Privacy Policy
Last modified: 01/24/2023
At Ardent Growth, protecting your privacy is a commitment shared by us and our affiliates. This Privacy Policy governs the collection, usage, and protection of information and data by Ardent Growth when you use our websites, products, and services, as well as any other sites or services that link to this Privacy Policy. This applies to instances when you:
- Interact with us on our websites or through other channels (for example, by communicating with us or attending one of our live events);
- Use our product and services (including the Ardent Growth Subscription Services); and
- When you use any other sites or services that link to this Privacy Policy (for example our other brands such as Ardent Academy).
This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, receive, use, store, share, transfer, and process your Personal Data. It also describes your choices and rights regarding to your Personal Data, including your rights of access and correction of your Personal Data. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy "Personal Data" means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. If you disagree with this Privacy Policy, you should not use our websites, product and services, or any other sites or services that link to this Privacy Policy. Any capitalized terms not defined herein will have the same meaning as where they are defined elsewhere on our website.
Ardent Growth customers may collect and manage Personal Data when using our product and services, or what we may refer to as the Subscription Service. "Subscription Service" is defined in the Ardent Growth Terms of Service and means all of our web-based applications, tools and platforms that you have subscribed to under an Order Form or that we otherwise make available to you, and are developed, operated, and maintained by us at ardentgrowth.com, any of our subdomains, or another designated URL, and any ancillary products and services, including Topic Explorer and Consulting Services, that we provide to you. When you use the Subscription Service, Ardent Growth may process Personal Data as a processor under the direction of our customers. Our customers, as data controllers, are responsible for complying with any regulations or laws that require providing notice, disclosure, and/or obtaining consent prior to collecting their customers’ Personal Data using the Subscription Service. Please see Section 1.b "Information We Process on Behalf of our Customers When They Use the Subscription Service" and Section 1.c "Information We Collect and Process When You Use the Subscription Service" as well as our Customer Data Processing Agreement for more information.
We regularly update our Privacy Policy and suggest you to review it occasionally. Any changes made to the policy will be posted on this page. If the changes are significant, we will notify you by email. Any terms that are not defined in this Privacy Policy will have the meaning as stated in the Ardent Growth Customer Terms of Service.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our treatment of your Personal Data, or to exercise your rights to delete or modify your Personal Data, please email legal@ardentgrowth.com.
1. What Information We Collect About You
A. Information You Provide to Ardent Growth
When you interact with our company through our websites, linked sites, or services, or by using our Subscription Service, we may collect certain Personal Data and other information from you, as outlined in this Privacy Policy.
Visiting Our Websites
We may collect Personal Data from you when you engage with our websites, such as through submitting web forms, subscribing to a blog, signing up for a webinar, or requesting customer support. This data may include, but is not limited to, your email address, name, and job title. You are able to browse some of our websites without providing any Personal Data.
Ardent Growth Live and Other Event Information
When you register for an Ardent Growth event, such as Ardent Growth Live, we may collect information such as your name, address, phone number, and email address. This information is used to communicate with you and may be shared with service providers to facilitate your registration and improve your experience at the event.
Account and User Information
We may collect Personal Data when you create an account with us, update user information, set preferences, or provide any other related information to access or utilize our Subscription Services or Consulting Services.
Payment Information
We may collect payment and billing information when you register for paid products or services. This may include a billing address or contact information for your Ardent Growth account. We use secure third-party payment service providers to handle payment processing and the data collected is done through a secure process.
Customer Testimonials
We may post customer testimonials and comments on our websites that may contain Personal Data. Prior to posting, we obtain the customer's consent via email or other agreements between the customer and our company.
B. Information We Process on Behalf of Customers When They Use the Subscription Service
Our product, referred to as the Subscription Service, enables our clients to create and plan content marketing, SEO initiatives, and activities related to hiring, sales, and customer service. When using our product, clients may collect Personal Data such as names, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, or other information. We refer to this information as "Customer Data" in our Customer Terms of Service.
We do not have control over the content of our clients' webpages or the types of Personal Data that they may choose to collect or manage using the Subscription Service. We store our clients' information on servers managed by our service providers, but we process it as a processor under our clients’ instructions and in accordance with our Customer Terms of Service, which prohibit us from using the information except as necessary to provide and improve the Subscription Service and as required by law.
Our clients are responsible for controlling and correcting, deleting, or updating the information they process using the Subscription Service, as well as for complying with any regulations or laws that require providing notice, disclosure, and/or obtaining consent prior to transferring the Personal Data to Ardent Growth for processing purposes.
