Lawful way of direct marketing using live calls
It’s important that you understand the rules when you’re making your marketing calls.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (as amended) (PECR) cover live telephone calls made for direct marketing purposes.
This guidance discusses live marketing calls in detail. Read it if you have detailed questions not answered in the Guide to PECR, or if you need a deeper understanding of how PECR applies to making live direct marketing calls.
This guidance covers what you must do to comply with PECR if you want to make live marketing calls. Where this guidance uses the word “must”, this means that the law requires you to do something (so it’s a legal requirement). Where we use the word “should”, this is what we consider important to help you comply. You should follow this unless you have a good reason not to (good practice). However, you may take a different approach and still comply. Where we use the word “could” this refers to an option(s) that you may want to consider to help you comply (good practice). We have highlighted these words for ease.
If you haven’t yet read the telephone marketing page in the Guide to PECR, you may find it useful to read that first. It introduces this topic and sets out the key points you need to know, along with practical checklists to help you comply.
About the Author
Head of Commercial & Country Manager
Zlatko Delev is Head of Commercial and Country Manager at GDPRLocal, where he leads the company’s commercial strategy and market presence. He brings international experience across sales, marketing, and customer success, along with a legal background from his studies at Iustinianus Primus Law School in Skopje, Macedonia.
Zlatko sits at the front line of GDPRLocal’s client relationships, guiding organisations through the first stages of their compliance journey and helping them understand where they stand and where they need to go on GDPR, information security, and the emerging landscape of AI regulation. His role bridges commercial strategy with practical data protection knowledge, ensuring clients get clear, actionable direction from their very first conversation with GDPRLocal.
Alongside his commercial focus, Zlatko has trained extensively in project management and organisational leadership, including risk management, stakeholder communication, agile methodology, and digital marketing, a broad skill set that supports his structured, delivery-focused approach to growing GDPRLocal’s business internationally.