Marketing is in the middle of an identity shift. The focus is shifting from mass data collection and intrusive ads to consented data that earns trust.
As a result of this shift, marketers are being asked to redefine their playbook. The old growth formula — collect more, push ads, measure everything — is giving way to an approach that is more deliberate and far more human-centered: Privacy-Led Marketing.
Adelina Peltea, CMO at Usercentrics, is helping to redefine what effective marketing looks like when trust becomes the real differentiator. In her view, consented data isn’t a constraint; it’s a strategic advantage that pushes marketing teams to ask better questions, design clearer experiences, and measure what actually matters.
In this conversation, she reflects on the signals reshaping marketing’s identity: like how curiosity, ethics, and creativity can coexist in the age of consent, and why trust might just be the next real growth engine.
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How marketers are rethinking the status quo
Brunni: Marketing is changing its methods, from collecting everything to focusing on high-quality data. What do you see as the main forces behind that shift, and what makes you think it’s here to stay?
Adelina: Back when everything was possible in the digital world, marketers developed the bad habit of collecting everything, from personal information and any other information that allowed them to creepily personalize ads.
But then a lot of things came into play, right? Users started saying, “I don’t want you to creep me out with ads,” as well as, “I want to know where my data goes.” That pushed marketers to stop and think, What do I do now?
A lot of them initially felt lost because they thought losing access to data meant they couldn’t grow anymore. But now I see marketers starting to become more strategic around their data usage.
When Google announced they’d get rid of third-party cookies — which in the end they didn’t — it again pushed marketers to imagine what could be done in the case things did change.
It caused awareness to shift towards first-party data. Instead of relying on others, marketers considered, How can I just ask people? — for example, through site forms.
We’re starting to see new strategies come into play. For instance, when it comes to forms: How do you make it engaging? What’s the right time to ask for information? Even those things can be done in a contextual way, like asking for information only when it makes sense rather than asking for everything upfront.
This is what we’re trying to show with our shop analogy campaign (see video):
There is a movement happening, and marketers are finally going from the backseat to the driver’s seat. Instead of being the victims of what’s changing in terms of data, they are now starting to rethink how to do things.
Ultimately, marketers are the biggest users of data in the context of businesses online. And the game has changed, because now data is consented data. So they need to wrap their heads around it. And those that start seeing this as an advantage will be ahead of the game.
Marketers are the biggest users of data in the context of businesses online. And the game has changed: data is now consented data.
Those that see this as an advantage will be ahead of the game.
Brunni: Have you already seen positive examples of marketers doing this in this new way?
Yes, even from our own experience.
For example, we used to ask people to sign up for something, and by default, they would start receiving marketing notifications. Then we added a simple checkbox that asked, “Would you also like to receive updates?”
By clearly separating what information we were asking for and what users would receive, we saw a considerable increase in signups — over 10%.
We’re also seeing the return of the good old “How did you hear about us?” — a question that matters again in a world where attribution is super complex.
A lot of companies say their organic traffic makes up a huge portion of visits, but it’s not that customers just dreamt about your brand. They first saw you somewhere else.
I also see more marketers going back to building communities, especially in-person communities. Because again, marketing is about creating something valuable in exchange, not just pushing messages. And that mindset can easily carry over into digital.
At some point, we started thinking of online as a separate life. But it’s really not.
It’s like the shop analogy again: If you imagine the way data is collected online but happening in real life, it would look hilarious. So if what we do online wouldn’t feel creepy in real life, then we’re probably on the right track.
We’re also seeing the return of the good old ‘How did you hear about us?’ — a question that matters again in a world where figuring out attribution is super complex.
What’s behind the culture shift
Brunni: Cultural shifts don’t happen suddenly. How do you personally pick up on the ways consumer behavior or regulation is about to change?
Adelina: I think this ties back to our mission. We say data privacy is here to stay — not only because of regulations, but because users have woken up to the fact that their data is their most important asset and their right.
The game has changed, and now everyone is learning how to play it.
We’re also seeing that marketers genuinely want to do ethical marketing. They don’t want to push or manipulate. It may have seemed impossible to do things differently because the ecosystem wasn’t offering other options. But the willingness is there.
As long as marketers get new playbooks and a new tech stack, they’re very receptive.
I see more and more marketers who want to feel better about their work and find meaning in what they do. They want to make work more enjoyable, less boring, and definitely less pushy.
Marketers want to do ethical marketing. As long as they get new playbooks and a new tech stack, the willingness is absolutely there.
Brunni: I’m also curious as to how you arrived at Privacy-Led Marketing. What were the signals that showed you it was worth pursuing?
Adelina: I must admit that years ago, and before joining Usercentrics, I was a marketer who often had the legal team knocking on my (metaphorical) door, saying, “You need to change this, add that banner, or ask for this consent for emails.”
Back then, I was mostly reacting and pushing back as much as I could. But eventually, I realized how important this really is. When I put on my user hat, of course I cared about privacy. It just took some time to settle in.
This shift also came on the back of previous scandals like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which surfaced how broken things were. But I think most marketers do want to do the ethical thing.
The moment Google launched Consent Mode V2, it marked the beginning of my marketer awakening, and that move from the backseat to the driver’s seat.
It showed that you can respect people’s choices and still model non-consented data in a way that helps you understand business performance.
Ultimately, that’s what marketers want to know: how to grow their business. I realized, it’s not “either-or” between data privacy and business growth. You can achieve both.
Marketers want to know how to grow their business. I realized it’s not either-or between data privacy and business growth. You can achieve both.
The tension between tech, data, and creativity
Brunni: How can marketers stay creative in such a shifting landscape?
Adelina: I think marketers are both creatively driven and data-driven.
On the data-driven side, there are more concrete solutions now — things like first-party data, server-side tagging, and other tools that help you stay compliant and still get insights.
But on the creative side, it’s about realizing there’s a brand benefit when you play with data in a respectful way. That’s how you build trust with users. And there’s a lot of data showing that when people trust what you do, both in general and with their data, they tend to buy more, subscribe more, and follow more.
We’re seeing that with consent banners, too. When you speak in plain language instead of fine print, it resonates with people more.
Brunni: But on the other side, we have AI pushing to extract more and more. How do you see this tension playing out in the future?
I think a lot of AI solutions, especially at the enterprise level, are supposedly very careful with data. But still, what goes into the AI, goes into the AI. It’s very hard to untrain it. Once it’s there, it’s not as easy to delete a piece of information.
Like any big tech innovation, AI is benefiting from the lack of regulation right now, and from the people willingly giving everything away like kids in a candy shop, the same way we did with the internet before.
Eventually, this will become a more regulated space. There will probably be scandals. That’s usually how it goes.
That’s why we need to act earlier in the process, not later. At Usercentrics, we’re already working with the ecosystem on some of these questions, but it’s still early days to talk about specifics.
Looking ahead: the future role of marketers
Brunni: If marketing is evolving from persuasion to participation, what kind of role do you think marketers will play inside organizations in the years ahead?
Marketers are having a bit of an identity crisis right now. It’s been a journey from one extreme to the other, and now we’re trying to find that happy place in the middle.
Marketing used to be very strategic and brand-driven. Then, with digital, we got obsessed with measuring and pushing everything. Now it’s shifting back toward brand, strategy, and community.
It’s part of any maturity curve. At some point, things rebalance. And I think that’s where we’re heading in the next few years.
Marketers will need to find their place somewhere in the middle and become advocates for customers inside their companies.
They’re the ones who really understand what people want: what kind of content they like to consume, what products they want to buy, how they want to be spoken to.
It’s about finding the balance between that and business growth.
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