GDPR requires that companies carry out “data protection by design and by default”, meaning you can’t simply pay lip service to the law by introducing a few superficial data security measures.

Instead, you must integrate substantive data security and privacy procedures into every aspect of your company’s data management systems, while also ensuring that you still have an aerodynamic marketing vehicle.

Unfortunately, there’s no single software out there that can enable GDPR compliance across your marketing department for now. Nor would this be practical given the range of tasks it would need to do - Jack of all trades, master of none is a phrase rarely used as a compliment.

What’s more, the availability of marketing technology - or martech as it’s otherwise known - has skyrocketed over the last few years. The sector has grown by a staggering 5,233% since 2011, and there are now over 8,000 options to choose from (Chief Martech).

Frankly, that’s a ridiculous amount of software - a real agony of choice for marketers looking to build their martech stacks as efficiently as possible. And that’s even before taking GDPR and other data privacy laws into consideration.

Fear not though, help is at hand.

This article will break down the categories of software solutions available, before providing advice on how to identify a good GDPR-compliant option. It finishes by providing a list of some of the best software out there that we’ve found during our time in the industry.

What Types of Marketing Software are Available?

Broadly, there are three main types of marketing software - workflow automation, intelligence and marketing automation.

However, these categories can be broken down further into the following types:

• Customer relation management (CRM): this software enables companies to track communication and build relationships with prospects and existing customers
• Email marketing: this software helps companies to build, track and analyze email marketing campaigns within GDPR restrictions, so as to save time, personalize communication, improve click rates and sustain lead development
• Workflow automation: this software enables for the design, creation, action and automation of company processes and procedures
• Social media marketing: this software enables companies to manage their social media activity across all social media platforms simultaneously
• Marketing analytics: this software enables companies to analyze the effectiveness of marketing campaigns across all marketing channels, like their website, email, social media, advertising, SEO and so on

How to Identify GDPR-Ready Software?

When choosing which martech to run with, you’ll want to look out for software with the following capability to ensure GDPR compliance:

• GDPR compliance auditing
• Personal data abuse restrictions
• Risk management
• File activity controls
• Data movement scanning
• Other data privacy law compatibility

Our Recommended Martech for GDPR Compliance

The Selection Criteria

We have scoured the internet to identify the most popular marketing software that enables companies to better meet their GDPR responsibilities - any software that did not have a high volume of reviews was discarded since it indicates a certain unpopularity.

We then whittled down the list, using respected customer review sites for guidance - specifically G2 Business Software and Reviews, Capterra and Trustpilot.

G2 ranks software based on their user reviews, as well as additional data harvested from online sources and social media. Capterra uses a similar model, sourcing reviews from a variety of channels, while Trustpilot creates an overall measurement of consumer satisfaction with a business.

Once done, we calculated an average customer rating across the three review sites. This approach is certainly not fool proof, but it remains a useful guide to whether these software meet expectations.

The Top GDPR-Ready Software

You can find the list below, with the results arranged alphabetically:

AuditBoard

Average rating: 4.8 out of 5 (339 reviews)
G2: 4.8 (287 reviews)
Trustpilot TrustScore: n/a
Capterra: 4.7 (52 reviews)

AuditBoard is a workflow management software, with a primary focus on risk assessment, auditing and general data privacy compliance work.

Its audit management function includes different audit types, validation rules and an audit trail function, as well as templates, forms and checklists. For risk management, it includes identification and reduction tools - all great for meeting GDPR requirements.

Overall, the  interface is very user friendly, and it is particularly useful for startups and SMEs.

This software is designed with GDPR compliance in mind, and we particularly recommend it for the way it enables auditors to analyze, manage and report on the data privacy measures used by your company.

Cognism

Average rating: 4.6 out of 5 (300 reviews)
G2: 4.7 (239) 
Trustpilot: 4 (48 reviews)
Capterra: 4.1 (13 reviews)

Cognism is a global sales intelligence platform; it has a database of 400 million company profiles, and enables companies to find, build and manage b2b relationships.

The contact information provided includes firmographics, technographics, sales trigger events, intent data, verified business emails and phone-verified mobile numbers - making cold b2b marketing redundant.

Companies can use this software to create databases of leads based on predefined criteria, and it has been designed to ensure full GDPR and CCPA compliance from start to finish. This all means you can improve your business development strategy without worrying about data privacy legislation.

