You have been working like hell to get the title of a Marketing Director, VP of Marketing or something close to that. Or long ago you have started a company with two friends on board and grew it into a serious business with 200+ employees.

Now you have a solid reputation and your prospects are tremendously great. Other words, you have too much to lose.

Watch out! That’s when a disaster may happen – data crucial for your company and also desirable for your competitors can be stolen under your guard.

How is that possible?

How Data Breach Occurs in Marketing

By data from marketing perspective I mean everything related to or resulting from marketing activities. That include numbers in analytics services and advertising networks – traffic amount, traffic sources, traffic quality, conversion rate, ROI – as well as information about qualified leads and customers from CRM systems.

Someone's Google Analytics data available in Google Images

This type of data lies at heart of corporate strategy and is a cornerstone of competitive advantage.

One way your marketing data can be siphoned off is by efforts of third-party advertising tools and analytics / remarketing / heat mapping services you generously grant access to your website.

Christian Sauer, CEO of Webtrekk, dedicated the entire post to the problem of data leakage. He pointed out that various tracking codes installed on a website without a second thought are not always harmless.

“When third-party advertising tools collect data about your users from your website, it stops being your data,” - Christian warns.

According to Christian Sauer, we should think twice before allowing third-party agents to get into our websites.

Consider a different scenario that will be a headliner of this article.

You set goals to increase brand awareness and traffic to your company’s website with intentions to convert it into leads and later into sales. For that purpose, you choose to focus on specific marketing activities: SEO, PPC advertising and email marketing (check the post of Neil Patel to see why email marketing is still a viable marketing tool).

These three activities are time-consuming and expertise-based, so you examined three options how to manage them:

Do everything by yourself Hire in-house marketers Outsource to freelancers and agencies

The potential danger to your marketing data comes with #2 and #3 option when you hire professionals and delegate the whole marketing or its parts to external specialists.

Can Employees and Outsources Steal Company’s Data?

Yes, they can. Moreover, they are constantly tempted to do that unless something significant holds them back. For instance, the fear of prosecution or loyalty to the company they work for.

The survey of Middle Market Leadership Council reveals that middle-market companies underestimate data security threats. Data obtained from 700 U.S. executives in the first quarters of 2015 and 2016 indicate that 61% perceive an incident of data breach as “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” to happen at their company.

Are you one of those believing that data theft is very unlikely to happen at your company? Refer to the case of National Security Agency then.

In October 2016, FBI has arrested the former NSA contractor for stealing and disclosing highly classified code developed by the agency to hack into the networks of foreign governments. Electronic devices were stored at his home and in his car and contained many terabytes of information.

Think about it: it was National Security Agency (!) that was unable to prevent data breach from happening.

In that regard you should be no less suspicious of your employees than of outsourced contractors. The discoveries from 2016 survey of Biscom indicate that “employees are the greatest risk when it comes to data theft.”

15 percent of respondents said they are more likely to pilfer files if they’re fired.

85 percent of those who take data say it is material they created, so it isn’t wrong.

LinkedIn influencer Daniel Solove supports the same idea in his post. He mentions the study by Forrester revealing that internal threats are the leading cause of data breaches.

No matter how skillful you are in face reading and recognizing second-rate marketers claiming they are experts, if you let them into your data, you lose control. Now your career is at their mercy.

How To Avoid Marketing Data Theft?

I’m kind of a control freak because I hate when outside forces intervene. It’s painful for me to realize that my plans can be ruined by someone or something aiming to take advantage of me or playing dirty behind my back.

Trusting job candidates, contractors and agencies blindly is not the case when it comes to giving access to marketing data. Don’t get overly paranoid about security, but consider these measures.

Prevention

- Check social profiles of candidates

It’s a red flag when marketing specialists have empty social profiles and Google has no evidence of their names. Either they use fake identities or they have something to hide.

- Askfor references

Get in touch with former employers of a job candidate and ask why he or she quit. Reach out to clients of outsourced contractors and find out if they are satisfied with services.

- Invite industry experts to join an interview

If you are interviewing a candidate or an agency for, let’s say, a SEO position, ask somebody in your environment who is proficient in SEO to take part in the conversation. His unbiased opinion on applicant’s competency will be helpful. Do the same to fill other marketing positions.

- Include data leakage penalties in the contract

New employees and outsourced specialists should be aware of data theft consequences from the very beginning.

Data Management

- Use password sharing tools

Don’t pass logins and passwords through Skype, Slack or emails. Don’t store them on your computer. It’s more secure to transfer passwords via LastPass-like tools without disclosing actual passwords.

- Do not grant access to sensitive data when no immediate use is expected

Some companies provide their new employees with accesses to all corporate data at once assuming they will need it in the future. Don’t do that. Share data only if it’s in need at the moment.

- Keep track of who gets access to what

Store the list of data services your company utilizes and associated people having access to them. Make someone in your team responsible for updating this information constantly.

- Remove former employees and contractors from data systems

You may be surprised, but many employees continue having accesses to analytics services of their former companies for many years after they leave.

- Change passwords in data systems once in several months

Evidently, all that matters for security of marketing data is who you are sharing your marketing numbers with and how you handle this process. Remember that extra vigilance will always pay off.



