• by Ray Schultz , April 24, 2018

Marketers give themselves high marks for data cleansing — a 3.82 out of a possible 5.0. And they do well on lead routing and account-based marketing, according to Marketing Operations Benchmarking Report, a study by Openprise.  

But they score only 3.1 on GDPR compliance. And medium-sized firms — those with 251 to 500 employees — are least prepared for GDPR: their score is 2.97. But even those with over 5,000 people achieve only a 3.13.

Overall, these benchmarks should be a wakeup call for email marketers who rely on smooth data processes to drive their campaigns. They suggest “marketers’ lukewarm confidence in their data management capabilities,” the study notes. 

One area that could stand some improvement is data de-duplication. Very large firms — those with 5,000 or more staffers — rate themselves poorly at it, possibly because they have more duplicates: They give themselves a 3.11, compared to an average of 3.35. And 35% rate themselves as poor or fair.

And there is some lag in data enrichment: the average score is 3.39, and 25 of those polled rate themselves as poor or fair. What’s more, 15% don’t enrich their data at all.

Data cleansing is the highest-rated activity, and ABM (account-based marketing) second.  

Of the firms surveyed, 85% score leads. And an equal number score accounts. They give themselves 3.37 on lead scoring, vs. 3.25 on accounts. 

At the same time, the study found a correlation between skill sets — or the lack of them.

For example, firms with a low data-enrichment score “also scored low in lead-to-account matching, leading routing ABM (account-based marketing), advanced segmentation and GDPR compliance.

On the other hand, companies that score highly on data enrichment also do well on ABM. 

Openprise surveyed 201 U.S.-based marketing operations professionals.