For decades, marketers have thrived on a seemingly endless supply of user data. Third-party cookies, once the cornerstone of targeted advertising, are crumbling under growing privacy concerns and stricter regulations. On the other side, consumers demand more control over their information, and tech giants are responding with privacy-focused updates. This shift presents a golden opportunity to build trust and forge deeper relationships with your customers. If you’re wondering how to move toward privacy-led marketing, this is your chance to hear it from an expert! I had the pleasure of talking to Adelina Peltea, CMO of Usercentrics, about her journey from productivity to privacy, how marketers can become more privacy-focused, and why she thinks privacy is one of the hottest growth industries of the decade. This interview is part of G2’s Professional Spotlight series. For more content like this, subscribe to G2 Tea, our newsletter with SaaS-y news and entertainment.
Warm-up questions
What’s your favorite beverage? When do you enjoy it? I used to live in Asia, so I developed an appreciation for black tea and Oolong. I like to try different ways of having them and from different sources. I enjoy the feeling of sipping something warm throughout the day.
What was your first job? I used to work for Kantar Millward Brown, one of the leading agencies for brands, media, and communications. I was on the qualitative research side, which opened my eyes to understanding insights and how to apply them to product launches, market expansion, advertising testing, etc. It gave me a nice landing in the marketing world, and I learned everything independently afterward.
What’s your favorite software in your current tech stack? I like everything that enables collaboration and communication. So, anything from Miro to Pitch would be my favorites. They are simple yet game-changing.
What problems at work make you want to throw your laptop out the window? I’m told that I bring a calm energy. It’s imperative, especially as leaders, to show your team how to keep a cool head and go through it. It doesn’t mean nothing takes you up or down or frustrates you, but you can quickly calibrate. To do that, I have a side of me besides my business side, which I balance a lot with meditation. So I will never throw the laptop! I appreciate that there are ups and downs in life, business, and everything, but it’s about calibrating fast and being a calm oasis for people.
Deep dives with Adelina Peltea
Washija Kazim: You have an extensive background in SaaS and product-led growth, particularly in the SMB market. What was the key turning point that led you toward privacy-led marketing and Usercentrics? Adelina Peltea: If I look at my entire SaaS career, I’ve been in it from the beginnings of cloud computing to the whole wave of SaaS software that was hot for more than a decade. I was always on the productivity side. Every business I was in was substituting email and spreadsheets with a perfect UX solution dedicated to a specific problem: forms, inventory management, recruitment software, you name it.
Over the last few years, I witnessed it becoming a commodity. There are so many solutions out there. It’s so easy to build them, and there was so much money in the system, but then came the crisis, and the valuations dropped. It got me thinking, “Did we over-index on productivity and UX?” It was a good decade to ride, and we all work better because of these tools. But what’s the future?
Data privacy got my attention because it’s such a fundamental thing. As we build and shape the internet, which is still new in how we share data and how businesses use data, we’re entering a new level of maturity. Of course, it started with regulations and protecting people’s rights. But people are also waking up and realizing it’s important. They are self-educating, becoming more conscious about what’s happening, and more demanding.
It’s such a fundamental thing. If we shape this well, we will make the internet a better place. And that got me really excited. So it’s a really good industry to be in. It’s going one step below in the pyramid, which is an enabler for many things. And, of course, we all like to have an impact. It resonates with me and probably with many other people. I call this the new way of doing business, “privacy-led marketing”. It’s a new approach to marketing and growing revenue by collecting and respecting data consents and preferences. Consumers who trust brands to handle their data responsibly are more likely to convert. Data privacy is here to stay and will only evolve further, so we need to do business online in a different way, adjusting everything from strategy to tactics and tech stack.
Given your diverse industry experience (AI, fintech, big data, etc.), can you share how privacy concerns differ across sectors and how you had to adapt your marketing approach as Usercentrics’ CMO? Data privacy is a fundamental human right. To enable this, we need to look into two things. One is technology. You need data privacy solutions for what’s possible on the web and apps. We offer consent management platforms (CMPs) so businesses can easily collect and manage users’ consent. We also offer preference management platforms, enabling businesses to keep track of how people want to receive communications from them, such as how often, on which channels, on which topics, etc. These solutions exist, and you need to keep up with technology and data privacy legislation – and luckily, these solutions cover both aspects.
The other thing is how people embrace technology. People tend to be more permissive about something new. We started by being very tolerant of the internet, but now we are quite cautious about which websites can use our data and how. We still see this initial permissiveness when using AI, for example: “Oh yeah, I’ll have a chat and disclose all sorts of stuff and let it crawl my website.” It’s too new for people and puts them in what I call the excitement of kids in the candy shop. But then comes the maturity stage, always.
So, I’m looking at those adoption curves and maturity curves. And yes, they differ a bit for each industry from this perspective, as does technology and people’s eagerness for something new. But the fundamental need is the same.
“We always say data is super important for businesses, and data is the new oil. However, as individuals, our online identities are also very important to us.” Adelina Peltea CMO, Usercentrics
What are the biggest challenges you have faced as a leader in the data privacy industry? What experiences and skills have helped you overcome them? As marketers, we constantly interact with people and their data online. However, the way we approach marketing has evolved quite a lot from the big data days of getting as much as possible to now being more data-conscious and respecting people’s preferences.
Throughout my career, I have been in touch with legal teams about what’s compliant and with tech teams about different solutions for these things. Ultimately, as a marketer, you just want to drive the business’s revenue, right? It was only lately that I started to appreciate that it’s a competitive advantage to ask for and respect consented data. As internet navigators are getting more sophisticated, we need to respect that. The marketers will be the first to get this. They’ll have a lot to win before it becomes table stakes.
I greatly respect Apple for using privacy as a competitive advantage. They showed that it worked; people care if you do it right and simplify it. Technology is essential for enablement. But also, the mindset is shifting, and I’m still learning how to do this.
“My challenge is to learn and lead by example on what it means to do marketing in a data privacy world. I would love to be a driving force for the entire marketing scene.” Adelina Peltea CMO, Usercentrics
I read your post on LinkedIn that said, “Data privacy is the hottest industry of the next decade.” Why do you think that’s the case? First of all, there’s a lot of what I call wind in the sails. There is legislation that is helping businesses like ours succeed. From the General Data Protection …
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