Super-brands from the charity, financial services and leisure sectors have tested every conceivable form of statement structure using the fast.MAP Consent Optimising Benchmarks. And, after diligently recording the absolute level of consent by channel and identifying the things within permission statements which most influence people’s decision to consent, fast.MAP can reveal the Three Pillars of Consent are: opt-in vs opt-out, channel choice and language.
Pillar 1: Opt-in vs Opt-out
When respondents need to tick a box to stop consent this is called ‘opt-out’. When respondents tick a box to give consent, this is called ‘opt-in’.
Opt-out generates more consent, but regulation and codes of practice are increasingly moving towards opt-in. fast.MAP clients are conscientiously planning in anticipation of a mandatory opt-in regime.
Pillar 2: Channel choice
It is particularly difficult to gain consent for some channels (eg. telephone) while others are far more popular.
The order, combination and prioritisation of channels all influence the amount of consents obtained. For example, carefully bundling an unpopular medium with a popular one will lift consent to the unpopular channel and lower it for the popular one.
The process of channel choice can lead to intense internal discussion, as managers negotiate the relative importance of each channel to their own business unit.
Pillar 3: Language
There are 14 attributes (such as trust, clarity and control) which influence people’s decision to give consent. The linguistic presentation and prioritisation of these competing qualities significantly affects consent levels. Impatient consumers have a consent attention-span of a few seconds, so the selection, order and placement of every word and comma really matters.
Probably the most frustrating challenge for marketers who want to improve permission statements is the lengthy and impractical live testing process which used to be necessary to understand how changes affect consent. Indeed, it is unrealistic to carry out live testing of multiple permission statements because it leaves and untidy legacy of people who have consented to different things in different ways – all of which must be stored and respected.
Why the discovery the three main influences on consent-to-contact is important
When testing, direct marketers try to limit the variables so it is clear which one has caused the result.
Our analysts have built benchmarks for statements of differing structures. These allow brands to compare the performance of their own statements with ones of the same structure.
For example, using Consent Optimising Benchmarks, marketers might choose to keep opt-in and channel choice the same and test different versions of the wording, to quickly identify exactly what will improve consent levels.