Privacy policy
(see also our cookie policy)
Attacat is all about helping our clients grow. As part of providing the best services we can and making our web presence as relevant as possible to those interested in growing their businesses we may collect and use personal information. This privacy policy provides information on when and why we collect any personal information, how it is used, how we may share it with others and how it is kept secure.
At its simplest this is our promise:
- We will only contact you with relevant content to help you grow your business
- We will never sell your data.
- We will store any data that we hold on you securely
- We will respect your requests to opt-out and or delete your data
What type of information do we collect?
Information you share with us on our websites
We collect information you provide when you use our services or submit any forms including contact forms, newsletter sign-ups as well as any profile information you provide. We may also collect additional so called “meta” information associated with that e.g. time of submission, browser and site settings. This also includes any comments you may submit on blog articles or reviews.
Payment and transaction information
If you choose to use our paid for services these will usually be governed by a separate agreement that will also cover personal data usage. If you use some of our free services (e.g. an online tool) we may retain records of your transactions in a similar way to how an online retailer may keep your order and delivery information for making future use easier as well as for your reference.
Information you provide in general correspondence
We maintain records of conversations we may have with you (such as through email, chat or over the phone). We may also collect conversations we have with you or you have about us through third party platforms such as social media, review platforms or events.
Information about your use of our website
The data we collect includes standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, including IP address, browser type, pages requested, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks, landing pages and other data of this nature. This automatically-collected data is processed in a way that does not give us access to the personally identifiable information unless you subsequently choose to identify yourself. We use various third party tools for this, primarily:
- HubSpot
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Analytics and the Facebook Pixel
- Hotjar
We use cookies and similar technologies as part of the collection of this information and as essential parts of the delivery of our services. Please see our cookie policy.
How do we use this information?
We use all the information we have to create personalised and useful services for users and potential users of our digital media services. Here’s how:
Providing, improving and developing our service
Communicating with you
We use your information to send you marketing communications, communicate with you about our services and let you know about our policies and terms. We also use your information to respond to you when you contact us as well as providing the transactional emails and communications (such as an order confirmation or the newsletter you opted in for).
Providing anonymous data to the marketing industry
Information collected on our site and as part of our services is occasionally analysed and aggregated to provide useful statistics and general information to our clients, potential clients and other industry players. Your information may be anonymised and/or grouped together in non-personally identifiable ways to provide information such as:
- Indicative market trends e.g. increases or falls in demand for certain topics
- Case studies of what does and doesn’t work
It is always fully anonymised before sharing.
Improving the efficiency of our marketing and advertising
We only want to reach people with a genuine interest in growing their businesses, primarily in our local area. Ultimately through being able to tailor our advertising and marketing we can provide more relevant and useful experiences as well as have more funds available to invest in improving our services.
How is this information shared?
Please be totally assured that you will not find yourself on the database of every company in the digital marketing industry as a result of the use of our sites and services! We do however share your data with partners who help us provide and improve our products and services as follows:
- Vendors and service providers: Your information is likely to be available to a greater or lesser extent to those who support our business (and their subcontractors) including:
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- Our CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) system - HubSpot
- Our web developers (access only) – Search Motive
- The technical infrastructure hosts (data) – Amazon Web Services
- Our analytics and advertising providers (data including email addresses) – primarily Google and Facebook
- Our accountants and bookkeeper (access)
- Our accounts software (data) – Freeagent
- Our bank (data) – Royal Bank of Scotland
- Live chat partner (data) – HubSpot
- Email provider (data) – Mailchimp
- Analytics provider (anonymous data) – e.g. Hotjar
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In each case we seek to provide the minimum amount of information or access necessary for those third parties to fulfill their obligations to us and ultimately to you. Where we can we also impose strict restrictions on how our partners can use and disclose the data we provide (telling Facebook etc what to do is a little more difficult!!).
- Advertising partners: As previously mentioned we use the advertising services offered by the web giants including Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Amazon but primarily Google and Facebook. Whilst each of these companies has had its fair share of criticism around privacy it is our view that because of that scrutiny, they actually now take greater care of your personal data than the sort of ad networks that many of the traditional media brands use. Further they actually provide the least irritating online adverts (no pop-ups etc). You should be aware that through the use of our site and services data is being shared with these companies. Of particular note:
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- They will probably know you’ve been on our site and what pages etc you’ve viewed (as they do with a huge proportion of the internet) and will understand that you are transacting with us if for example you place an order. This allows us to purchase so called “remarketing” ads across their networks so we can encourage you to come back to our site at a later date in accordance with their terms. We deliberately limit the amount of times you will see our ads to avoid unacceptable irritation.
- If you have given us your email address we may share it with them as part of a service they offer to allow us to buy adverts that reach people they deem to be similar to you (i.e. hopefully other people interested in growing their companies) assuming of course that you are already registered with them.
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To opt-out of this data sharing the best way is to modify your cookie preferences and then drop us an email (note: we are working to make this an easier process so please bear with us in the meantime).
- Non-financial third party services on our website: Our site, like most websites, includes functionality provided by third parties. A common example is an embedded YouTube video or a Facebook like button. In each case the providers of these services will likely collect data about your usage that they will use to build up your profile as you search the web. Our site includes the following:
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- Videos (powered by YouTube and Vimeo)
- Presentation Slides (powered by SlideShare and Google Slides)
- Google Maps
- Like and share buttons from
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- ShareThis (who provide us with lots of sharing buttons all in one neat package)
- AddThis – (who also provide us with lots of sharing buttons all in one neat package – we like to try out different ones)
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The above lists may change from time to time. To opt-out of this data sharing the best way is to modify your cookie preferences and then drop us an email (note: we are working to make this an easier process so please bear with us in the meantime).
Transfering your data internationally
Some of the companies in the above lists are based outside the EU. We will only transfer data internationally to organisations based in countries that have appropriate data protection approved by the European Commission (“adequacy decision”).
What is our legal basis for processing data?
We collect, use and share the data that we have in the ways described above:
- as necessary to fulfill our contractual obligations to you
- consistent with your consent, which you may revoke at any time through updating your profile;
- as necessary for our (or other’s) legitimate business interests, including our interests in providing an innovative, personalised and profitable service to you and others, unless those interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms that require protection of personal data.
- as necessary in the public interest; and
- as necessary to comply with our legal obligations;
More details here
Your right to access, rectify and erase personal information
You are entitled to view, amend, delete and receive/download your personal information that we process in a structured, commonly-used, machine-readable format. You can update any information you have provided in the your profile on our site or app. You may also change your notification settings. We also recommend you review our cookie policy that provides instructions on how you can remove data saved in cookies. At this time if you wish to delete all your personal data and/or have an export of data please contact us using the email address we have on record for you. Data requests that are deemed as “excessive” or unfounded may result in a fee being charged.
How will we notify you of changes to this policy?
If we make substantial changes in the way we use your personal information we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our pages and/or contacting you directly if we deem it a substantial enough change.
Get in touch
If you have questions about this policy, you can contact us online. The data controller responsible for your information is Attacat Ltd, 86a George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 3BU
