• by Ray Schultz , November 18, 2021

Data-driven marketing—marketing based on first-party data — is fueling everything from personalization to strategic decision making. But there are obstacles. judging by Data-Driven Marketing: Metrics, Important Elements & Trends, a study by GoodFirms, an IT research company servicing the B2B sector. 

The benefits of data-driven marketing are:

• Personalized content & campaigns — 65.2%
• Strategic decision making — 62.3%
• Multi-channel optimization — 44.9%
• Provides consistency & longevity — 38.2%
• Paves the way for making automation — 30.4%
• Real-time interactions — 28.1%
• Informs product development — 18.8%

• Finding & maintaining high-quality data — 53.6%
• Targeting segmented audiences — 46.4%
• Making meaningful connections — 46.4%
• Breaking down data silos — 34.8%
• Using real-time data — 34.8%
• Using the right data platform — 27.5%
• Getting quality first-party data — 1.4%
• Interpretation, application, security & information overload — 1.4%

The study notes that brands can use their first-party data to add users to their email marketing list. This happens when customers input contact information for:

• Making a purchase 
• Submitting a question 
• Receiving discount codes & coupons 
• Staying updated on announcements 

Here are the important elements of data-driven marketing:

• Create buyer personas & outcome-focused content — 26.1%
• Develop models to predict & optimize business outcomes — 14.5% 
• Identify the right metric to measure success — 13%
• Keep on testing — 11.6%
• Ensure data accuracy — 10% 
• Identify the right channels — 7.2%

What are the crucial metrics of data-driven marketing? They are: 

• Conversion rate — 37.7% 
• Return-on-investment (ROI) — 17.9%
• Customer lifetime value (CLV) — 11.6%
• Website traffic sources — 10.1% 
• Marketing qualified lead (MQL) — 7.2%
• Social media engagement — 5.8%
• Bounce rate — 4.3%

GoodFirms surveyed 207 marketing experts.