DATA DRIVEN AND
CUSTOMER CENTRIC:
CONTENTS
Foreword . . . 3
Current State: Where brands stand on data and where they’re heading . . . .4
Impact: Data as a catalyst for the modern-day marketing organization . . . 5
Strategies: Transforming chaos into clarity . . . 8
Future: Where do we go from here? . . . 13
Recommendations . . . 15
Methodology . . . 16
Brands need to learn how to initiate meaningful conversations with consumers—tailored com-munication that caters to unique interests and behaviors. With an increasing number of brands realizing the relevance of data-driven marketing, new tools and skills are becoming a necessity to deliver brand consistency and results.
But questions remain: Now that marketers are supported by data, how are they getting better at building customer loyalty and driving sales? Do data-driven marketers have an advantage over traditional ones? Has access to more insights and information created more opportunities or complexities? Are brands equipped with the right tools to address these new challenges?
This survey and report will answer these questions and explore how marketers are both leveraging data for customer-centric marketing activities and addressing the impact of this new paradigm on business processes and marketing strategy.
PAUL ALFIERI
SVP, Marketing, Turn
FOREWORD
As organizations and their customers move beyond traditional channels of
engagement, new challenges are arising.
Turn delivers real-time insights that transform the way leading advertising agencies and enterprises make marketing decisions. Our integrated cloud platform enables data management, cross-channel advertising, and advanced analytics from a single login, along with point- and-click access to more than 150 integrated technology partners. Turn is headquar-tered in Silicon Valley and provides its products and services worldwide. For more information, visit turn.com or follow @turnplatform.
The good news is that modern marketers are embracing data-centric tools to make the most of this information. In fact, a whopping 64% of survey respondents “strong-ly agree” that data-driven marketing is crucial to success in a hyper-competitive global economy (Figure 1). Yet a siloed marketing mentality can stand in the way of success. Data stemming from disparate providers, disconnected systems, varying internal teams, incon-gruous accountabilities—they can all prevent marketers from reaching the right consumers, at the right time, with a relevant and consistent message.
Fortunately, a growing number of marketing leaders are rethinking the way they interact with their customers and build data-driven marketing campaigns. Retail giant Target is one such company.
“Data is impacting almost everything that we do in mar-keting today,” says Kristi Argyilan, senior vice president
of media and guest engagement at Target. “Because we’re very clear on how guest-centric we want to be as an organization, we spend a lot of time really under-standing who our guests are, who our best guests are and where the next best guest opportunities lie.” Driving this greater appreciation for data-driven mar-keting is the value many brands are beginning to glean from their initiatives. Nearly half—47%—of respondents strongly agree that there are a number of tangible benefits being realized as a result of data-driven marketing. And 53% say there is an enterprise-wide vision for data analytics within their organization. That’s a significant departure from the past, when data- driven campaigns were largely spearheaded by a single marketing executive and a supportive data scientist. Rather, a growing number of departments, from the C-suite to human resources, are recognizing data’s ability to grow a customer base.
CURRENT STATE:
WHERE BRANDS STAND ON DATA
AND WHERE THEY’RE HEADING
Marketers have been collecting and analyzing data to better identify their audiences
for some time. The growing number of devices used by consumers, and the popularity
of social media channels, have only added to the treasure troves of consumer
transac-tion data being gathered and parsed for actransac-tionable insights.
1 – Strongly
Disagree 2 3 4 5- Strongly Agree
Data-driven marketing is crucial to success within a
hyper-competitive global economy 3% 1% 5% 27% 64%
There are a number of tangible benefits being realized as a
result of data-driven marketing 2% 2% 9% 41% 47%
Senior leaders within my organization support, and advocate
for, data initiatives 1% 1% 12% 34% 51%
There is an enterprise-wide vision for data analytics within
our organization 2% 2% 10% 32% 53%
There is an urgency within my organization to conduct
data-driven marketing campaigns 2% 2% 10% 44% 41%
Data from marketing campaigns is actively shared across
my organization 2% 2% 12% 45% 39%
Programmatic ad buying is a key component of our
marketing strategy 2% 2% 13% 37% 46%
The tools brands are using to engage target audienc-es are also reaching new levels of sophistication, en-abling marketers to gain more intelligence in order to make customers a top priority. Brand intelligence so-lutions, customer relationship management systems, consumer intelligence technologies, data manage-ment platforms—they are all enabling organizations to better manage their volumes of data and better understand customers through their behaviors. As a result, brands are better able to reach customers at a precise point in the customer journey with timely and relevant messaging.
As data-centric tools become more sophisticated and brands become more appreciative of data’s value, a number of key changes are taking place. For years, the initial promise of data-driven marketing was to drive higher levels of customer engagement and achieve market growth. While those objectives are still impor-tant, marketers are looking to take these capabilities to new heights by becoming more audience-centric with personalized and real-time messaging.
