Commentary

The Data Drive Goes Global

It should come as no surprise that 80% of a worldwide panel of thousands of marketers polled by Winterberry Group and Global DMAsaid that data is important to their marketing and advertising. Makes you wonder what the remaining 20% were thinking, or if they were registering the current absence of serious data-driven marketing in their organization. At any rate, 92.2% did say that data would be increasingly important to their plans. That is more like it.

The most striking thing about the “Global Review of Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising” is how evenly distributed the jones for data has become. When asked to rate on a 1-5 scale the importance of data to their current marketing (5 being “critical”), all nations fell within the 4 range. Sweden was highest, indexing at 4.73 and Italy lowest at 4.08. Across the board, confidence in the practices of data-driven marketing and advertising (DDMA) were high but highest in emerging markets than in established markets.

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Despite a certain evenness of commitment and confidence in DDMA at the top level, there is a great deal of fragmentation among these professionals about what actually characterizes DDMA. For instance, among all respondents worldwide, the most commonly cited application of data is in targeted offers, messages and creative content (68.5%), followed by strategy and product development (52.4%). Also popular are optimization of customer experience (49.4%) audience analytics (44.4%), and predictive analytics and segmentation (43.8%). Interestingly, some of the more precise applications of data -- media mix optimization (31.8%) and programmatic media buying (11.7%) -- are among the least widely used. Marketers and agencies expected the most increases in data-driven marketing spend to go into mobile media and experiences as well as social media.

When asked if they were confident in the value of data-driven marketing now and in the future, 29.2% indexed at 4 on a scale of 5, with a massive 48.2% saying they were extremely confident (“5”) of DDMA’s role. For a field that is fraught with worries about the accuracy of data in the market and marketers’ ability to make smart use of it, confidence seems surprisingly high. 73.5% are expecting expanded budgets next year, with 29.7% looking for significant increases.

Curiously, actual results reported from data-driven efforts lag behind the declared enthusiasm. While more respondents indexed in the mid-to-high 4 range when asked about confidence in DDMA’s role and future, when asked whether DDMA improved performance in specific channels last year, most of the responses indexed in the 3s. Mobile apps and messaging (3.84) showed the most impact when data was applied, as did search (3.8) and digital display (3.68).   

The motives behind this full embrace of data are a mix of organizational and consumer priorities. When asked which factors were driving investment in DDMA, 52.7% cited the desire to deliver more relevant communication to consumers. But almost as important is a desire to measure marketing effectiveness (49.3%). Oddly, only 33.2% said that a desire to know their customers better was a key driver of their data investment. I'm hard-pressed to understand how claiming to be more relevant and “customer-centric” doesn’t require, first and foremost, a clearer insight into who that customer is.

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