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EU Data Act an opportunity for Marketing Leaders
The European Union’s EU Data Act, set to take effect from September 2025, represents a monumental shift in the digital landscape, moving beyond data protection (the focus of the GDPR) to encompass data access and sharing. For business leaders, this is not merely another compliance exercise; it is a strategic inflexion point. The Act mandates that manufacturers of connected (IoT) devices make the data generated by those products accessible to the users who own them, and by extension, to third parties with user consent. This unlocks a torrent of real-world usage data, creating unprecedented opportunities for marketers to achieve a true 360-degree view of the customer journey. However, it also introduces significant challenges related to data integration, security, and strategy. This article provides a strategic framework for CMOs and CEOs to navigate this new terrain, leveraging IT Tech BuZ’s proprietary IDIRA framework and the renowned SOSTAC model to transform regulatory obligations into a distinct competitive advantage.
Understanding the EU Data Act: A New Paradigm for Marketers
While the GDPR governs the protection of personal data, the EU Data Act is designed to stimulate the EU’s data economy by defining who can create value from data. Its primary goal is to ensure fairness in the allocation of data value among businesses, consumers, and public bodies. For marketing leaders, the most transformative aspect is the right of access to data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) products, from smart home appliances and wearables to connected vehicles and industrial machinery.
This means a consumer who buys a smart coffee machine can request the usage data (e.g., frequency of use, preferred settings) and share it with a third-party service, such as a coffee bean subscription company, to receive personalised offers. This shift from inferred digital behaviour to actual product interaction data is the cornerstone of the Act’s impact on marketing.
Analysing the Impact Through IT Tech BuZ’s Proprietary IDIRA® Marketing Framework
To harness the potential of the EU Data Act, businesses must adopt a structured approach. The proprietary IDIRA® framework from IT Tech BuZ provides a clear path to integrate these new data streams into a cohesive marketing engine.
1. Integration of Data
- Pros: The Act unlocks first-party data sources that were previously inaccessible. Marketers can now integrate real-world product usage data with their existing CRM and digital analytics platforms, like Google Analytics 4. This allows for the creation of a truly holistic customer profile, connecting pre-purchase digital touchpoints with post-purchase behaviour.
- Cons: This influx of data brings significant technical challenges. Companies will need robust data warehousing solutions and scalable infrastructure to handle the volume and variety of IoT data. Without a clear data-driven marketing strategy, organisations risk creating data silos rather than a unified view.
2. Data Collection
- Pros: The mandate provides a legal basis for collecting highly granular, real-world data directly related to how customers use your products. This is explicit, user-permissioned data, making it more valuable and compliant than data acquired through third-party cookies.
- Cons: The process is not automatic. Companies must establish clear, user-friendly mechanisms for customers to request and share their data. This requires updating privacy policies, creating secure data-sharing APIs, and building customer trust by demonstrating a clear value exchange for their data.
3. Insights
- Pros: Access to product usage data enables hyper-personalisation at a scale never before possible. A fitness brand could use data from a smartwatch to offer personalised training plans. A car manufacturer could offer proactive maintenance alerts and tailored insurance plans based on driving habits. These insights move marketing from reactive to predictive.
- Cons: Raw data is not insight. The challenge lies in developing the analytical capabilities to process this new information. Teams will need skills in advanced digital marketing analytics to identify meaningful patterns that drive business decisions, avoiding the pitfall of data overload.
4. Reports
- Pros: Marketing reports can now include post-purchase engagement and product lifetime value metrics that are directly tied to real-world usage. This allows leaders to demonstrate a more complete ROI, showing how marketing efforts influence not just the initial sale but also long-term customer loyalty and retention.
- Cons: Dashboards and reporting tools must be reconfigured to visualise this new data. Standard reports focusing on website sessions or conversion rates will be insufficient. A new generation of business intelligence reports will be needed to connect the dots between digital campaigns and physical product interaction.
5. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Pros: This new data is a goldmine for training AI and machine learning models. LLMs like Google’s Gemini or custom models can be trained on richer datasets to create more accurate predictive models for customer churn, identify cross-selling opportunities (Next Best Offer), and power highly contextual generative AI marketing copy.
- Cons: Using IoT data for AI modelling raises significant ethical and security considerations. Organisations must ensure their AI governance frameworks are robust enough to prevent bias and protect sensitive user information, maintaining transparency in how models are built and deployed.
