6 Cybersecurity Strategies for Your Digital Marketing Campaign

Originally published: February 01, 2023 12:09:05 PM, updated: March 10, 2024 03:49:12 PM

Your digital marketing campaign is only as strong as its cybersecurity. In today’s digital age, companies are targets for cyberattacks like malware and scams aimed at stealing confidential data or disrupting their operations.

In fact, KMtech says that you can expect these threats to get more expensive every year. This might affect your business by impacting sales, damaging your reputation, and losing the trust of your customers.

You can protect your company from these attacks by having a cybersecurity strategy in place. Here are six ways to protect your digital marketing campaign against cyber threats:

1. Back Up Data Regularly

If you run a professional website, you must ensure that you back up your data regularly. If a web hosting company goes out of business or there are other server problems, you’ll lose your data. You don’t have to worry about this issue if you already have backups because you can protect your information against data corruption or loss.

Implementing device control, such as using a cloud-based service to store your files online or investing in a high-capacity hard drive, will allow you to keep copies of your data. Either way, these options will give you peace of mind, knowing that you can still restore company and client data regardless of any web server disaster.

2. Limit Device and Account Access

Your team works on multiple digital campaigns, so your online accounts might be prone to threats. This may allow hackers to steal sensitive information and data, such as credit card numbers and bank account information. You can avoid this by limiting access to devices and accounts to only those who need it.

You can utilize solid passwords that are hard to crack or enable two-factor authentication. The latter means that if your employees need to log into their accounts, they need two forms of identification. These can be a password, and an additional code sent via text message or email. This will help keep sensitive information safe from hackers.

3. Educate Digital Marketers About Email Scams

Email scams come in the form of fake emails that appear to be from legitimate organizations or online users. These emails are usually sent as a warning that something may happen to your website or email address. However, there are times when these emails can cause harm to your organization’s reputation or business.

So, aside from limiting device and account access, you should also educate your digital marketers about email scams to prevent them from falling victim to scammers. You may do this by explaining the importance of verifying the sender’s identity before opening an email. Additionally, it's crucial to emphasize the use of reliable VPNs, such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN, to enhance the overall security posture, safeguarding against potential cyber threats and malicious activities.

You should also ensure that your digital marketers know how to identify these scams and how to report them to their supervisors or information technology (IT) team. This ensures you can track the perpetrators if they continue sending emails with malicious links or attachments.

4. Track CRM Activity Regularly

Your customer relationship management (CRM) system is essential in digital marketing. This can help you track how customers interact with your brand and how they respond to your promotional efforts.

Unfortunately, it invites a lot of cybersecurity issues related to authorized user authentication or monitoring transaction history. This might cause theft of client data or denial of service (DoS) attacks, which makes your system inaccessible to your team or consumers.

You can avoid this cyber issue by tracking CRM activity regularly so you can identify anything suspicious. This can help you prevent unauthorized access to customer data and keep it safe from hackers’ attacks.

You can also investigate if any unusual outgoing emails from your CRM server might harm your business. This way, you will know if there is a potential risk of identity theft while protecting your company’s reputation.

5. Get Rid of Bots

Bots are helpful for your digital marketing strategy because you can use them to communicate consistently with your customers. Aside from that, you can also utilize them to personalize promotional messages to your clients so that you can sustain a human-sounding tone with them. However, there are some malicious providers who manipulate your data to boost the hacker’s revenue.

An excellent way to prevent this threat is by getting rid of bots in your overall online campaign. Instead of relying on their services, consider outsourcing a new team of customer service experts who will help you keep up with the demands of your consumers.

If this option isn’t possible, you may look for reliable third-party providers and ensure they follow security protocols. This way, hackers won’t be able to hack into their systems while you’re leveraging automation on your online pages.

6. Filter Your Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to expand your brand’s reach because you’re partnering with online users that can help you sell your products. Unfortunately, one threat that might damage your online business is affiliate fraud.

This attack involves stealing commissions from your affiliate marketing program. It can be done by hackers, spammers, and other cyber criminals who monitor the web for opportunities to steal money from unsuspecting victims.

An excellent way to avoid this situation is by filtering your affiliates. For instance, you may review your previous sales transactions and look at the names of affiliates who sold the products to your customers. If they’re not on your affiliate marketers list, consider closing down their accounts so they won’t be able to sell anything from your site anymore.

You should also check the affiliate sites regularly for suspicious activity and block any known scammer accounts that attempt to deceive you. This ensures that the people who sign up for your affiliate program have genuine intentions and a good reputation.

Key Takeaway

With the rise of technology, most consumers now turn to online platforms to connect with their favorite brands and purchase from them. And as a business owner, you can use these advantages to expand your company’s reach by creating effective digital marketing campaigns. This can help unlock new customers, increase sales, and boost market share.

Unfortunately, as you expand your company using online sites, so do hackers who can seriously affect your business. That’s why you must protect your campaigns from them by ensuring you have sufficient data backup and educating your marketers about cyber threats. Aside from that, you should also ensure that you’re working with the right partners who are only after your company’s growth.