Privacy policy
How SoNick Marketing looks after the information held in SoNick Marketing Compass, its private back office, including the data it reads from Google.
Last updated 13/10/2026.
Who we are
SoNick Marketing Compass is run by SoNick Marketing ("we"), which decides how the information in it is used and is its controller under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
- [email protected]
- Phone
- 0208 088 5466
- Website
- sonickmarketing.com
One exception: when a client's own customers send an enquiry through the client's website and the client uses SoNick Marketing to collect it, the client is the controller of that enquiry and we handle it on their behalf, under our agreement with them.
Who this is about
- SoNick Marketing's own staff, who sign in to SoNick Marketing Compass.
- Our clients and the people we deal with there, including anyone invited to the client portal.
- People who enquire about working with us, and people we send proposals to.
- People who send an enquiry to one of our clients through the client's website, where the client uses us to collect them.
- Anyone named in the agency's own calendar, such as a person in a meeting's title.
What we hold, and where it comes from
- Contact details for clients, their people and our own prospects (names, email addresses, phone numbers and business addresses), given to us directly or copied from our accounting system.
- Our work: the services we provide, tasks, notes, the time our staff spend, proposals and their signatures (with the time, internet address and browser used to sign), and monthly reports and their emails.
- Figures about clients' websites and advertising, copied from Google and other services as described below. These are totals, such as visits and clicks, and identify no one.
- Enquiries sent to clients through their websites, where a client uses us to collect them: what the person typed into the form, and where they came from.
- Sign-ins and use: when our staff and clients' portal users sign in, what portal users open, and the internet address and browser used, to keep accounts safe.
Google user data
Staff at SoNick Marketing sign in with Google to connect SoNick Marketing Compass to the agency's own Google account. Through that access, SoNick Marketing Compass uses Google user data as follows, and for nothing else.
Google Calendar
Reads the events in SoNick Marketing's own Google Calendar, from a fortnight back to six months ahead: each event's title, description and times, and whether it takes up time. Creates, moves and removes only the events Compass itself made, for scheduled work or time blocked out, and never changes or deletes any other event.
Why: So the agency's planning counts its real commitments, such as meetings, and the work it schedules appears in its calendar.
Gmail
Creates drafts in SoNick Marketing's own Gmail: each approved monthly report email, with its report attached. Reads only the account's own email address. Compass never reads, sends or deletes any email.
Why: So each report email goes from the agency's own inbox, checked and sent by a person.
Google Ads
Read only. Lists the Google Ads accounts SoNick Marketing manages, and copies from each client account linked in Compass its daily figures (impressions, clicks, cost, conversions and their value), each campaign's month, ad strength, recommendations, impression share, budgets, its billing set-up and its monthly invoices; and, for keyword research, Keyword Planner's ideas and search figures for the keywords and pages the agency looks up, asked as one of those accounts. Google's permission for Google Ads would also allow changes, but Compass makes none to any account.
Why: For each client's monthly report and dashboard, to spot accounts that need attention, and to answer the agency's own questions about an account.
Google Analytics
Read only. Lists the Google Analytics properties SoNick Marketing can see, and copies from each client property linked in Compass its daily visits and engaged visits, key events (such as enquiries) and revenue by channel, each day's visits and key events by channel, by where they came from (such as "google / organic" or another website) and by the page people arrived on, the key events set up in the property, and each month's number of visitors. These are totals: they identify no one.
Why: For each client's monthly report and dashboard, and to spot problems such as tracking that has stopped.
Google Search Console
Read only. Lists the Search Console properties SoNick Marketing can see, and copies for each client site linked in Compass its daily clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, and each day's searches and pages with theirs, kept 25 months. These are totals: they identify no one.
Why: For each client's monthly report and dashboard, to suggest which keywords to track, and to spot pages losing visits from Google and why.
SoNick Marketing Compass's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
- Google user data is used only to provide and improve the features described above, which the agency's staff can see and use in SoNick Marketing Compass.
- It is never sold, and never used or passed on for advertising, including retargeting or interest-based advertising.
- It is never used to develop, improve or train artificial intelligence or machine learning models, ours or anyone else's.
- It is passed to others only as this policy describes, to provide those features, for security, or where the law requires it.
- People at SoNick Marketing see it only in the course of their work for the client it is about, such as checking a report before it is sent, for security, or where the law requires it.