Egnyte

Average rating: 4.4 out of 5 (868 reviews)
G2: 4.4 (785 reviews)
Trustpilot: 2.6 (4 reviews)
Capterra: 4.5 (79 reviews)

Egnyte is one of the only multi-cloud content governance platforms available, which companies can use for collaboration, data security and threat detection.

This software enables you to locate, control and secure all EU-resident personal data - either on-site or in cloud storage.

And by managing all personal data in one place, your company can go a long way to ensuring that you’re meeting GDPR requirements.

Iubenda

Average rating: 4.5 out of 5 (287 reviews)
G2: 4.2 (10 reviews)
Trustpilot: 4.6 (144 reviews)
Capterra: 4.8 (133 reviews)

Iubenda is an online policy generator that creates legal documents across your digital marketing strategy.

This is vital for complying with GDPR, since this process requires that you update all documentation so as to build data protection into every aspect of your business.

The platform generates cookie banners as well as terms and conditions that can be personalized to suit your company and the type of personal data you use. These can all be easily integrated with other marketing technology you are using.

Overall, we think that iubenda is particularly handy for small businesses that are looking for a straightforward way to meet data privacy requirements.

LogicGate Risk Cloud

Average rating: 4.6 out of 5 (133 reviews)
G2: 4.6 (106 reviews)
Trustpilot: n/a
Capterra: 4.7 (27 reviews)

LogicGate is a workflow management platform that includes solutions for risk management, compliance management and data privacy.

This software has been designed to replace your company’s use of spreadsheets, while increasing the security of personal data. It’s also shown itself to be a useful software to help companies grow while still managing data efficiently.

Crucially for GDPR, it acts as a central hub for any compliance tasks and data control.

OneTrust (OneTrust Privacy)

Average rating: 4.3 out of 5 (122 reviews)
G2: 4.3 (110 reviews)
Trustpilot: 2.9 (2 reviews)
Capterra: 4.1 (10 reviews)

This software handles privacy, security and data governance, and has been designed to get companies to comply with a range of different global data privacy laws - including GDPR and CCPA.

Its GDPR compliance features include data subject automatization, data inventory and data flow mapping, as well as automatic report generation - ideal for audit work.

OneTrust also includes something called compliance maturity testing, which allows you to see how your GDPR practices compare with competitors in the industry.

Really Simple Systems

Average rating: 4.4 out of 5 (462 reviews)
G2: 4.4 (143 reviews)
Trustpilot: 2.7 (4 reviews)
Capterra: 4.4 (315 reviews)

Really Simple Systems is a CRM platform. It has an integrated consent collection tool that has been designed with GDPR in mind, enabling you to collect personal data consent from customers across any linked marketing channel you use.

Overall, it's a great CRM for small and medium businesses that require a user-friendly interface, have limited technical knowledge and need good customer support.

Segment

Average rating: 4.5 out of 5 (451 reviews)
G2: 4.5 (396)
Trustpilot: 3.3 (2 reviews)
Capterra: 4.6 (53)

Segment is a customer data platform (CDP) that enables companies to collect personal data from all online sources into one place, which you can then clean, activate and migrate easily between other platforms and channels. 

It includes a range of GDPR-compliance tools and makes it easy to both acquire customer consent across the sales pipeline, and also provide the relevant documentation you need for GDPR compliance.

Smartsheet

Average rating: 4.4 out of 5 (9,276 reviews)
G2: 4.4 (6,974 reviews)
Trustpilot: 2.1 (50 reviews)
Capterra: 4.5 (2,252 reviews)

Smartsheet is an advanced replacement for traditional spreadsheet software, enabling better employee collaboration and data management. You can use this software to assign tasks and manage progress.

It is easier to use than other available project tracking tools, and is less expensive.

Crucially, it is also compliant with GDPR and other data privacy laws, and removes a lot of the work that comes with respecting these regulations.

TWIPLA

Average rating: 4.7 out of 5 (259 reviews)
G2: 4.4 (24 reviews)
Trustpilot: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Capterra: 4.8 (225 reviews)

TWIPLA is a website analytics software that enables you to see accurate website traffic statistics. You can find out how many people have visited your website, and get detailed information on their behavior - enabling you to optimize the customer experience and drive sales.

It’s very simple to set up, offers a simple user interface and the company has well reviewed customer support.

The software is also completely GDPR compliant, so you can take advantage of personal data analysis without the worry that comes with data protection issues. The company offers a free plan which includes most features and this is more than enough for most businesses, but there is also a paid service if required.