Privacy

1. Who we are

Midlands Ads ("we", "us") runs Google and Meta advertising for local businesses across the Midlands. We are the controller of the personal data collected through midlandsads.co.uk. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with and your rights under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Contact details are in section 10.

2. What we collect

• Enquiries: your name, business name, email address, phone number, the service you're interested in and your message, when you use our contact form.
• Call bookings: your name, email address, the time you choose and any answers you give when you book a call through Calendly.
• Website audits: the website address you enter and, if you give it, your email address, when you use our free audit tool.
• Where you came from: if you accept cookies, the website, search, campaign or ad click ID (such as a Google or Meta click ID) that brought you to our site. This is attached to any enquiry you send.
• How you use the site: pages viewed, clicks, scrolling and page speed, along with technical details such as your IP address, device, browser and approximate location. Most of this is only collected if you accept analytics or marketing cookies. Our cookie-free measurement (Vercel) counts visits without identifying you.
• Company identification: if you accept marketing cookies, Apollo.io may use your IP address to work out which company you're visiting from.

3. How we use it, and our lawful basis

• To reply to enquiries, run audits and hold calls you've booked: this is a step you've asked us to take before a possible contract, or our legitimate interest in answering people who contact us.
• To provide our services to clients: performance of a contract.
• To measure the site and our advertising: analytics, conversion tracking, remarketing, company identification and server-side conversion measurement. The basis is your consent, given through our cookie banner. You can withdraw it at any time.
• To keep the site secure and working: our legitimate interests.
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping financial records.

We don't make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.

4. Cookies and tracking

With your consent, we use Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Google Ads, the Meta Pixel, the LinkedIn Insight Tag and Apollo.io. If you've accepted marketing cookies, we also send Meta a server-side copy of key actions (an enquiry, booking or audit), with your email address and phone number in hashed form. Our Cookie Policy lists every cookie and explains how to change your choice.

5. Who we share it with

We don't sell your personal data. We share it only with providers that help us run the business, and they act on our instructions or under their own terms for the services listed:

• Vercel: website hosting and cookie-free analytics
• FormSubmit: delivers contact form messages to our inbox
• Calendly: call scheduling
• Our website audit service, hosted on Vercel: runs the free audit and sends the report
• Google (Analytics and Ads), Meta, Microsoft (Clarity), LinkedIn and Apollo.io: analytics and advertising, only with your consent
• Our email and business software providers, and professional advisers where needed

We may also disclose data where the law requires it.

6. International transfers

Some of these providers process data outside the UK, mainly in the United States. When they do, they rely on recognised safeguards, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.

7. How long we keep it

• Enquiries, bookings and audit requests that don't lead to work: up to 2 years after we last spoke.
• Client records: for as long as we work together, then up to 6 years for legal and accounting reasons.
• Analytics data: up to 14 months in Google Analytics. Other tools follow their own settings (see the Cookie Policy).
• Your cookie choice: 6 months.

8. Keeping it safe

The site is served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection. Access to personal data is limited to people who need it, and we use reputable providers with strong security. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your data.

9. Your rights

You have the right to:

• get a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• have inaccurate data corrected, or your data deleted
• object to or restrict how we use it
• move your data to another provider
• withdraw consent at any time, for example through Cookie settings. This doesn't affect anything we did before you withdrew it.

To use any of these rights, contact us using the details below. We'll reply within one month. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We'd appreciate the chance to put things right first.

10. Contact us

Email: info@midlandsads.co.uk
Phone: +44 7359 900641

We may update this policy when our services or the law change. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.