C. Information We Collect and Process When You Use the Subscription Service
Usage Data
We collect usage data when you or your users interact with the Subscription Service. This includes metrics and information related to how you use and interact with the service, such as which features are used the most, when an object (such as a ticket or sales inquiry) is opened and closed, and how often certain features (such as clustering or traffic metrics) are utilized in your account.
We engage third-party providers to collect usage data. For more information on how we protect your information with these service providers, please refer to Section 3 "How We Share Information We Collect."
Mobile
When you access or use the Subscription Service via our mobile applications, we automatically collect information such as your device model and version, operating system, or device identifier.
Third Party Integrations
You may connect third-party integrations to our products, which may request certain permissions to access data or send information to our tools. It is your responsibility to review any third-party integrations you authorize. We may collect information about the types of integrations you use in your Ardent Growth account.
Any permission(s) granted by you grants these third parties access to your data, which may include (but is not limited to) granting third-party applications access to view, store, and modify your Ardent Growth data. We are not responsible for the practices of third-party integrations, so please carefully review the permissions you grant to third-party applications. For more information on integrations with third-party providers, please refer to the relevant documentation.
Additional Limits on Use of Your Google User Data
Ardent Growth'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 Search Console
You can integrate your Google Search Console with our technology and data storage system as part of our Topic Explorer product. As part of this integration, the Subscription Service will be able to view properties, including the list of sites and domains you control in Ardent Growth and the Search Console data for your connected properties.
D. Information We Collect From Other Sources
Ardent Growth Partners
We may also collect information about you through our co-marketing partnerships with other companies. For example, you may sign up for a webinar or free tool published by Ardent Growth and an Ardent Growth co-marketing partner.
Third Parties
We may receive information from third-party service providers, related companies, and our business and solution partners.
Personal Information from Different Sources
We may combine the personal information we collect from you with personal information we receive from other sources, such as third-party providers of business information and publicly available sources (such as social media platforms). This may include physical mail addresses, job titles, email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and social media profiles. This helps us to update and improve our records, identify new customers, create more personalized advertising, suggest products and services that may interest you, deliver personalized communications, and promote events. The collection of your Personal Data by these other third-party providers is governed by the provider's privacy policy.
Log Files
Like many websites and technology services delivered over the Internet, we automatically collect and store information about your computer hardware and software when you visit our websites, use our products and services, or visit other sites or services that link to this Privacy Policy. This information can include your IP address, browser type, domain names, internet service provider (ISP), and the files viewed on our websites (e.g., HTML pages, graphics, etc.), the files viewed on our websites, your operating system, access times, and referring website addresses.
When you use the Subscription Service, we collect and store the categories of information listed above in logs in the following instances, subject to the customer's implementation settings when an Ardent Growth user logs into their account and accesses tools in the Ardent Growth Platform.
Social Media Features
Our websites may include social media features (such as the Facebook "like" button) and widgets (such as the share button or interactive mini-programs) that run on our websites. These features may collect your IP address, the page you are visiting on our sites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to these features. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy and other policies of the companies providing them.
2. How We Use Your Information
A. To Communicate with You About the Product and Services
We use the account information you provide to Ardent Growth when signing up for the Subscription Service and Consulting services to send you transactional emails about billing, account management, and other administrative matters. We may also send you updates regarding our Customer Terms of Service or other legal agreements, and may also communicate with you about security incidents via email.
We use your information to provide customer support, such as resolving technical issues you encounter and analyzing product outages or bugs.
B. To Provide the Subscription Service
We use your account information and Customer Data to provide the product and services to you. For example, we use the email address you provide when signing up for the product to create your user account, and we use your payment information to process payments for paid use of the Subscription Service. We also use this information to authenticate you when you log in and to provide customer support.
C. To Improve and Develop Our Product and Services
We collect usage data about how you or your users interact with our product and services. We use this data to develop and improve our products and services. For example, we use usage data to assess trends and usage across the product to help us determine what new features or integrations our users may be interested in.
We use Customer Data in an anonymized manner for machine learning that supports certain product features and functionality with the Subscription Service. For example, machine learning helps power the prioritization, relevancy, and recommendations engine if you use our Total Searchable Marketing or Grouper apps. You may opt-out of having your Customer Data used for machine learning purposes by emailing privacy@ardentgrowth.com
We may publish data about how our product and services are being used across our customer base. When we share statistical information externally in this way, the data will be aggregated and we will not identify individual users or customers. For example, we may publish blog posts on trends or insights into how users are interacting with our product.