Dunkin’ Brands is a perfect example. The quick-ser-vice restaurant franchisor has embraced innovative technology and data to better connect with custom-ers when it mattcustom-ers most. “With our DD Card, Dunkin’ Mobile App and DD Perks program, we are able to gain better insights into when our guests are visit-ing and which products they are purchasvisit-ing,” says Scott Hudler, vice president of global consumer en-gagement at Dunkin’ Brands. “We have built a system where we can deliver targeted one-to-one offers to our DD Perks loyalty program members in an effort to drive increased spending and visitation. We are con-stantly learning and evolving our activities in this plat-form so that we can deliver the right offer at the right time to our key customers.”
In fact, 67% of respondents plan to act on their au-dience insights by tailoring creative development to build messages that resonate with niche audience segments (Figure 2). And the same percentage of re-spondents plan to leverage these insights to deliver more messages and content to customers in real time. Take Nationwide, for example. According to Brad Lemons, senior vice president of customer insights and analytics at Nationwide, the U.S. insurance and fi-nancial services company “tailors its marketing efforts to the individual level, based on what we know about our customers, to make their buying decision easier.” For instance, Lemons says Nationwide can piece to-gether data, from purchasing information to demo-graphic details, that may reveal a potential customer is about to have a baby. Based on this audience com-posite, Lemons says Nationwide can then determine the type of marketing campaign and content that is most likely to convert that prospect into a customer, be it a pop-up ad highlighting a life insurance product or a targeted email promoting a family rate for auto policies.
But data-savvy brands like Nationwide aren’t just le-veraging data to target customers with personalized messaging and content. They’re also using data to determine which customers are—and aren’t—worth targeting at all. For instance, a 35-year-old male may appear to be the perfect candidate for an automo-bile insurance policy. However, by using predictive analytics, Nationwide can determine how likely the customer is to switch insurance providers in six to 12 months. As a result, Lemons says the company “con-siders a variety of factors when prioritizing marketing investments, seeking to balance member needs with bottom-line performance.”
All of which points to the many new ways brands are gathering insight from their data. Whereas companies once counted on business leaders to dictate the use of data, data is now helping to dictate critical business practices. The importance of aligning data analytics with key business objectives is evident in the respons-es of survey participants. When asked how they are most likely to act on data-driven audience insights, nearly half—48%—of respondents answered that they plan to evangelize data discoveries to modify business and strategic objectives.
Figure 2. How are you most likely to act on your data-driven audience insights? 67% 67% 48% 44% 7%
Deliver more messages and content to customers in real time
Adjust creative, messaging and content for in-flight campaigns
Overhaul marketing spend
Evangelize data discoveries to modify business and strategic objectives
Tailor creative development to build messages that resonate with niche audience segments
IMPACT: DATA AS A CATALYST FOR
THE MODERN-DAY MARKETING
ORGANIZATION
Today’s consumers are more informed and connected than ever before. This
immediately raises the stakes for marketers. No longer can they rely on the straight-
and-narrow customer journey to reach their target audience. Rather, successful brands
connect with consumers at the precise moment they’re about to make a purchasing
decision.
But there are plenty of challenges brands must over-come in order to effectively communicate with their customers. For starters, these are the early days of data analytics for many companies. In fact, when asked how well prepared they are to take a data-driven approach to marketing, 33% of respondents say they’re grappling with a mix of technologies with little coordination (Figure 3). And only 29% recog-nize a common set of tools emerging to support data gathering, analytics, insights, programmatic advertis-ing and plannadvertis-ing. More worrisome, a mere 14% of
re-spondents have a portfolio of tools for analysis and planning that are established and fully supported by a single platform and best practices.
Another hindrance to deriving demonstrable results from data-driven marketing: 72% of respondents are still focused primarily on knowledge gathering rath-er than making real and actionable use of their data (Figure 4).
So what’s standing in the way of using data to engage target audiences? Two of the top three reasons cited
Figure 4. How far along is your organization in leveraging data for marketing purposes? What about in two years from now?
Marketing is fully data driven, achieving significant business outcomes
Most marketing initiatives are data driven, seeing some business outcomes 72% 62% 61% 58% 54% 44% 18% 39% 40% 40% 52% 49%
Still focused primarily on knowledge gathering
Piloting data initiatives to determine value and requirements Developing strategies and a roadmap based on business needs and challenges
Deployed two or more data-driven marketing initiatives, and continuing to apply advanced analytics
Figure 3. Which best describes how well prepared your organization is to take a data-driven approach to marketing?
A mix of technologies is available to various lines of business, with little coordination
A common set of tools is emerging to support data gathering, analytics, insights, programmatic advertising and planning In addition to tools, a single platform is emerging to support data-driven marketing initiatives
A portfolio of tools that enable analysis and planning is well established and fully supported by a single platform and best practices
33% 14%
24%
29%
Now
by respondents have to do with complex technologies. Sixty-one percent of respondents cite breaking down the silos of data between internal departments to en-sure the successful flow of information as the biggest challenge of developing data-driven marketing initia-tives. And over half—54%—point to complex technical solutions as an obstacle. Data siloed among disparate vendors, scattered systems, inconsistent messaging to consumers and time-consuming aggregate metrics are also considerable challenges.
