Brands are getting better at data-driven marketing, finding it especially useful when sending email. And they plan to spend more money on it.
But it’s not easy to succeed, judging by
Data-Driven Marketing: A Research-Based Guide for Marketers, a study by Ascend2.
Marketers face such challenges as:
- Collecting quality data
— 50%
- Identifying/utilizing appropriate solutions — 33%
- Interpreting and applying data — 33%
- Allocating adequate resources — 30%
- Utilizing real-time data — 25%
- Normalizing data —
18%
- Creating infrastructure — 17%
- Obtaining organization buy-in — 16%
- Centralizing data/removing siloes — 15%
Moreover, they say the field has been affected by these factors in the past year:
- Changing consumer behaviors — 48%
- Changing quality of data — 34%
- Data and privacy regulations — 27%
- Dedicated budget modifications — 25%
- Historical data relevancy — 25%
- Changing number of touchpoints — 20%
- Artificial intelligence availability — 17%
Overall, only 29% rate themselves as very successful, or best-in-class at data-driven marketing. But 62% say they are
somewhat successful, and 9% acknowledge they are unsuccessful.
While 79% are satisfied with the quality of decisions they make based on customer data, only 25% are very much so. Another 17%
say they are unsatisfied, and 4% are unsure.
But they are trying: 24% say customer data is always a driving factor in their decision making and 36% say it is most of the time,
while 28% say it is some of the time, 8% say very little and 3% say it is never a factor.
The most useful data-driven marketing applications are:
- Personalization —
42%
- Email marketing — 38%
- Content marketing strategy — 36%
- Product/services development —
36%
- Paid advertising — 30%
- Campaign planning — 25%
- Customer journey mapping — 22%
- Attribution — 11%
Meanwhile, 17% plan to significantly increase their data-driven marketing budgets in the year ahead. Another 65% foresee
more moderate hikes. And 17% are decreasing their spends, 3% substantially.
What could help them improve their data-driven strategies? Here are their top initiatives for the year
ahead:
- Improving personalization — 45%
- Improving data quality — 45%
- Utilizing more available
data — 38%
- Mapping customer journey — 27%
- Identifying touchpoints — 22%
- Improving segmentation
— 21%
- Improving attribution — 21%
- Consolidating technology stack — 13%
- Removing data siloes —
13%
Ascend2 and its Research Partners surveyed 385 marketers from September 20-28, 2021.
Of these, 25% were B2B, 52% B2C and 23% B2B and B2C equally.
In
addition, 48% were at the owner/partner/C-level, 25% vice president/director/manager and 27% non-management professionals.