Your Introduction to Marketing Security (Marsec)

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When you think of digital marketing, several things probably come to mind — ads, return on investment, analytics, and more. But one thing that might not come to mind is security. Security is always important, of course, but what does it have to do with marketing?

The truth is, online marketing security is a vital consideration for any business, including yours. By following best security practices for your online marketing efforts, you can better protect yourself and your customers against outside threats.



But what exactly are those threats, and what can you do to stop them? Keep reading for an overview of marketing security. Then subscribe to Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter, for more digital marketing tips from the experts!


What is online marketing security?
Online marketing security — or marsec — is the process of engineer database sensitive data involved in your digital marketing efforts. That data includes anything from financial data to lists of email addresses and phone numbers.

If people hack into your online databases or your website, they have the opportunity to steal any of the data you’ve used in your marketing. Marsec helps you prevent that from happening.

Why does marsec matter?
You might wonder what makes marsec so important. What’s so vital about your marketing data and why do you need to protect it?

The answer is that much of your marketing data is extremely sensitive. Your website’s bounce rate metrics? Maybe not. But your customers’ credit card numbers? Definitely.

That’s another thing to consider — marketing security protects multiple parties. Firstly, it protects your company from having people break in and shut down your website or find ways to steal your revenue.

But it also protects your customers. You likely gather data on your customers to market to them, including their demographics and where they’re located. And when they purchase products or services from you, they may provide their financial information on your site.

Marketing security aims to protect all that data from outside threats.

What website security threats do I face?
We’ve mentioned “outside threats” a couple of times now, but what does that mean? What types of threats are there, and how can they breach your defenses to hurt your business?

Typically, the threats we’re talking about are hackers and bots. They might use various methods to break through your security, including:

Malware and viruses: Malware is arguably the most common way for hackers to breach your defenses. Whether it’s through getting you to click a malicious link or by hacking straight into your site, they’ll inject viruses that steal or destroy data.
Third-party entry: This is where hackers take advantage of third-party software you’re using in your marketing. The connection points between different programs are often vulnerable to exploitation, with hackers using one of those programs to enter your site.