Disconnecting Google in SoNick Marketing Compass deletes the sign-in Google gave it straight away. Access can also be removed at any time from the Google account's own settings, under third-party apps and services, and a client can remove the agency's access to their own Google accounts whenever they wish.
Who we share it with
We use the services below to run SoNick Marketing Compass. Each handles the data only to provide its service to us, under its own terms with us. We do not sell personal data or share it with anyone else, except where the law requires it.
The server Compass runs on
The application and its database, holding everything described here. Managed through RunCloud, which also keeps nightly backups away from the server.
Why: To run Compass.
Amazon Web Services
Files, such as report PDFs, uploaded documents and signed proposals, kept in private, encrypted storage (Amazon S3); and the emails Compass sends, such as sign-in codes and proposal links (Amazon SES).
Why: To store files safely off the server, and to deliver email.
Where: London, United Kingdom
Cloudflare
Every visit to Compass passes through Cloudflare's network, which sees the visitor's internet address and the pages asked for.
Why: To protect Compass from attacks and keep it fast.
FreeAgent
The agency's accounting: Compass reads clients' contact details, invoices and payments from it, and creates a new contact there only when asked to.
Why: So client details are typed once and the agency can see what has been paid.
Claude, connected by SoNick Marketing's staff
When the agency's own staff connect Claude (Anthropic's assistant) to Compass, Claude reads what they ask it about, such as a client's figures, the work recorded or the agency's calendar, and makes only the changes they allow. Each connection is approved by a person signed in with two-factor authentication, and can be cut off at any time.
Why: So the agency's staff can work with Compass from a conversation.
Anthropic (Claude)
What Compass asks Claude to write or read, through Anthropic's API: the facts behind each monthly report email (the month's work and figures, including those copied from Google Analytics, Search Console and Google Ads), report PDFs to read, notes for a proposal, examples of the agency's writing, and enquiry messages to summarise.
Why: To draft text for a person at SoNick Marketing to check before anything is sent. The AI writes the words, never the facts.
Google Workspace
The report email drafts and calendar events Compass makes are kept in SoNick Marketing's own Google account.
Why: As described for Gmail and Google Calendar.
DataForSEO
The keywords, places and website addresses to look up, such as a client's site and its competitors. No personal data.
Why: To track where clients' sites appear in Google, the links pointing at them, and problems on their sites.
Browser push services (Google, Apple, Mozilla and Microsoft)
A short title and a link for each notification sent to the agency's own phones and computers, such as a new lead's name. Never a client's figures.
Why: To alert the agency's staff, such as when a site goes down.
Where it is kept
The database is on the server SoNick Marketing Compass runs on. Files are kept in private, encrypted Amazon S3 storage in London, and are only ever handed over through links that stop working after a few minutes. Some of the services above are based outside the United Kingdom; where personal data goes to one of them, we rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK's adequacy regulations or the standard contract clauses approved for international transfers.
How long we keep it
- Clients' records, and the figures copied from Google and other services about their websites and advertising, are kept for as long as we work with the client.
- When a client or anyone else asks us to erase their data under UK GDPR, it is permanently deleted, with every copy we made from Google and other services, rather than hidden. Deleted files can stay in our storage's version history for up to 90 days, and in the server's backups until those are replaced.
- Disconnecting a Google connection deletes the sign-in Google gave us straight away, and for the agency's own calendar, our copy of every event Compass did not make. Figures already copied about clients' websites and advertising are kept with the client they belong to until erased as above.
- What client portal users open, and sign-ins to the portal, are kept for 12 months.
- Enquiries collected for a client are kept while they remain our client, and someone who sent one can ask for it to be deleted.
Keeping it safe
Every sign-in to SoNick Marketing Compass needs two-factor authentication. Sign-ins to Google and other services are stored encrypted. Everything travels over encrypted connections. The client portal is a separate area with its own sign-in, and a client can only ever see their own records.
Cookies
This page and the SoNick Marketing Compass home page set no cookies. Signing in sets only the cookies needed to keep you signed in and to protect the forms you use. SoNick Marketing Compass uses no advertising or analytics cookies.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to correct it, delete it, limit how we use it, or pass it to you or someone else in a form a computer can read. You can also object to how we use it. Email [email protected] and we will reply within a month.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, we update it here and change the date at the top.