Questex implements Ketch to support Google ad requirements

Through event and digital experiences, Questex helps audiences discover new ways to expand and optimize their businesses, to learn the ins and outs of unique solutions and to find the right providers when they are ready to buy. The Questex Engagement Platform helps audiences discover, learn and assess purchase options as they explore and define their business needs. Creating opportunities for companies to promote and sell more effectively.

Challenge: finding a Google Certified CMP to meet advertising requirements 

Questex operates at the intersection of community engagement and data-driven marketing, helping brands across the globe with generating leads and sales. From building their own buyer journeys to supporting their customers, responsible data collection and usage is critical to Questex success. 

With data privacy an increasingly important factor in acquiring permissioned data, Questex needed to improve the transparency and control of its own data collection practices, without compromising the ability to leverage data for business growth.

“I’m interested in creating a 360-degree view of our end user, so that we can provide them with relevant and engaging content that aligns with their interests. Part of achieving that goal is giving the user control over what we can collect from a data perspective and honoring those choices in our data systems,” said Jake Kimball, Director of Marketing Operations at Questex.

Questex had a basic cookie banner in place, but was worried it lacked the sophistication to keep up with the modern regulatory landscape. The list for finding a better tool included a few key requirements:

• Adaptive, flexible compliance with changing data privacy regulations. Considering the fragmented U.S. state privacy landscape as a key example, Questex knew they needed a consent management platform (CMP) that would make it easy to comply with new regulations. 

• Ability to honor user consent signals across business data systems. Basic cookie banner tools give the appearance of compliance, but they fail in actually achieving compliance with privacy regulations. Questex needed a sophisticated CMP that would not only provide a transparent, pleasant frontend experience for visitors, but connect those consent signals to downstream systems across their marketing techstack. 

• Deployment before the Google Certified CMP deadline. Compounding this desire for a better platform was a critical announcement from Google: by January 16, 2024, all advertisers who use Google AdSense, AdManager or AdMob would be required to use a Google Certified Consent Management Platform (CMP) when serving ads to users in Europe and the UK. As an advertiser, Questex needed to adhere to this requirement. (Read more: Advertising on Google? You must use a Google Certified CMP)

Confronted with a narrow window for ensuring compliance, Questex turned to a trusted partner, their CDP, for a recommendation. From the list of certified Google CMPs, their CDP account team recommended Ketch.

“The Google advertising deadline forced our hand to select a better consent platform, but we needed it regardless,” said Jake. “Our previous cookie banner solution had limited capabilities and we weren’t confident in its ability to truly honor user privacy choices. Ketch is a better solution.” 

Solution: an intuitive, easy-to-use consent management platform that supports changing regulations

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“Ketch is both sophisticated and intuitive. It was easy to set up, and considering our short timeline that was fantastic. We were able to move from contract signature to go-live in a matter of weeks.”

Jake Kimball, Director of Data Performance and Marketing Operations

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With the Google deadline looming, the Ketch and Questex teams wasted no time in getting started with the Ketch consent management platform implementation. The Questex marketing operations team took the lead on implementation with the Ketch Customer Success Manager. 

Jake was pleased with the collaborative nature of the onboarding process. “I’m proud of my team’s hands-on approach to operating and managing all the tools in our marketing tech stack. With Ketch, we wanted to dive deep into configurations and policy creation. The Ketch team welcomed our approach, and we were able to complete 90% of the work ourselves with their guidance.” 

The Questex team was pleased with the sophisticated, yet intuitive nature of the Ketch platform. Ketch makes it easy to accomplish key privacy program tasks like:

• Building user experiences. The Ketch WYSIWYG experience editor makes it easy to create user-facing privacy experiences. From pop-up banners, to modals, to preference centers, Ketch enables easy creation of on-brand, on-voice consent notices.

• Adding new locations. “It seems like every year now we have a new privacy law to comply with,” said Jake. “In Ketch, all we have to do is check a few boxes, toggle a few switches, and within a matter of minutes the new policy is live.” Ketch consent management includes pre-populated policy templates for every major data privacy law. As new laws go live (for example, the many U.S. state privacy laws), the Ketch product team releases new jurisdiction templates for current customers at no additional cost. 

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The urgency of meeting the Google advertising deadline made the speed of Ketch’s integration a critical factor. Questex needed to prioritize deployment to their websites connected to Google Ads, approximately 30 different web properties. The Ketch Customer Success Manager prioritized a quick and supportive onboarding experience. Within weeks, the Questex and Ketch teams rolled out the consent management features needed to ensure base-level compliance: 

• Jurisdiction policy templates for every data privacy law and regulation where Questex maintains prospect and customer contacts: GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and many more U.S. states.

• Visitor-facing banner experiences to match the Questex brand look and feel, automatically matched to the right jurisdictions and deploying in each respective location according to visitor location. 

• Website tag orchestration to ensure that all website tags fire according to visitor consent. Ketch integrates with Google Tag Manager to ensure that tags and consent choices are connected. For example, if a visitor asks Questex not to use their data for analytics purposes, Ketch will ensure automatically that any tags related to analytics data collection will not fire for that user. 

Result: Google advertising deadline met, with plans for CDP and systems integration on the horizon 

With Ketch Consent Management deployed quickly to all ad-serving websites, Questex met their critical milestone of complying with the January 16th Google advertising deadline. 

Up next? Continued growth on the Ketch platform. Questex maintains 100 additional web properties that require a better consent management solution. 

Collecting user consent is simply the first phase to the Questex deployment; once all web properties are live, the team will begin the system integration process to connect user consent choices automatically to their personal data in downstream systems. “I’m excited about using Ketch to connect customer consent signals to our CDP,” says Jake. “We’ll be able to automatically honor people’s privacy choices in our key data systems.” 

The CDP integration will help Questex ensure that their teams and systems are using permissioned data to run marketing campaigns and experiences. This step exemplifies merging of compliance tools with marketing technologies, setting a benchmark for consent management and customer engagement in an ever-evolving regulatory landscape.

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“With Ketch, we can actually say what we do, and do what we say. We’re being transparent with our visitors about our data policies, and we’ll honor their choices by using Ketch to send those consent signals downstream across our marketing techstack.”

Jake Kimball, Director of Marketing Operations, Questex

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