The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data protection law enacted by the European Union (EU) that went into effect on May 25, 2018. If your business has a physical presence in the EU—or targets individuals in the EU—you may be required to comply with GDPR. You can learn more be reviewing our GDPR guide for BDOW! users.
When it comes to actually implementing a GDPR-compliant campaign form, the key change is to utilize the GDPR Opt-In field!
What does the GDPR Opt-In field do?
The GDPR Opt-In field is a special-purpose checkbox that you can include on your campaign form. Like all checkboxes, GDPR Opt-In is composed of a box to toggle and a text label. However, it also has additional functionality necessary for GDPR compliance:
Emails will only be added to your Contacts list if the subscriber provides consent.
When consent is given, an extra field named opt-in is included in the Contact Details (with a value that you specify):
Does a user have to grant consent in order to submit?
Yes. Submission attempts without granting consent are blocked:
BDOW! enforces this in the campaign designer as well. If you deselect the Required checkbox for a GDPR Opt-In field, you will not be able to save the form:
Will my Email Service Provider be notified if the user has granted consent?
Yes! If you have connected to an Email Service Provider, the opt-in field will be included in the data.
Does the GDPR Opt-In field work with double opt-in?
It does, but you should check where you have double opt-in turned on. If it is enabled on both the BDOW! side and Email Service Provider side, there is a chance that your new subscribers could be receiving two opt-in emails. Use double opt-in on the side that makes the most sense for your subscriber workflow.
How do I setup GDPR compliance on a form?
Since setting up the GDPR Opt-In field works just like any other design element, including it in your campaign form is very straightforward:
Edit the campaign form on which you want to include GDPR consent.
On the Design tab, click Add New > GDPR Opt-In to add the field to the campaign form.
Once added, you can customize your opt-in field in the Designer:
The Variable Name field is set to "opt-in" and will be included in the Contact details for each subscriber that grants consent. It is not editable.
The Required checkbox determines whether or not consent must be given in order to submit the form (note that you cannot add the GDPR Opt-In field without requiring consent).
The Variable Value field is editable and allows you to configure how "consent" is recorded in Contact details.
The Text field is important because it is where you specify the actual consent language. The default is "I consent to having mysite.com add my email to their mailing list."
Beyond these settings, you have the typical look/feel configuration items common to BDOW! design elements.
Now just save or publish the form, and you're done!