D. To Secure and Protect Our Product and Ardent Growth Users
We use your account information to investigate and help prevent security incidents. We may also use this information to meet legal requirements. We use your information to verify user accounts, new product sign-ups, and to detect and prevent product abuse. This includes enforcing our Acceptable Use Policy.
We use log files to provide general statistics regarding use of the websites by you, including how you use our websites, what country you are logging in from (for analytics, export control, and regulatory purposes) and to help improve the navigation experience. Your IP address is also collected and logged for security and debugging purposes, for example to track access patterns, investigate security events and incidents. For these purposes, we do link this automatically-collected data to other personal data provided by you such as name, email address, address, and phone number.
E. To Market and Promote the Subscription Service
We use the information you provide to Ardent Growth to market and promote the products, services, and other offerings. For example, we use the information, like your email or physical address, to send information or Ardent Growth content to you which we think may be of interest to you by post, email, or other means and send you marketing communications relating to our business in accordance with your communication preferences.
We may also reach out to you via telephone to ask about other Ardent Growth products or services you may be interested in. If you have a call scheduled with a Ardent Growth representative, we may use your information to prepare for the call and to follow up with you afterwards.
We may also use your information to send you promotional emails, direct mail, or other communications about products, services, and events offered by Ardent Growth or our business partners, in accordance with your communication preferences. You may opt-out of receiving promotional communications from us at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions provided in the communication or by emailing privacy@ardentgrowth.com
F. To Comply with Legal Obligations
We may use your information to comply with legal obligations, such as responding to subpoenas or court orders, or to establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights.
We may also use your information as we believe is necessary to comply with laws, regulations, or other legal processes, such as to comply with tax and accounting requirements, to prevent fraud, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Ardent Growth, our customers, or the public.
G. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data (EEA and UK Visitors only)
We currently do not service individuals in the EEA or UK.
However, if we were to collect personal data from individuals in the EEA or UK, our legal basis for collecting and using the Personal Data would depend on the Personal Data concerned and the specific context in which we collect it. We will only collect and use Personal Data from you where we have a lawful basis to do so, such as where we have your consent, where we need the Personal Data to perform a contract with you, or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect Personal Data from you. We will make it clear the reason for collecting personal data, whether it's mandatory or voluntary, and the possible consequences if the data is not provided.
3. How We Share Information We Collect
A. Third Party Service Providers
We use third-party service providers to support our websites, products, and services, such as for data hosting, application development, and marketing. To provide information about products or services to you, we may share your information with these service providers. This may include enriching information for prospect lists, analyzing data or performing statistical analysis on your use of the Subscription Service or interactions on our websites, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments, supplementing the information you provide us to improve our service, developing and improving the product and services, and providing customer service or support. These service providers are prohibited from using your Personal Data except for these specified purposes and are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information. We have strict agreements in place with these third-party service providers that require them to comply with our privacy and data protection policies and standards.
B. Partners
We may share data with trusted partners of Ardent Growth for the purpose of contacting you in accordance with your request for such communications, for statistical analysis, or for providing sales and customer support. These partners are prohibited from using your Personal Data for any other purpose and are required to maintain the confidentiality of your data.
Additionally, we may partner with third-party organizations to provide co-marketing content that may be relevant to you. When engaging with these co-marketing partners, we will inform you of the partners with whom we are sharing data and provide a link to their privacy policy, so that you may learn more about opting out of their communications. These partners are required to comply with our privacy and data protection policies. If you do not wish for us to share your Personal Data with these partners, please contact us.
C. Corporate Events
In the event that we (or our assets) are acquired by another company, whether by merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other events, any information collected by Ardent Growth, including personal data, may be transferred to the acquiring company. In such cases, we will notify you via email of any change in ownership or use of your personal data, and will provide you with the opportunity to exercise any choices you may have regarding your personal data.
D. Public Forums
Our websites may feature publicly accessible message boards, blogs, and community forums. Please be aware that any information you disclose on these platforms may be viewed, collected, and used by other users of the website. Your posts and certain profile information may remain on the website even after you terminate your account. We recommend being cautious when disclosing personal information in these forums. If you wish to remove any information you have posted, you may request for us to do so as described in Section 7 "Access and Control of Your Personal Data" below. In certain instances, we may not be able to remove your information, in which case we will notify you of the reason why.
E. Compelled Disclosure
We reserve the right to disclose your personal data if required by law or if we believe it is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or comply with a legal process. If you are a customer, please review the Confidentiality terms in the Customer Terms of Service for more information on how personal data is treated in such instances.
