Advice from the Anytime Team about GDPR and email marketing
This article is provided as a resource, not legal advice. If you want to learn more about how GDPR affects your organisation, we would encourage you to seek expert legal counsel.
The Anytime booking process and the “My Account” area for your guests has setting preferences for email marketing. Your guests can opt in to hear more from you about news and special offers if they wish.
Understanding who is responsible for what
Under the terms of GDPR, Anytime Booking is the ‘Data Processor’ and you as the business owner, are the ‘Data Controller’. This essentially means that you are in control of and responsible for how the data is used for your marketing purposes and we are responsible for storing that data.
Explicitly opting in
For your guest to receive email marketing, they need to explicitly opt in themselves under GDPR guidelines, knowing what their data will be used for, by whom and how they can opt out in the future.
The consent given must be clear and affirmative and given actively. You cannot make this decision for them.
Verbal Instruction from your Guest to Opt In or Opt Out
The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) recognises that this permission does not always need to be taken electronically or in writing, so verbal instruction to opt in from the guest is allowed (eg during a telephone booking) so long as the guest knows how their data will be used, by whom and how to easily opt out.
If you are taking a telephone booking, a walk-in booking, or your guest has phoned you or emailed you to ask you to add them or remove them from e-marketing, you will have the tools in Anytime to action this on their behalf.
As part of the telephone booking process, you will be prompted to mark whether they have verbally opted in or out. If you receive a request unrelated to a booking, you can search for the guest in Anytime and make the preference change directly against their record.
Under GDPR, verbal opt ins need to be auditable, so within Anytime Booking, such verbal consents against a guest record are recorded with the ID of the user indicating consent has been given and are time stamped.
Tips for using Anytime Booking e-marketing
If you use the Anytime Booking eMarketing module, here are some useful tips :-
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Use one list for your emarketing. This master list will be automatically created when you set up an email marketing account with us. Your guest data from Anytime Booking will be synced with this list only. That means that your guests’ email addresses and their GDPR marketing preferences that they have set in Anytime will be the same for both. Any opt ins and outs via Anytime Booking will sync with this list and automatically create a GDPR segment to which you can send out emarketing.
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Create guest segments) out of your master list, eg. loyal customers, customers who booked last year with a dog etc.
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If you create other lists either manually or that you have imported into the Anytime emarketing module from other third parties, bear in mind that if one of your guests makes a booking as a result of a campaign from that list, and then updates their preference to opt out, this will only be reflected on the Anytime Booking master list. You would need to unsubscribe them separately from the imported list.
Tips for using other email marketing services
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If you are using a third party email marketing provider such as mailchimp, you can export your data from Anytime Booking by .csv file and import it into mailchimp. We have written the GDPR Y/N filter into the export so that you only need to mail those who have said Yes.
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Please bear in mind that Anytime will not sync with an external mailing list and therefore for the list to stay current with GDPR opt ins you would need to export the .csv and overwrite the list in your external platform each time you do a campaign.