• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 24, 2022

Email marketing is the B2B demand-generation strategy that most relies on data. But it might suffer by extension from general data issues, judging by Using Data To Drive Demand, a new study from Act-On Software, conducted by Ascend2.

Only 20% of marketers rate themselves as very successful (or best in class), the study finds, while 73% say they are somewhat successful. 

Put another way, only 34% are certain that the quality of their data allows them to make effective decisions on where to spend marketing dollars or sales resources. Another 54% are somewhat confident. 

Moreover, a mere 32% have enough data to make those calls, while 49% are at least partly sure they have it. 

The greatest data-driven challenges are:

• Measuring results — 41%
• Making data actionable — 39%
• Identifying target audiences/accounts — 33%
• Aligning marketing and sales processes — 33% 
• Allocating resources/budget to execute — 23%
• Leadership buy-in — 21%
• Finding/implementing appropriate technology — 20%
• Data unification — 20%

All that said, 44% strongly agree that demand generation is significantly improved when a data-driven strategy is used, and 51% moderately concur. The remainder disagree, only 1% strongly so. 

Meanwhile, here are the tactics that are affected most by data-driven marketing:

• Email marketing — 40% 
• Customer experience — 40% 
• Engagement — 34%
• Personalization of content — 31%
• Segmentation of target audiences — 30%
• Target accounts — 25%
• Conversions — 16%
• Inbound marketing (ads, social media, etc.) — 15%
• Lead scoring — 15%
• Nurture campaigns — 14%

And, in general, data-driven demand generation offers these benefits:

• Improved quality of leads — 49%
• Improving customer experience — 39%
• Increased campaign ROI — 36%
• Increased quantity of leads —35%
• Increased pipeline for sales — 30%
• Increased velocity of sales — 24%
• Increased close-rates for sales — 23%
• Improving attribution — 10%

How are B2B brands deploying data-driven demand-generation? They are using:

• ABM (account-based marketing) — 37%
• Customer journey mapping — 33%
• Real-Time marketing — 30%
• Intent data — 30%
• Hyper-personalization — 23%
• Omnichannel — 21%
• AI/predictive data analysis — 7%

Ascend2 surveyed 115 B2B marketers as part of its recent Using Data to Drive Demand survey.  Of those polled, 23% work in companies with more than 500 employees, 30% in firms with 50 to 500 and 47% in outfits with fewer than 50.