It’s completely legal, even under GDPR. You need to have a grounds for processing personal data. Consent is the easiest one to defend, but there are other grounds available. One of those is “legitimate interest”, which if you’re using you have to consider how the rights of the data subject will be protected.
You do need to take appropriate steps to balance the rights of the people you’re cold calling against your legitimate interest however, like maintaining a blacklist of people who have told you they don’t want to be contacted, not harassing a single target with too many calls etc. If you use intent data to target your prospects you’re on more solid ground too.
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Is cold calling legal? Don't you need marketing consent before contacting someone with the purpose of selling a product/service?
It’s completely legal, even under GDPR. You need to have a grounds for processing personal data. Consent is the easiest one to defend, but there are other grounds available. One of those is “legitimate interest”, which if you’re using you have to consider how the rights of the data subject will be protected.
Recital 47 (point 7) of the GDPR explicitly points out that direct marketing is NOT forbidden. https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-47/
You do need to take appropriate steps to balance the rights of the people you’re cold calling against your legitimate interest however, like maintaining a blacklist of people who have told you they don’t want to be contacted, not harassing a single target with too many calls etc. If you use intent data to target your prospects you’re on more solid ground too.