Over the past several years, we’ve operated in a golden age of data. Between first-, second- and third-party sources, marketers have leveraged this information about their consumers as a powerful marketing tool. But the data well is about to start drying up. Our VP of Strategy, Greer Pearce, and our VP of Media, Kazi Ahmed, talk about the data drought and the three things brands can do right now to ready themselves for it. Check it out on MediaPost: https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/331299/data-drought-coming-prepare-with-effective-use-of.html
The number of marketing technology tools is rising at a staggering rate, having nearly doubled YOY in 2016. On average, 51% of organizations use 21 or more digital marketing solutions. While having the ability to access all this new information provides unprecedented insight, it frequently results in an overload of data siloed in disparate systems. Marketers are buried under a landslide of fragmented campaign metrics, products, customers, purchases, and more. And there’s seemingly no end in sight; Gartner reports that 50-65% of marketing executives plan to spend more on marketing technology in the coming year. To make meaningful use of all this data, metrics need to be reviewed cohesively. Without a full holistic view, it’s impossible to get a complete understanding of the real story. Only analyze existing customer behavior and you may miss out on opportunities to attract new audiences. Only review site traffic from media placements, and you lack an understanding of why your customers are loyal to your brand, or how to create more of them. The problem is that most marketing teams don’t operate with systems that talk to each other. They end up trying to manually analyze disparate data points to uncover insights, a practice that is neither scalable nor responsive in real-time. This data fragmentation is costing marketers real dollars as they lose the ability to effectively optimize campaigns and fold learnings into future plans. An example of how some marketing departments utilize data today: The solution begins with creating a connected data ecosystem. The concept is simple—collect all data points into a centralized system able to analyze them en masse and surface actionable insights in real-time. Using those insights, marketers can then start to roll out personalized content, translate strategies across all channels, and efficiently improve customers’ experiences. While the initial creation of the connected data ecosystem can be time-consuming, it pays off. One example: Annuitas Group reports that businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects report a 451% increase in qualified leads. Based on our experience with building ecosystems for clients, we have created a four-step process that we follow: Discovery: we assess all the various systems that are collecting data around your organization. We also identify areas where the data returned may be less than perfect in quality–a very common occurrence. During this period we also outline the shared objectives and definitions of success across all the stakeholders. Solution design: using our learnings from the Discovery period, we design a customized solution that aligns to your business objectives. We build a roadmap using multiple analytic approaches across our four service categories: Performance analytics, marketing sciences, research, and business intelligence. Analyze: This is where the magic happens. Now that we’ve designed your ideal system, we begin to collect the data and review the outputs using our team of data analysts, statisticians, and social scientists to uncover those insights that will truly give your business the competitive edge. Insights: This is when our team works with marketers and other members of your organization to communicate our findings and share recommended actions to meet your KPIs. Once the initial foundation is built, this process can be repeated multiple times over the course of the year, ensuring your teams are always up to date on the latest findings and fully able to use fresh data to inform future plans. The creation of a connected data ecosystem takes some effort but pays off almost immediately by making teams run more efficiently with a full understanding of the current state of their business and what levers they have to achieve their goals.
San Francisco start-up Nuna has built a cloud-computing database of the nation’s 74 million Medicaid patients and their treatment. Health data on its own — billing, diagnostic and treatment information, typically recorded in arcane, shorthand codes — is not very useful. But if it can be aggregated and analyzed economically and quickly, that data is seen as a vital ingredient in transforming health care. Data, analytics and the system-wide view
When it comes to measurement errors, the third time is even less charming than the second and first. Last week, it was reported that Facebook had been miscalculating how often users react to live videos and how often users like and share links posted on Facebook. Because the error is the third of its kind since September, some marketers are questioning Facebook’s maturity. BLITZ’s director of social, Kevin Wright, says “given the frequency and severity of the errors being discovered, Facebook should be proactively reaching out to their partners.” Proactivity is key.
The aftershocks of Facebook’s measurement errors continue to ripple across the advertising industry. While Facebook has emphasized that the flawed figures — such as average watch time, organic reach and video completion rates — did not affect how much money it charged advertisers for their campaigns, that doesn’t mean advertisers and their agencies haven’t been affected. Just ask BLITZ’s Director of Social Media, Kevin Wright, who shares how some marketers have been shook up. Years to build, seconds to destroy.
Once upon a campaign, a big, popular brand was tired of having to choose from the same old marketing channels. The latest social media sensation was too hot. Television was too cold. But then the brand tried using fictional storytelling to entertain and engage consumers, and that was just right. And they lived happily ever after.
Many times when analytics managers or business people are interested in analytics, they reveal that performing some analytics on data is not the primary problem they have. “We have to get the analytics integrated with the process and the systems that support it,” they say. This issue, sometimes called “operational analytics,” is the most important factor in delivering business value from analytics. Mission difficult, but not impossible.
Furthering its push to improve services for mobile users, Google has decided to start indexing search results for mobile separately from desktop to offer mobile users better and fresher content. The move will eventually see the newly introduced search index become the primary one. The standard desktop index will remain active, but it won’t be updated as frequently. Mobile first.
The 4 Ps of marketing, also known as the producer-oriented model, have been used by marketers around the world for decades. Created by Jerome McCarthy in 1960, the 4 Ps encourages a focus on Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Recently, the growing influence of the web has made these classic principles look a bit archaic. Since modern buyers can learn almost everything about your business, the 4 Ps of marketing may be at odds. Options are so last year.
Top 40 radio is notorious for spinning the same small list of tracks over and over and over again, rendering any road trip a literal carousel of the Biebs and RiRi. But do these artists truly reflect all listeners want to hear? Analytics service Next Big Sound aggregated social, streaming and event data between an artist and a fan. Given how indicative this data is of what listeners really want, there's plenty marketers can learn from this data. Tell me what I want to hear.
