# Who uses, who pays, who influences > In a family purchase the teen studies, the parent pays and a school teacher often recommends. Each needs a different message, and some targeting is off-limits: no ads aimed at minors, no sensitive traits. - Course: [Marketing Strategy: Who to Win and How](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy.md) - Module: Who are our customers, really? - Lesson 7/32, ~24 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/who-uses-who-pays-who-influences ## Three people, one purchase **Alex Tutor:** Still at Klasna, still on the plan's segments row. A lesson package for a teen involves more people than the one in the lesson. **Uliana:** Leo wants to try ads for teens on a short-video platform. They'll ask their parents, and the parents pay. Clever, right? **Alex Tutor:** Hold that thought. First, who does what. In an exam family the teen **uses** the lessons, the parent **pays** and makes the final choice, and a school teacher often **influences** by recommending a tutor. **Alex Tutor:** That's the **user, payer and influencer**. For adults learning English, they're one person. For families, three people with three different questions. **Alex Tutor:** A quick check on that last point about adults. > **Exercise:** For an adult learning English for work, the user, the payer and the influencer are usually three different people. **Sofia:** What does each of them ask? > **Exercise:** Match each role in an exam family with the question it most likely asks. ## Influencers in the data **Alex Tutor:** The export shows influencers too. In `heard_from`, `school_teacher` appears 32 times, and nearly all of those are exam families. **Alex Tutor:** Younger-learner and diaspora families mostly hear from friends and family. Adults paying for themselves mostly find Klasna by searching on their own. **Uliana:** So for exam families, the teacher is almost a channel. **Alex Tutor:** An influential one. Count it before you build on it: how many of the 64 exam-prep accounts first heard from a school teacher? > **Exercise:** In the customer export, 16 of the 40 spring crammers and 11 of the 24 steady exam families have `heard_from = school_teacher`. What share of all 64 exam-prep accounts first heard of Klasna from a school teacher? In %, to two decimals. ## Why not ads for teens? **Uliana:** Back to Leo's idea, then: ads aimed at the teens themselves. **Alex Tutor:** No. Teens are users; parents are the audience. Klasna doesn't aim advertising at children, and never uses profiling to show ads to minors. **Alex Tutor:** The law points the same way. As of October 2026, EU rules bar online platforms from showing profiling-based ads to users they know are minors, and Ukraine's advertising law limits advertising aimed at children. Check the current rules before every campaign. **Alex Tutor:** So what's the real reason to turn down Leo's idea? > **Exercise:** Leo suggests ads aimed at teens on a short-video platform, so they'll ask their parents to pay. Why does Klasna say no? **Sofia:** But the export has `learner_age`. Isn't using it the same thing? **Alex Tutor:** No. Klasna uses age in its own records to describe groups and plan lessons. It never becomes a field for aiming ads at minors. > **Exercise:** Klasna may use `learner_age` in its own data to describe segments and plan lesson times, as long as it never uses it to aim ads at minors. ## What you never target on **Uliana:** For diaspora families, could we target Ukrainians abroad by ethnicity or religion? Or run something cute just for mums? **Alex Tutor:** No to all of it. Ethnic origin, religion, health, sexual orientation and similar are **sensitive personal traits**. EU data-protection rules treat them as special categories, and Ukrainian law protects them too. **Alex Tutor:** And "just for mums" is a stereotype: dads, grandparents and guardians choose and pay too. Define diaspora families by their situation: they live in an EU country and want their child to keep up the Ukrainian curriculum. **Sofia:** Situation, not identity. That's exactly what the export uses: country and goal. > **Exercise:** Which ways of defining or reaching a Klasna segment are acceptable? Select all that apply. ## Contacts, consent, minimal data **Uliana:** One more thing for this row. The sign-up form asks for the parent's phone, the teen's phone, their school, and a birthday "for a nice greeting". Do we keep it all? **Alex Tutor:** Collect only what the lessons and the purchase need. A birthday for greetings needs a clear reason and consent, and for a teen that is the parent's consent. The teen's own phone is never a marketing contact. **Alex Tutor:** Klasna's rule: marketing messages go only to people who agreed to receive them, with an easy way to stop. In most cases EU and Ukrainian rules on data protection and electronic marketing require the same; the narrow exceptions for existing customers aren't worth building a plan on. **Sofia:** So the form gets shorter: the parent's contact, the goal, the subject, and a separate box to tick for news. > **Exercise:** Which sign-up form fits the guardrails for a family buying lessons for a 15-year-old? ## Your turn: one line per role **Uliana:** Fine, no teen ads. Then write me one line per role for exam families: what each needs to hear, and where. **Alex Tutor:** The parent gets the marketing message. The teen meets Klasna through the lessons themselves and what the parent passes on. The teacher needs something that makes an honest recommendation easy. **Sofia:** And no paying teachers for referrals behind the families' backs. **Alex Tutor:** Right. A recommendation families can't see is paid for isn't an honest one, and it can count as hidden advertising, which both Ukrainian and EU law prohibit. **Alex Tutor:** Then what does an honest relationship with teachers look like? > **Exercise:** School teachers are the biggest influencer for exam families. Which way of working with them fits Klasna's rules? > **Exercise:** For Klasna's exam families, write one line per role (parent, teen, school teacher): what each needs to hear or see, and where they meet it. Keep within the guardrails from this lesson. > **Key ideas** > > - A purchase can involve a **user, payer and influencer**. In Klasna's exam families: the teen studies, the parent pays and decides, a school teacher often recommends (27 of 64 exam accounts, 42.19%, first heard from a teacher). > - Each role has its own question and risk, so each needs its own message in its own place. > - Teens are users; parents are the audience. No advertising aimed at children and no profiling-based ads to minors (EU rules and Ukrainian advertising law, as of October 2026; check before each campaign). > - Never target on **sensitive personal traits** (ethnic origin, religion, health and similar) or gender stereotypes. Define segments by situation and need. > - Age in your own records describes groups; it is never an ad-targeting field for minors. **Alex Tutor:** Next: the module's case. You'll name all of Klasna's segments in plain words, from the export and three interview notes. - Previous lesson: [Find them by description, win them by need](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/find-by-description-win-by-need.md) - Next lesson: [Case: name Klasna's segments](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/name-the-segments-case.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.