The battle over ad blockers has never been fiercer: Their popularity with consumers is skyrocketing across the globe. Ad blockers offer a better online experience and have become easier to use. But consumers like them as a way to protect their privacy and their data from being misused. Firms increasingly think that their best bet is to block the blockers. But a recent study has shown that this strategy is just a losing game, as it has contributed to the deep decline in traffic figures. And the problem doesn’t end there; the EU recently made its voice heard by saying that blocking ad blockers is a practice that breaches EU privacy rules.

But what about your customers? If you use ad blockers, just think of the last time you wanted to check out an article online but were asked to uninstall your ad blocker first or, possibly worse, to fill in your details to “freely” enjoy your read.

Security, risk, and privacy professionals must be mindful that the privacy practices that they design and enforce have a direct effect on the customer’s interaction with their firms. As much as they think about compliance, they must consider the privacy experience of their customers too. And this is one of the examples where the collaboration with marketing leaders, including customer experience, customer insight, and the marketing leadership, becomes extremely important.

With new EU General Data Protection Regulation approaching and a new framework for international data transfers of personal data, compliance with the rules remains crucial for any organization. But S&R and privacy pros must also team up with their marketing peers to find ways to use privacy to strengthen customer perception of their firms as being trustworthy, improve the customer experience, and increase the resilience of their brands.

Likewise, as you track your progress on data classification and the accuracy of log-in recertification, be sure to collect customer feedback through customer experience surveys and measure how much your privacy practices reflect the commitment of your privacy statement to quantify the effectiveness of the privacy program.

To hear more about the golden opportunity to build great collaboration over privacy and how to measure your privacy program in a way that matter to the business, join me in London next week for Forrester’s MARKETING EUROPE 2016 forum.