Speed instead of standstill: How B2B marketing optimally positions law, risk and relevance
Many B2B companies are making mistakes in their digital marketing: Driven by a diffuse fear of the General Data Protection Regulation, valuable contacts are never used, while outdated strategies such as re-opt-in campaigns are destroying the active database. However, to succeed in B2B marketing, it is essential to understand and balance the three key factors: legality, risk and relevance. In this article, we dispel the existing customer consent privilege myth and demonstrate why a pragmatic approach ultimately leads to greater success than blindly avoiding formal gaps.
The snooker principle in B2B digital marketing
Amongst snooker fans, it is common knowledge that achieving a "sink" is not enough on its own. The true art lies in maintaining one's position. You have to prepare for the next shot in such a way that the flow of the game is maintained. A similar situation exists in B2B digital marketing. There are three balls on the green table that must be placed in an optimal position in relation to each other: regulations, risk and relevance. However, although marketers are often targeting the right goals, they are using the wrong means to do so — or mishandling the right tools. They act like a player who hits the balls with maximum force in the hope that something will eventually end up in the hole. The result is usually a 'split', which scatters the valuable database to the four winds.
The re-opt-in trap: When well-intentioned leads to data suicide
One of the most common mistakes is attempting to expand mailing lists through a re-opt-in campaign. The logic behind this often sounds tempting to data protection officers and legal professionals: 'There are gaps in our documentation, or the opt-in doesn't comply fully with GDPR requirements — let's just ask people again!'
Don't do it! A re-opt-in campaign is the surest way to reduce a mailing list to a tenth of its original size, virtually bringing all email marketing to a standstill. The psychological hurdle is simply too high. People tend not to actively confirm things, even if they have enjoyed reading the email newsletter for years.
And what about the legal issues? You cannot ask for consent, then act as if you had never asked if there is no answer. Anyone who asks turns silence into rejection. Any formal deficiencies in the past cannot be remedied retroactively — they must be accepted as part of a conscious risk assessment.
The myth of existing customer privilege
The so-called 'existing customer privilege' is widely misunderstood. Many marketers, as well as data protection officers and lawyers, are confident that they can send marketing emails to all customers with an active contractual relationship. The reality, however, is more sobering: You need exactly the same formal consent for existing contacts as for new ones. Read more about this in our blog post on email marketing opt-in myths. To use the privilege under Section 7(3) UWG ('Opt-in when buying') legally, the arrangement must take into account that the organisation is making the purchase as a legal entity, but the advertising is addressed to natural persons in the buying centre. For this to be effective, the formal requirements must be met as soon as the email address is obtained. In particular, reference must be made to the right of objection. This is by no means trivial in a complex B2B environment, where email addresses are obtained via a variety of channels, mostly transactional, ranging from user accounts to contact with the account manager or service employee.
While incorporating the 'customer opt-in' into all processes is laborious, it is also full of opportunities, for example via boilerplates in business emails. The fact that the myth of the existing customer privilege still survives is a sign of unconsciously pragmatic risk management. The 'felt' affinity ensures that hardly any existing customer complains about a relevant email. Today, the risk lies less in the missing tick from 2014 than in inadequate process management.
Clean processes instead of panic: The real security
When push comes to shove — which fortunately happens extremely rarely — a supervisory authority is less interested in missing documentation from the last decade and more interested in your current processes.
To make your processes squeaky clean today, focus on two things.
- Future-proofing: The opt-in form on the website and the latest promotional email subscription and unsubscribe documentation must be watertight. In the case of opt-in, this means technically preventing mass fake subscriptions using form bots from the outset, for example through an effective but user-friendly captcha function.
- Opt-out management: This is actually the Achilles heel. It is not enough for the unsubscribe link in the email footer to work. If a recipient wants to unsubscribe manually via reply, via the 'list unsubscribe' option in the header, or even via the return path, but continues to receive messages, your company is creating a legal time bomb. Failure in the unsubscribe process is the most likely way to result in a complaint from a lawyer or the data protection officer.
The lever: confirmed opt-in instead of double opt-in
In a B2B context, we should also question the usefulness of the double opt-in process (DOI). The DOI is not mentioned in the GDPR. Its only purpose is to prevent abuse scenarios, such as signing an annoying neighbour up to 50 newsletters to get back at them. Such scenarios only really occur in questionable multi-opt-in competitions or in B2C organisations with distribution lists in the seven or eight digits. How high is this risk really in your B2B niche? The DOI process results in a failure rate of up to 30 per cent (up to 70 per cent for target groups with an older demographic), as confirmation emails end up in spam folders or are simply ignored.