4. How We Transfer Data We Collect Internationally
A. International Transfers within the Ardent Growth Group
To facilitate our operations, information may be transferred to other Ardent Growth Affiliates where we have operations for the purposes described in this policy. Please see [Annex 3 of our Customer Data Processing Agreement](https://www.ardentgrowth.com/legal/dpa) for a list of Ardent Growth Affiliates as well as their locations.
This Privacy Policy will continue to be in effect even if we transfer Personal Data to other countries. We have taken appropriate measures to ensure that your Personal Data will be protected to the same standard as it would be in its country of origin, wherever it is transferred. When we share Personal Data of individuals in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), Switzerland or the United Kingdom ("UK") within and among Ardent Growth's affiliates, we make use of the Standard Contractual Clauses (which have been approved by the European Commission) and the UK Addendum (as defined within our Customer Data Processing Agreement) as well as additional safeguards where appropriate (such as commercial industry standard secure encryption methods to protect customer data at rest and in transit, Transport Layer Security (TLS) for Ardent Growth hosted sites, web application firewall protection, and other appropriate contractual and organizational measures), for more information please see here.
B. International Transfers to Third Parties
Some of the third parties that provide services to us under contract are based in countries that may not have equivalent privacy and data protection laws to the country in which you reside. To protect the transfer of Personal Data of individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, United Kingdom (UK), and Canada, we make use of a variety of legal mechanisms including the European Commission-approved standard contractual clauses and the UK Addendum, as well as additional safeguards where appropriate. With respect to personal data received from or transferred to Canada, Ardent Growth is subject to the regulatory enforcement powers of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. If you have any questions or concerns about the legal mechanisms we rely on to transfer Personal Data outside of these regions, please contact us.
5. How We Store and Secure Your Information
A. Data Storage and Security
We employ a variety of security measures to protect Personal Data from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. Such measures include, but are not limited to, utilizing computer servers in a controlled and secure environment, which are protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. Additionally, we implement appropriate physical, technical and organizational measures to safeguard Personal Data. For further information on our security measures, please contact legal@ardentgrowth.com.
B. Retention of Personal Data
We retain Personal Data that we collect from you in accordance with our legitimate business needs, such as to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. We will securely delete or anonymize your Personal Data when it is no longer needed for these purposes. However, if deletion or anonymization is not possible, we will securely store the Personal Data and isolate it from any further use until deletion is possible. You may request deletion of your Personal Data at any time as described in our Privacy Policy.
For marketing communications, we retain information about your preferences for a reasonable period of time from the date you last expressed interest in our content, products, or services. We also retain information derived from cookies and other tracking technologies for a reasonable period of time from the date it was created.
Regarding data processed by our customers in connection with the Subscription Service, retention is in accordance with the Ardent Growth Customer Terms of Service and the Customer Data Processing Agreement.
5. Cookies and Similar Technologies
A. Cookies
When you interact with our websites, create an account with Ardent Growth, participate in a virtual event, or request additional information about our services, we may collect information about your browsing activity automatically through the use of tracking technologies such as cookies and tracking pixels. For more details on this, please refer to our Cookie Policy.
Ardent Growth and our partners use technologies such as cookies, web beacons, and JavaScript to analyze usage trends, administer the website, monitor navigation on our websites, and gather demographic information about our user base. To learn more about our use of cookies on our websites and how to manage your cookie preferences, please see our Cookie Policy.
B. Advertising
We may partner with third party ad networks to display advertising on our website or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and web beacons to collect information about your activities on this and other websites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you may opt-out. In the event we begin using these types of services, information on how to opt-out will be provided below. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising you will continue to receive generic ads.
6. How to Access & Control Your Personal Data
A. Reviewing, Correcting and Removing Your Personal Data
You have the following data protection rights:
- You have the right to request access to, correction of, updates to, or deletion of your Personal Data that we have collected.
- You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data, request that we restrict the processing of your Personal Data, or request portability of your Personal Data.
- If we have collected and processed your Personal Data with your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the legality of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal or any processing of your Personal Data conducted on lawful grounds other than consent.
- You have the right to file a complaint with a data protection authority regarding our collection and use of your Personal Data. Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area (EEA) can be found here.
To exercise any of these rights, you may contact us at:
- For inquiries related to Ardent Growth, including our websites and products or services, please email legal@ardentgrowth.com
- For inquiries related to all Ardent Growth brands, please write to us by mail at Ardent Growth, Inc., 1712 KY 121 N Suite A, Murray, KY 42071, USA. Attn: Privacy and Data Protection Officer.
We will respond to your request to change, correct, or delete your data within a reasonable timeframe and notify you of the action we have taken.
