Edit bolsters CX offering with DataShield partnership

Salocin Group-owned Edit Agency has signed a major deal with Munich-based tech firm DataGuard to provide clients with the tools and insights needed to boost their customer experience strategies and navigate the complexities of consent and preference management.

The move reunites Edit chief growth officer J Cromack with the German business, which acquired his former firm MyLife Digital as well as Insight Analysis and Wood for Trees in April 2021; the latter was bought by The Salocin Group – led by Nick Dixon – last year.

Edit and sister shops Join the Dots and Wood for Trees work for top brands, including Tesco Bank, Jaguar Land Rover, Shell, the British Heart Foundation and the RAC, delivering data solutions, customer acquisition and retention campaigns.

Through this new partnership, DataGuard and Edit will combine forces to enable businesses to prioritise customer privacy, build trust, and gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audiences.

Launched in Munich in 2007, DataGuard has offices in Berlin and London and 3,000 customers, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to large enterprises including Burger King, Canon, Unicef, Volkl and Freenow.

It offers “privacy-as-a-service” and “information security-as-a-service” solutions. The business recently secured $61m in a Series B round of funding led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital to double down on the market.

The investment also included One Peak, the UK venture capital firm that led DataGuard’s previous cash injection of $20m in 2020, the start-up’s first-ever outside investment.

DataGuard provides a range of tools across privacy, information security and compliance that can assess the different ways that data is being used by an organisation. It analyses this data to determine whether a company is compliant with various certifications (for example, GDPR, CCPA, ISO 27001, TISAX or SOC 2); and if not, what it needs to do to become compliant.

The basic idea behind DataGuard is that while larger businesses might have teams of in-house staff — lawyers, engineers and data scientists — working to monitor, implement and adjust that organisation’s data protection, privacy and compliance policies, smaller organisations might have less human resources but just as big of a task to grapple with.

In a statement, the company said: “We are excited to embark on this journey together, leveraging our combined strengths and deep industry knowledge to drive meaningful change.”

Edit’s Cromack added: “Partnering with DataGuard, we can help our customers deliver the best customer experience and improve loyalty and trust.”