: 22nd March 2026
Try these actionable steps today, they will position your organisation for a smoother transition
A strong focus & culture on data hygiene will always pay dividends for a more compliance & data driven marketing team
The message is clear, act now & don't wait for the Australian government to finalise the detail
"There's much greater emphasis now on understanding what my data holding looks like, who has access to that data, what third parties are holding my data and have access to it, and what controls have been embedded to mitigate the risk, not only from a security perspective, but more widely."
-Brenton Steenkamp, Partner, Clayton Utz
"The reform talks to what measures are being embedded internally.
- Are people being trained?
- Is the governance process being framed out?
- Have the necessary measures been taken to forecast or understand how old is the data you have on hand?
- Has it been used for the appropriate purposes?
- Why was it first collected?
Those processes are key, and that's where maturity needs to increase."*
*SOURCE: Mi3 | Opt-in, opt-out, implied consent: Data privacy grey areas that risk undoing brands; lawyers, consultants and marketers sound warning | 10th October 2023
Understand your current CX, what's the experience people are having today as they engage with your organisation?
Try these activities to evaluate your current processes:
- Send yourself an email from your marketing automation platform and then click on the unsubscribe link.
- Is the experience of unsubscribing easy or is it convoluted?
- Check your marketing automation platform to ensure you are now unsubscribed or opted-out.
- If your CRM is integrated with your marketing automation platform, does the CRM also have you flagged as opted-out or unsubscribed?
- Did you receive an email confirming that you've been opted out?
- Assuming you have a preference centre that you can access from your website or at least a form you can submit to access content, go ahead and complete the form using the same email address you used above to opt-out.
- Did you receive content based on the form you just submitted.
- Review your marketing automation platform and CRM to confirm your subscription status, are you opted-in again or not?
Review your data sources, is attribution working every-time? How many access points are there for people to enter your systems?
Over time it's easy to end up with a myriad of data entry points. It's critcial to ensure all net-new people added to your marketing platform are opted-in and their acknowledgment of your ability to email them is recorded accurenely. Governance is the key here.
The most common entry points for most marketing automation platforms are:
- Your CRM
- Form submissions via your current marketing automation platform campaigns
- Form submissions from your website
- Manually uploaded Excel files
Understand your current CX, think more strategically about your first-party data & the type of data you're collecting.
Regardless of the impending changes, there are some steps you can take today to streamline data management.
Start with these points:
- If children make up a portion of the people you engage with, what processes do you have in place to validate their age?
- Age date is only valid for a maximum of 12 months, how will you keep that data current and accurate? TIP: It will largely depend on how you ask the quetion and the response you enable people to provide.
- Of the data you collect, some will be PII (Personally Identifiable Information). Will this data be stored in systems beyond your current marketing automation platform and your CRM platform?
CDP's rose in popularity as the best solution for European and global firms to help with GDPR compliance.
Customer Data Platforms are built for Marketers and easily talk to most marketing automation platforms like Eloqua, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Marketo and more.
A Customer Data Platform is designed to consolidate and analyse customer data from various sources across your organisation. Its emergence can be attributed to the increasing complexity of data management, rising customer expectations, and the regulatory landscape, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Prior to GDPR, businesses often struggled with data fragmentation and compliance challenges. CDPs like Oracle Unity offered a solution by providing a centralised platform for data unification, ensuring data quality, and facilitating adherence to data privacy regulations.
According to the salesforce 2020 State of Marketing Report, among marketers who say they use CDPs, 86% are increasing or maintaining their use of them.
If you're not sure where or how to start, let's connect. Schedule a ZOOM with us & we can go from there.
We've been supporting marketing automation clients since 2017. Our CX consultants & certified technical team can help you navigate your organisation's way to a compliant safe harbour.
By clicking on the button above, you'll be taken to our Zoom Scheduler page which is connected to our Google Calendars. You'll see our available slots and can select a time that best suits you. Simple.
DISCLAIMER: Just to let you know, we're not offering legal advice. We encourage your organisation to refer to in-house counsel or other legal service providers to ensure compliance with changes being legislated by the Australian Government.
Hero photograph on this page by Marcus Reubenstein on Unsplash
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