Privacy Policy

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Zola Analytics collects and processes your personal data through your use of its services or of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter, or purchase our services.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Zola Analytics Ltd is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “Zola Analytics”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

Contact details

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated in November 2025.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, and title.
• Contact Data includes billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details. Where you use our blog monetisation features, we may collect and store subscriber email addresses, names, Stripe customer identifiers and subscription identifiers. Payment card details are processed directly by Stripe and are not stored by Zola.
• Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, API calls made when interacting with our app, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access our website or services.
• Profile Data includes your username, purchases or orders made by you, your job role, interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services, including feature usage events, session information, referrer data, UTM parameters, research queries submitted through our AI features, generated outputs, user feedback provided on outputs, and interactions with charts, reports and blogs.
• AI Interaction Data includes research queries, prompts, generated responses, contextual information submitted by you in connection with those queries, and feedback you provide on AI-generated outputs. This data may be stored to enable chat history functionality and to improve our internal prompt optimisation systems.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions

You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

• apply for our services;
• create an account on our website;
• subscribe to our service or publications;
• use our Zola AI agent, create charts and reports, or publish blogs;
• request marketing to be sent to you;
• enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
• give us feedback or contact us.

Automated technologies or interactions

As you interact with our website or app, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

Third parties or publicly available sources

We will receive personal data about you from various third parties including:

• Technical Data from analytics providers such as Google which is based outside the UK;
• Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services such as Stripe which is based inside and outside the UK;
• Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the UK; and networks such as Apollo.io and LinkedIn.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

See the Glossary section on Lawful Basis to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

The table below describes all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and the legal bases we rely on to do so.

Marketing

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time. Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a service purchase, service experience or other transactions.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We may share your personal data with trusted third-party service providers acting as processors on our instructions, including:

• Cloud infrastructure and hosting providers (such as Amazon Web Services) for hosting, storage, authentication and database services;
• AI model providers (such as OpenAI and Anthropic) for processing research queries and generating AI outputs;
• Analytics providers (such as PostHog) for product analytics, usage tracking and service improvement;
• Payment service providers (such as Stripe, including Stripe Connect) for billing, subscription management and monetisation features;
• Email and communications providers (such as Postmark and Mailcoach) for delivering transactional and marketing communications;
• Search and embedding providers (such as Mixedbread) for semantic search, reranking and related functionality.

A current list of our authorised sub-processors is maintained at: zolaanalytics.com/subprocessors

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Zola Analytics operates as an international service provider. In the course of providing our Services, your personal data may be transferred to, stored in, or accessed from locations outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, including, in some cases, the United States.

This may occur, for example, where we use cloud hosting providers, analytics providers, payment processors, or AI model providers located outside the UK/EEA. A current list of our authorised sub-processors is available at: zolaanalytics.com/subprocessors

Whenever we transfer personal data internationally, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with applicable data protection legislation, so that your personal data continues to be protected to a standard equivalent to that required under UK GDPR and EU GDPR.

Please contact us if you would like further information about the safeguards we rely on in connection with international transfers.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will you use my personal data for?

We retain personal data only for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including to provide our Services, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Retention periods vary depending on the type of data and how it is used:

• Blog analytics and visitor interaction data is typically retained for up to 90 days before being automatically deleted.
• System and security logs are generally retained for 30 to 90 days for monitoring, troubleshooting, and security purposes.
• Account data, user-generated content, and chat history may be retained for as long as your account remains active, so that you can access your history and content.
• Queries, outputs, and user feedback may be retained to improve and optimise our Services, including internal prompt optimisation and quality assurance processes.

Where you request deletion of your account, we will take reasonable steps to delete or anonymise your personal data in accordance with applicable law, subject to any legal obligations to retain certain information (for example, for tax or compliance purposes).

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use this information indefinitely for research or statistical purposes.

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data:

• Request access to your personal data.
• Request correction of your personal data.
• Request erasure of your personal data.
• Object to processing of your personal data.
• Request restriction of processing your personal data.
• Request transfer of your personal data.
• Right to withdraw consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

External Third Parties include:

• Service providers acting as processors based in the United States who provide IT, servers and system administration services.
• Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

• Request access (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.