Although clients and suppliers cite passive data collection as a growing source of consumer insights, roughly two-thirds say they will not use passive data two years from now. The finding comes from research conducted by GfK and IIR among over 700 market research clients and suppliers.
What is Passive Data Collection?
Passive data collection is the gathering of consumer data through their behavior and interaction without actively notifying or asking the consumer’s permission. In fact, most consumers don’t even realize how much data is actually being captured, nor how it’s being used or shared.
Examples of passive data collection are a browser or mobile device recording your location. Even though you may have clicked okay when first asked if the resource could monitor you, the device passively records your position from there on out.
As consumers become weary of their privacy being utilized in ways they hadn’t imagined, ad-blocking and private browsing options are becoming increasingly popular. Mozilla announced that Firefox has bolstered its private browsing mode by blocking third-party trackers. This may be keeping ahead of government regulations – which are looking to protect consumers and their data more and more.
Results of the research also reveal that:
- Budget limitations will likely remain the leading organizational issue for clients and suppliers. Still, various other concerns – from data integration to regulatory concerns – are nearly equally important.
- Roughly six in ten clients and suppliers say they will be doing research using mobile apps and/or mobile browsers two years from now – with suppliers more likely to say they are already doing it.
- Speed of insight generation to impact business decisions is also seen as an important gap in the industry today, scoring second among clients (17%) and third among suppliers (15%).
About one-third of recipients said their most important means for collecting data two years from now will be passive data collection, even though two-thirds aren’t doing any today. Two-thirds of market research companies don’t expect to be doing passive data collection in two years.
Passive Data Collection: Good or Evil?
For marketers to stop interrupting and begin sharing relevant, even requested, offers to consumers, marketers must capture data. The data must be incredibly accurate and available in real time. Accuracy is provided by validating the data from many sources. Real-time isn’t going to happen via surveys or third parties… it has to happen concurrently with consumer behavior.
Perhaps marketers brought this on themselves – collecting terabytes of customer data, but never using it to offer a better user experience intelligently. Consumers are fed up, just feeling used and abused as their data is bought, sold, and shared between tons of sources, spamming the crap out of them.
I fear that, without passive data collection, the walls start to go up. Businesses won’t want to use free content, tools, and apps to enhance consumer experience because they can’t glean any usable data. Do we want to head in that direction? I’m not sure we do… but I still can’t blame the resistance.
