The Eye-Opening Truth about Data Driven Marketing

When it comes to solidifying your marketing strategy to effectively engage customers, leveraging data is the key to success. Companies that know how to use data to drive marketing decisions see better results overall. In fact, according to an extensive study from Forbes, companies that adopt data-driven marketing are more likely to have an advantage over the competition and increase profitability; and, they are actually six times more likely to be profitable year-over-year. Not to mention, according to Adobe/Marketing Charts, marketers are adding value with the use of CRM data, real-time data from analytics, and by integrating analytics across channels. With these stats in mind, it’s clear that data-driven marketing is the way to go if you’re looking to personalize interactions, engage customers, and foster customer brand loyalty. Expert marketers across the board agree data-driven marketing is crucial as is evidenced by top recent marketing surveys:

According to Forbes, 64% of marketing executives “strongly agree” that data-driven marketing is crucial in the economy.
In the same study by Forbes, 66% of marketing data is used to better focus on targeting offers, messages and content.
44% of marketers say that increasing revenue due to marketing is their top goal, according to Ascend2.

In short, there is a strong consensus among marketers that gathering data to lead marketing decisions is the most productive way to build a marketing strategy.

Top data objectives for marketers

Since data-driven marketing is recognized as one of the top ways to see results, marketers are focusing their efforts on creating strong data-driven marketing objectives. The infographic below reflects the top 3 findings from a recent study by Ascend2, Campaign Monitor, and other research partners. These findings reflect the top data objectives for marketers. According to the study, the top data-driven marketing objectives were as follows:

Basing more decisions on data analysis (51%)
Acquiring more new customers (45%)
Integrating data across platforms (43%)
Enriching data quality and completeness (37%)
Segmenting target markets (34%)
Attributing sales revenue to marketing (33%)
Aligning marketing and sales teams (31%)

Marketers understand the importance of data-driven marketing enough to create solid objectives.

Top challenges for data-driven marketers

The top marketing objectives listed above are all noteworthy, but, interestingly enough, they are not easy to achieve. Marketers express concern over challenges they face when it comes to actually achieving these objectives. Challenges vary for marketers, according to the same study listed above, but include things like:

Being able to make more data-based decisions
Integrating data across platforms in a single view
Enriching data quality and completeness

Other studies indicate a wider net when it comes to challenges for marketers. Forrester and DMA find that understanding customer interactions across all touchpoints is the #1 challenge for marketers.

81% of marketers struggle to implement a data-driven strategy

Marketers understand the importance of data-driven marketing enough to define solid objectives, but the challenges they cite also indicate marketers don’t have enough resources, the right knowledge, and/or targeted experience for productive follow-through. For example, the top objective for marketers is “basing more decisions on data-analysis,” but the top challenge is “being able to make more data-based decisions.”

Similarly, the third most important objective is “integrating data across platforms” and the second biggest challenge is “Integrating data across platforms in a single view.” The most important objectives and the biggest challenges are directly related to each other. This creates problems for marketers, and may explain why 81% of marketers say implementing a data-driven marketing strategy is somewhat too extremely complicated. While there is agreement among marketers about the importance of data-driven marketing, that doesn’t always mean that adopting a data-driven marketing approach is easy.

What channels are effective for collecting marketing data?

Even though marketers express difficulty in implementing an effective data-driven marketing approach, it seems they have a solid understanding of what channels help them with marketing data. Top channels include social media, websites, mobile apps, email communications, and more. Furthermore, 97% of marketers express these channels are getting more effective at collecting data. These advances in technology provide hope and guidance on data collection for marketers.

Where do you go from here?

The information presented in the infographic below will give you quick insights into the truth about data-driven marketing. Primarily, that most marketers understand and agree that it’s important. In fact, they understand the importance so much that their marketing goals revolve around adopting more data-driven approaches. However, if you’re struggling to actually implement a data-driven approach that works for you, know you are not alone. Many marketers experience the same challenges and are working hard to overcome them. Once you digest the information presented in this infographic, use it to identify the problems and challenges you may be facing. Then, let that guide you to solutions so you can overcome challenges and start winning at data-driven marketing.

About the Author

Lane Harbin is Senior Content Marketing Manager at Campaign Monitor, an easy-to-use email marketing tool that allows every marketer to send targeted newsletters to grow their business. With beautiful templates, a drag-and-drop interface and engagement-based segmentation, Campaign Monitor has helped more than 200,000 growing businesses take their email marketing to the next level.