Please note, if you are a customer, prospect, or otherwise interact with an Ardent Growth customer that uses our Subscription Service and would like to access, correct, amend or delete your data controlled by the customer, please contact the relevant customer directly. Ardent Growth acts as a processor for our customers and will work with our customers to fulfill these requests when applicable.
B. Anti-Spam Policy
Our Acceptable Use Policy applies to us and to our customers and, among other things, prohibits the misuse of our Subscription Service. We require all of our customers to abide by the Acceptable Use Policy at all times, and any violations of the policy by a customer may result in immediate suspension or termination of their Subscription Service.
C. To Unsubscribe From Our Communications
To unsubscribe from our marketing communications, you may take the following actions:
- Click on the "unsubscribe" link located at the bottom of our emails
- Update your communication preferences
- Contact us by email at legal@ardentgrowth.com or by mail at Ardent Growth, Inc., 1712 KY 121 N Suite A, Murray, KY 42071, USA, Attn: Privacy and Data Protection Officer
Please note that customers are unable to opt out of receiving transactional emails related to their account or the Subscription Service.
8. California Privacy Rights
A. Applicability
This section applies solely to California residents. As per the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), "Personal Information" refers to information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. This section explains how we collect, use, and share Personal Information of California residents as a business, and the rights that these residents possess under the CCPA. In accordance with the CCPA, businesses are required to disclose whether they sell Personal Information. Ardent Growth, as a business, does not engage in the sale of Personal Information. However, we may share Personal Information with authorized service providers or business partners who have agreed to our contractual limitations regarding their retention, use, and disclosure of such Personal Information.
If you are a California resident and are unable to access this Privacy Policy due to a disability or any physical or mental impairment, please contact us and we will make arrangements to provide you with the information you need in an alternative format that you can access.
B. How We Collect, Use, and Share Your Personal Information
In accordance with applicable laws, we have collected the following categories of personal information in the past twelve (12) months:
- Identifiers, such as name, e-mail address, mailing address, and phone number. We collect this information directly from you or from third-party sources in compliance with legal requirements.
- Commercial information, such as subscription records. We collect this information directly from you in compliance with legal requirements.
- Internet or network information, such as browsing and search history. We collect this information directly from your device in compliance with legal requirements.
- Geolocation data, such as IP address. We collect this information from your device in compliance with legal requirements.
- Financial information, such as Payment Information or financial account numbers in the process of providing you with a subscription. We collect this information from you in compliance with legal requirements.
- Inferences.
- Other Personal Information, in instances when you interact with us online, by phone or mail in the context of receiving help through our help desks or other support channels; participation in customer surveys or contests; or in providing the Subscription Service in compliance with legal requirements.
The business and commercial purposes for which we collect this information are described in Section 2 of this Privacy Policy. The categories of third parties to whom we "disclose" this information for a business purpose are described in Section 3 of this Privacy Policy in compliance with legal requirements.
C. Your California Rights
Under applicable laws, you have certain rights with respect to the Personal Information we collect or maintain about you. Please be aware that these rights are not absolute, and there may be circumstances where we are unable to comply with your request as permitted by law.
The right of access allows you to request disclosure of the types of Personal Information we have collected, used and disclosed about you in the past 12 months.
The right of deletion allows you to request the deletion of Personal Information we have collected or maintained about you, subject to certain exceptions.
The right to non-discrimination guarantees that you will not be subject to discriminatory treatment when exercising any of your privacy rights.
In accordance with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (California Civil Code §§ 1798.100–1798.199), Ardent Growth does not sell Personal Information to third parties.
D. How to Exercise Your California Rights
You have the option to exercise your rights related to your Personal Information personally or through an authorized representative. To protect your Personal Information, we may verify your identity or the identity of your authorized agent through an appropriate method, and may also require written permission from you for the agent to act on your behalf. If you wish to access this policy in an alternative format, exercise your rights, obtain additional information about your rights or our privacy practices, or designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, please contact us using the provided contact information
9. Data Protection Officer
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, or if you have a disability and need to access this notice in a different format:
for Ardent Growth contact us here: legal@ardentgrowth.com; or
You may also contact us by postal mail for all Ardent Growth brands at:
Skyler Reeves
Ardent Growth, Inc.
1712 KY 121 N, Suite A
Murray, KY 42071 USA
10. Other Important Privacy Information
A. We Never Sell Personal Data
We will never sell your Personal Data to any third party.
B. Information About Children
The websites, product and services are not intended for or targeted at children under 16, and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect Personal Data about children under 16. If you believe that we have collected Personal Data about a child under 16, please contact us, so that we may delete the information.
