Let’s dig deeper into how to be GDPR compliant as a blogger and what GDPR means in the first place.

Sadly and I wish it was different because I definitely had my share of confusion and rage about it, the law is a reality, so we have to adhere. So, today I would love to talk about how you can gain more blog subscribers in a way to be GDPR compliant as a blogger!

This is just a small part of GDPR but you need to have something called “EXPLICIT CONSENT” from your blog subscriber as a European blogger, in order for you to send your subscriber an email. If I don’t have your “explicit consent” plus I can PROOF that you gave this to me I am not GDPR compliant as a blogger!

Let’s de-haze the crystal ball on how I am gaining subscribers in the first place and how I receive their explicit consent to be compliant with the GDPR law using Drip and Leadpages!

I am going to teach you how to:

1: Use LeadPages and Drip to grow an Email list

2: How GDPR “Explicit Consent” looks like

3: Two solutions for receiving “Explicit Consent”

How I grow my Email Subscribers

Drip is the email marketing service I use to grow my Blog following and build an email list.

Now, many many bloggers (including me for years) have been using MailChimp or ConvertKit to start out and these are amazing services as well. But today, I wanted to share why I switched from Mailchimp to ConvertKit, and then in the end to the Drip Email Platform.

Full disclosure here. For a long long time, I didn’t even know that Drip existed. I was fully involved in the battle between ConvertKit and Mailchimp. I totally love those tools and I get why they are so popular.

Anyways, It was early last year when GDPR hit the blogging world and for me, as a Swiss Blogger soon to be living back in Zurich, had to come to terms with the fact that I was totally non-compliant to this law.

Check out your Drip Email Marketing Trial here.

Why GDPR plays into this?

Please stick with me for a sec here:

The General Data Protection Regulation in short GDPR is a privacy law to protect the information people provide to you and how you are allowed to use the information about them. Now, this is a very complex law and DISCLAIMER in this post I am only covering a very small part (just to be clear).

So for me as a blogger, this means that each person who subscribes to my email list has to give me “EXPLICIT CONSENT” to be added to my email list.

I have to be able to show such “proof” of explicit consent for every single person on my email list! In Drip this looks something like this: 

My Setup to grow Blog subscribers?

At this point in time, I was using LeadPages for creating my opt-in forms as well as ConvertKit and before that MailChimp to send out emails and store my subscriber’s list.

Check out my post on “What the heck is LeadPages” which also include two video tutorials on how to set up landing pages and opt-in forms if you want to learn more.

Now, In order to receive such “explicit consent” by people, you are required to add a tick box to your opt-in form. By ticking this box your subscriber allows you to send them an email, their information be stored on your list and receive promotional and sales material.

You are not allowed as a European Blogger to store such information (like an email address of someone) and send out emails, without having proof of them giving you this explicit consent.

So how do we get this consent?

The Problem: Leadpages + ConvertKit “DON’T SHARE INFORMATION!”

First, I added this tick box to my LeadPage opt-in forms which were connected to my ConvertKit list.

So for a good time, I thought this was it. It was ok. I was complying to this complicated law in this respect and everything was ok! Now “No” it was not. My fianceé is a lawyer and through a lot of conversation on my part trying to figure out how to comply with this law, as well as voicing my frustration to him, I realized something was not adding up.

How was I going to prove, that these people actually ticked the box on my op in form?

So far, I have not seen a sign in ConvertKit or anywhere else, tracking this information from my opt-in form to my email list. I emailed LeadPages as well as ConvertKit and it turned out that the two companies were not sharing information!

There was no way for LeadPages to provide the GDPR consent on my form (whether someone ticked the box or not) to ConvertKit.

This was a huge problem for me!

Ps. If you want to learn How to create Opt-in Forms with Leadpages and if you want to know how to get everybody landing on your site to jump right into your list check out my tutorial on how to create “Hight Converting Freebies” here.

Ps. Check out my this 6-Page PDF Guide, we are going into all the nitty-gritty details on “How to create high converting Freebies”!

GIMME MY GUIDE!

 

The 2 Solutions: Leadpages + Drip

Solution 1: What I did

In July 2016 LeadPages acquired Drip Email Marketing Sevices.

Meaning, Leadpages would be able to provide the “explicit consent” information from someone clicking the checkbox to Drip.

And, you guessed right! I checked out Drip’s Services and I was blown away! This service was having all the amazing ConvertKit functionalities like automation, split testing and so much more, and I would be able to remain using LeadPages for my opt-in forms!

Now, I am obsessed with Leadpages. I think they are the best and most advanced opt-in and landing page builder there is. They give me the opportunity to brand my opt-in form the exact way I want to. 

So, basically, I did not have the option.

I moved my entire list from ConvertKit to Drip. I am going to write an entire post about that decision and why I love Drip and why I think they are amazing!

But here is an example of how the explicit consent information is transferred from a LeadPages form to Drip and how this is stored in Drip for every single subscriber.

If for any chance, GDPR regulators want to see this explicit consent information, I can just go to Drip and show them and export this information for them.

Solution  2: Stay with ConvertKit or Mailchimp

Now I am obsessed with LeadPages and I would follow them wherever so this was not an option for me but:

Both ConvertKit and MailChimp now offer their own “Opt-In Forms” which you can include in your blog posts to gain blog subscribers. 

Obviously, if you are using their own forms and not a third party integration, the consent from your new subscribers will be tracked by both services.

For me, this would have been a huge undertaking, as I would have to create dozens of new forms and landing pages which were already created in LeadPages.

However, I did want to mention this solution as a fyi 😉

Now as I have mentioned, receiving and storing “explicit consent” by your subscribers is only one tiny task to be compliant with GDPR. Let me know if you are interested in this topic and you would like to read more about.  Also, let me know which solution you have found for your blog to be GDPR compliant as a blogger and if you have found this post useful in the COMMENT BELOW!

Loads of love and have an amazing day,

Xoxo Katie

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