Ponemon Institute release first ever online consumer permission study

The objective of the study is to learn what information consumers are willing to share with an online merchant (website/company) they purchase products or services from.

The study also aimed to investigate what incentives and services could be employed by the merchants to encourage consumers to provide more detailed information. Learnings like these enable marketers to better formulate their consumer data-capture studies and hence better target messages to the most appropriate or relevant audiences.

The report substantiates theories held by marketers that as the consumer continues to become savvier about his/her online experience, marketers must monitor and perhaps even change the way they treat consumers online in order to build a long-term relationship based on trust.

Some highlight findings of the report include:

• Consumers are willing to share more personal information about themselves with marketers when they have a trusted relationship. Areas such as sharing banking information, reading interests, special events such anniversaries/birthdays and areas of interest such as hobbies were found to be the most personal to consumers and the most affected by the perceived relationship the user has with the online merchant in question.

• Consumers want to be in control of their online experience. 84% of consumers want control over the types and frequency of Internet Ads sent from a Marketer.

• Lifetime customer relationships are best built when there is trust between the consumer and the marketer.

• If you treat a consumer with dignity, respect and humor, they respond much more in the relationship. 56% of consumers feel respected when marketers attempt to understand their individual interests.

• Consumers don't want to be tracked online. Only 20% would let a marketer share information in order to track their buying behaviour and project future buying decisions.


This report provides a whole host of implications to marketers when interacting with their consumer base through the online medium. One consistent finding in the report (unsurprisingly) is clearly that building trust in your brand through your communications and practice becomes paramount to the success of your overall consumer relationship.

However there are other interesting findings ie. The Internet provides marketers with a backbone of technology for us to better learn and understand our consumer needs and dislikes but the misuse of that same technology can actually have negative effects on our brand image and credibility.

Hence the communication and tracking online of our consumers must be monitored and vigilantly executed. An interesting insight for many brands in our region who perhaps have over stepped this fragile line.

Furthermore, the widely touted future of online in "behaviour" based marketing may still have obstacles to overcome as this report shows that consumers are very sensitive about their buying and browsing behaviour being tracked. Despite the fact that the same consumers indicated a preference for relevant and personalized communication and advertising. Clearly this shows a challenge for us to educate the consumers as the benefits and clear anonymity that online tracking proposes for the online user experience.

The full report study is available to download for free at the following url:

http://www.dotomi.com/new/newsevents/research.html