Double opt-in is counterintuitive because it represents a double declaration of intent: You have signed up and must confirm this again. Confirmed opt-in (COI), where the user signs in immediately but receives a confirmation email with a clear unsubscribe link, offers a significantly better risk-to-benefit ratio.
Data refinement instead of managing inactive records: the foundation for maximum reach
Before we can play the balls precisely, the playing field must be free of obstacles. In the context of “Law & Risk,” CRM contact cleaning is much more than technical hygiene — it is insurance.
The first strategic move is to remove “dead wood”. Outdated addresses are ticking time bombs. Not only is there a risk of reputational damage due to high bounce rates if they continue to be contacted, but there is also a risk of blockages by the recipient organisation's mail servers. Therefore, check address validity independently of actual shipments. This allows you to empirically determine who has left and proactively search for successors in the buying centre, rather than communicating into the void.
The removal of duplicates and role accounts (such as info@domain.de) is equally critical. The latter are problematic for personalised B2B communication for legal reasons as they are not clearly assigned to any natural person and are often read by changing teams — the risk of a complaint is higher here than with personalised addresses.
This is where the true tactic of snooker becomes apparent: it is only through positioning (cleaning) that the next successful push (enrichment) can be made. Only once the 'dead wood' has been removed can the addition of position, division, relationship status and purchase history have its full effect. This interplay serves two fundamental purposes:
The precise control: We can determine exactly which contacts should be addressed with marketing communication when weighing up law, risk and economic potential — and with what intensity. A highly loyal customer, with whom substantial business is constantly being made, expects his contract or to keep him up to date with news about the products he uses. On the other hand, an interested party who made an enquiry once five years ago and then decided on a competitor could be irritated by sudden advertising.
- The basis for relevance: Only those who understand the contacts in the context of their organization can provide them with information that is optimally connectable in terms of lead generation, cross-selling and up-selling and customer loyalty. Data quality is therefore — in addition to interaction measurement through click tracking — the decisive factor in ensuring that communication is not perceived as harassment but as desired.
Relevance is the best legal protection
In focusing on a pragmatic risk assessment, there is a decisive change of perspective: Modern B2B CRM marketing must no longer be spellbound on the defensive Allowed stare. We must turn our gaze — away from purely formal admissibility, towards dialogical Desired. Since interests in dynamic markets are constantly changing, static master data is not enough. Only click tracking makes implicit needs visible and thus enables a tailor-made approach beyond watering can marketing. If communication is wanted by the recipient through genuine relevance, the already mostly theoretical risk associated with a legally offensive formulation of what is permitted is minimized.
In order to use this lever competently, tracking must not be understood as a monitoring tool, but as an indispensable prerequisite for personalized dialogue:
Linking consent: In email subscription processes, it is legally permitted to link tracking consent directly to sending permission. If your email advertising service is based on delivering tailored content, this combination is appropriate. It saves the user from cascades of clicks and ensures a seamless database.
Benefit-risk analysis of old stock: Instead of deactivating contacts without tracking history, controlled “focusing” is often the smarter way. In B2B practice, complaints about tracking are extremely rare because the recipient's attention is almost always focused on the sender and content of the message, not the technical measurement.
Implicit measurement instead of query frustration: Avoid manual preference queries, which are usually only used by a small minority. Click tracking incorruptibly recognizes the real interests of all recipients and replaces error-prone self-information with actual user behavior.
Content marketing and service communication: Produce highly informative content with direct contact details. Also use communication to fulfill the contract (e.g. software updates or tips & tricks) — “Educational content” is perceived as highly relevant and does not require any separate advertising consent.
The game is decided by the best use of marketing instruments
In the end, B2B CRM marketing is not about bluntly “pricing in” legal risks or accepting the GDPR as a mere obstacle. Real sovereignty comes from competent mastery of the instruments described here. By cleverly balancing law, risk and relevance, we avoid potential legal conflicts in the first place.
Well-designed opt-in and opt-out management, pragmatic handling of growing contact data bases and, above all, uncompromising content relevance ensure that communication is not experienced as harassment by the recipient but as added value. Whoever masters these moves minimizes theoretical risks and at the same time maximizes the real opportunities of their database. It is time to reposition snooker balls — with strategic vision and an eye for the big picture.
