• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 2, 2022

Data can be used for everything from strategic decision-making to email marketing. But first it must be collected, analyzed and interpreted. Just how good are brands at doing all that?

Not bad, according to a new study from Ascend2: Using Data To Demand.

Of the marketers polled, 94% strongly agree that data-driven strategies can significantly improve demand generation, with 36% strongly agreeing. 

But brands face numerous challenges when taking a data-driven approach: 

• Measuring results — 38%
• Identifying target/audiences/accounts — 37%
• Aligning marketing and sales processes — 33%
• Making data actionable — 32%
• Allocating resources/budget to execute — 31%
• Finding/implementing appropriate technology — 28%
• Data unification — 18%
• Leadership buy-in — 12%

Despite these issues, 72% rate themselves as somewhat successful at data-driven marketing, and 21% as very much so (best-in-class). Only 7% say they are unsuccessful. 

Data-driven marketing most affects these demand-generation strategies:

• Customer experience — 44%
• Email marketing — 35% 
• Personalization of content — 34%
• Engagement — 33%
• Segmentation of target audiences — 29%
• Inbound marketing (ads, social media, etc.) — 24%
• Target accounts — 22%
• Conversions — 17%
• Lead scoring — 13%
• Nurture campaigns — 10%

And here are the strategies they are pursuing with data:  

• Real-time marketing — 47%
• Customer journey mapping — 33%
• ABM (account-based marketing) — 26%
• Intent data — 23% 
• Hyper-personalization — 22%
• AI/Predictive data analysis — 17% 
• Omnichannel — 35%

Once deployed, the benefits of data-driven marketing include: 

• Improved quality of leads — 52% 
• Improving customer experience — 44%
• Increased quantity of leads — 37%
• Increased pipeline for sales — 26%
• Increased campaign ROI — 27%
• Increased close-rates for sales — 24% 
• Improving attribution — 11% 

Moreover, 55% somewhat agree that the quality of their data allows them to make effective decisions on where to spend their marketing dollars.  Another 33% say it does, versus 5% who answer no and 7% who are unsure.  

Ascend2 and its research Partners surveyed 383 marketers from January 17-25, 2022. Of these, 30% were B2B.44% B2C and 26% B2B and B2C equally. In addition, 19% were from firms with more than 500 employees, 22% from those with 50 to 500 and 59% from companies with fewer than 50 workers.