Understanding the EU Data Act: A New Paradigm for Marketers
While the GDPR governs the protection of personal data, the EU Data Act is designed to stimulate the EU’s data economy by defining who can create value from data. Its primary goal is to ensure fairness in the allocation of data value among businesses, consumers, and public bodies. For marketing leaders, the most transformative aspect is the right of access to data generated by Internet of Things (IoT) products, from smart home appliances and wearables to connected vehicles and industrial machinery.
This means a consumer who buys a smart coffee machine can request the usage data (e.g., frequency of use, preferred settings) and share it with a third-party service, such as a coffee bean subscription company, to receive personalised offers. This shift from inferred digital behaviour to actual product interaction data is the cornerstone of the EU Data Act’s impact on marketing.
Applying the SOSTAC® Model to Your New Marketing Data Strategy
To operationalise this change, leaders can apply the trusted SOSTAC® planning framework, a model IT Tech BuZ uses to build data-driven marketing plans for its clients.
- Situation Analysis: Where are we now? Audit all connected products in your portfolio. Assess your current data infrastructure and analytics capabilities. Analyse competitor products and their data-generating potential.
- Objectives: Where do we want to be? Set specific, measurable goals. For example, “Increase customer lifetime value by 15% in 2026 by creating a personalised service offering based on product usage data.”
- Strategy: How do we get there? Define your data value proposition. Will you use the data to improve the core product, offer new services, or build a partner ecosystem? Your strategy should position data sharing as a benefit to the customer.
- Tactics: What specific actions will we take? Develop a secure API for data sharing. Redesign your consent management process. Create marketing campaigns that educate users on the benefits of sharing their data.
- Actions: Who does what and when? Assign clear ownership. The CTO’s team will build the technical infrastructure, while the CMO’s team will design the customer-facing value exchange and communication plan. Legal and compliance must be involved from the start.
- Control: How will we measure success? Define new KPIs beyond traditional marketing metrics. Track the “data-sharing consent rate,” “customer engagement with data-driven services,” and the “impact of usage data on customer retention.”
Conclusions and Strategic Actions
The EU Data Act is not a threat, but an opportunity to build deeper, more valuable customer relationships based on trust and a fair exchange of value. Companies that view this as a purely technical compliance task will fall behind. Those who embrace it as a strategic driver for innovation will lead the next generation of data-driven marketing.
Your Action Plan:
- Educate Your Leadership: Ensure the C-suite understands the strategic implications beyond legal compliance.
- Conduct a Product & Data Audit: Identify which of your products fall under the Act and map the data they generate.
- Prioritise Customer Trust: Design a transparent and compelling value proposition for why customers should share their data with you.
- Invest in Your Data Stack: Assess whether your current technology can handle the integration and analysis of IoT data at scale.
- Upskill Your Team: Your marketing and analytics teams will need new skills to derive insights from this complex data.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- How is the EU Data Act different from the GDPR? The GDPR focuses on the protection of personal data, granting individuals rights over how their data is used. The EU Data Act focuses on data access and sharing, granting users the right to access and share data generated by the products they own, including non-personal data. The two regulations are designed to work together.
- Does the EU Data Act only apply to B2C companies? No, it applies to both B2C and B2B contexts. A business that purchases a piece of connected industrial machinery has the same right to access and share the data generated by that machine with a third-party service provider of their choice.
- What is the immediate first step my company should take? The first step is to conduct a comprehensive audit of your product portfolio to identify all connected devices that generate data. This will determine the scope of your obligations and allow you to begin planning the technical and legal steps for compliance.
- How will this affect our relationship with tech giants like Google or Microsoft? The Act includes provisions to facilitate easier switching between cloud service providers, which could increase competition and reduce vendor lock-in. It encourages a more open and interoperable data ecosystem.
- Can we charge customers for accessing their data? No, data must be shared with the user or a third party designated by the user, free of charge. The goal is to empower the user and foster a competitive market for data-driven services.
References
- European Commission. (2025). The Data Act explained. European Union. Retrieved from https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/data-act-explained
- McKinsey Digital. (2023). The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier
- Smaje, K., & Sjödin, E. (2024). What is the Data Act and how can it create value?. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/what-is-the-data-act-and-how-can-it-create-value
