Commentary

Data Quality Challenges Run Deeper Than Marketers Think

Some 93% of companies believe data is essential to their marketing success, but on average U.S. marketers believe 25% of the data they use to contact customers remains inaccurate. About 91% of companies suffer from common data errors, citing humans as the main cause. The stats from Experian Marketing Services go on and on, with 84% of companies saying they experience data challenges and 77% admitting the errors affect their bottom line. The emails bounce back, the advertisements miss their target market, and the search ads get clicked on without seeing conversions.

Other problems uncovered by Experian: It turns out 81% of retailers have encountered problems with loyalty programs. Some 96% of retailers can attribute revenue to email marketing efforts, but 67% have experienced email delivery issues in the last 12 months. Some 93% of retailers suffer from common data quality errors, the most prevalent being incomplete or missing data.

Service Objects, which provides real-time address, email and phone verification API, will release a white paper later this week detailing a method the company calls Trifecta, which theoretically focuses on genuine, up to date and accurate data.

The company offers APIs that cross reference and validate incoming contact data against a master database containing more than 300 billion contact records. Algorithms match the information against USPS, ZIP code, demographic, geographic, mapping, email data, and more. While the white paper is full of marketing spiel, the thesis remains valid.

The most important point to remember: Any inaccuracy in the data throws off the entire campaign. It becomes a complete waste of time and money, making the data obsolete.

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