What is Piggybacking in Marketing?

According to Business Directory, piggyback marketing is defined as:

“A low cost market entry strategy in which two or more firms represent one another’s complementary (but non-competing) products in their respective markets.” 

Companies have engaged in piggyback marketing for a long time, and more recently, online piggyback marketing (also known as tag redirects, daisy chains, hops and/or cookie synching) has been effective for brands sharing each other’s digital content to help increase traffic and brand awareness.

How Do Companies Use Modern Piggyback Marketing?

Historically, marketing firms faced a challenge with online advertising, as they could be limited by domain-specific cookies, which restrict their ability to collect information and display relevant ads to website visitors. These restrictions drastically reduce the potential audience companies are trying to reach. In an effort to overcome these restrictions (and drive more revenue), marketing firms have developed online piggybacking methods to reach a broader audience by exchanging data across different platforms and sites. The classic case of piggybacking occurs when you’re visiting an e-commerce site and add an item to your shopping cart; when you later browse a different site, you may see an ad for that item you put in your cart on the first site.

What Are The Data Privacy Implications Of Piggyback Marketing?

• Privacy regulation noncompliance – You have limited visibility regarding what information a piggybacked tag receives, which can put you out of compliance with global privacy regulations like the GDPR and CCPA.
• Data leakage – Your customer data can be passed to a piggybacked tag without your knowledge or consent, which can lead to you losing your customers’ trust.
• Poor website performance – Every tag that loads on your website affects your site performance. Research has shown that users don’t want to wait for pages to load, which can lead them to navigate away from your site.‍
• Malicious code installation – Tag piggybacking can allow malicious code to be installed on your site or on your customer’s device, which is a major data and security risk.

How Should Companies Using Piggyback Marketing Comply With Data Privacy Laws?

• Flexible user interface to provide website visitors with “opt-in” or “opt-out” mechanisms by jurisdiction, which maximizes your website conversions
• Automatic cookie website scanner that identifies all the cookies used on the website, what data they collect and automatically assigns them to a processor from our repository of hundreds of third-party vendors.
• Comprehensive cookie consent management through our advanced cookie tag manager, cookie indexation, supplier whitelisting and piggybacking prevention.
• Brandable cookie notice layouts with your company’s logo and colors for a consistent user experience.

Key Takeaways

There’s no one-size-fits all solution to global data privacy; implementing a static solution will lead to lower conversions and financial penalties for noncompliance that could be otherwise avoided by leveraging technologies to take the kind of dynamic approach needed to comply with global regulations as they continue to be enacted, implemented and modified.

How Can Clym Help?

Clym believes in striking a balance between legal compliance and business needs, which is why we provide a cost-effective, scalable and flexible platform to comply with LGPD, GDPR, CCPA and other laws, including those in the UK, as they come online. Our platform provides consumers with an effective and easy-to-navigate way to opt-out of data collection while not infringing upon the website UI that businesses rely on to drive revenues. Contact us today about how your company can implement Clym to help manage your data privacy regulation compliance from a global perspective.