The good news is there are plenty of opportunities to be had by facing these challenges head on. Breaking down data and technology silos, creating a custom-er-centric approach for a better experience, ensur-ing consistency across the buyensur-ing journey, preparensur-ing teams for success, establishing a clear roadmap—they are all ways companies are creating more audience-centric marketing initiatives (Figure 5).
Just ask Pam Moy, vice president of marketing ana-lytics, research and administration for insurance com-pany Allstate. “The biggest challenge of data-driven marketing is sifting through the data and determining what is valuable and relevant information for custom-ers and what is valuable and predictive information for Allstate. That’s a tough thing to do with the plethora of data out there,” she says. “Having the technology
infrastructure, the processing power, the skilled data scientists and strong third-party relationships really allow us to sift through that data rapidly and develop actionable insights.”
The first step to tapping into the opportunities of data-driven marketing involves minimizing technical complexities. In the case of Nationwide, creating an environment that supports greater data integration has helped the company derive greater value from its data-driven marketing initiatives.
“It takes financial and cultural commitment to elimi-nate data silos. That’s why we’ve made significant investments to integrate, centralize and democratize our customer data across the enterprise. And it’s why we’ve seen increased collaboration and higher-quality analytics,” says Lemons of Nationwide. By centralizing data from a wide range of online and offline sources, companies can classify this information in ways that make sense for their marketing needs. This includes importing first-party data and integrating it with third-party data for a more comprehensive view of cus-tomers. It’s also critical that marketers connect both known and unknown sources of data, pinpoint their audiences, put a plan into action effectively across all channels and leverage insights to continuously im-prove results.
Figure 5. What are the biggest challenges of developing data-driven marketing initiatives?
61% 56% 56% 54% 51% 38%
Gathering and parsing data
Defining audience and customer segments
Focusing on complex technical solutions
Telling the story of your brand and products
Creating a single view of the customer
Breaking down the silos of data between departments to ensure the successful flow of information
Figure 6. Which of the following is most likely to have a positive impact on your marketing programs?
48% 44% 41% 39% 36% 36% 35% 33% 33% 30%
Reinventing processes and data workflows
Finding the right skills and talent
Integrating data silos
Minimizing IT complexities
Allocating more budget
Greater collaboration among departments
Changing organizational behavior
Setting a data-driven marketing strategy or roadmap
Accessible technology
In fact, 41% of respondents believe that integrating data silos is most likely to have a positive impact on marketing programs, while 39% cite minimizing IT complexities as a positive game changer (Figure 6). Next, companies must create a roadmap that will help them make better use of data for marketing purposes. Currently, 62% of respondents are developing strate-gies and a roadmap for leveraging data based on their business needs and challenges. In other words, they’re still in the early stages of making use of marketing data. In fact, a significantly smaller segment—44%— can actually claim that their marketing is fully data driven and achieving significant business outcomes. Yet there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic: 39% of respondents expect to make significant gains in creating a roadmap in the next two years. More than half (52%) plan to deploy two or more data-driven marketing initiatives in the same time frame. And a third—33%—believe that setting a data-driven marketing strategy or roadmap is most likely to have a positive impact on marketing programs.
With data fully integrated, and a roadmap in place, brands are reaping never-before-seen benefits from their marketing initiatives. Armed with actionable insights into customer behavior, marketers can refine how they communicate with audiences, tweak their
creative content, better understand where certain prospects are within the buying process and target them accordingly.
In fact, 49% of respondents describe their day-to-day access to real-time data as “very good,” with 43% describing it as “excellent”—a distinct opportunity for brands to close the gap between customer behavior and how they react and craft campaigns accordingly (Figure 7).
But the greatest opportunity afforded by data-driven marketing is the ability to discover demonstrably greater returns. More than half—57%—of respondents report measurably increased ROI of their data-driven marketing campaigns, which means there’s plenty of financial incentive for brands to invest more heavily in data collection and analytics (Figure 8).
Figure 7. How would you describe your day-to-day access to
real-time data? Figure 8. What has been the impact of data-driven marketing on your organization?
1% 60% 60% 59% 57% 50%
Has freed up strategic employees from administrative tasks
Has resulted in new hires to bring in new skills
Has measurably increased the ROI of our marketing campaigns
Has automated ability to collect insights
No measurable impact at this time Changed our organizational structure
43% 49% 8% 0% 0% Excellent Very good Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Highly unsatisfactory
Take Target, for example. Today’s customer journey traverses multiple touchpoints, from a consumer’s smartphone to a company’s corporate website. Be-cause Target knows that its customers connect with the company across multiple platforms, Target focus-es on creating “sfocus-essions” around each touchpoint— targeted campaigns that use consistent and relevant messaging that reflects a customer’s buying journey. “We’re able to track customers as they move from one device to another, which is helping us create these marketing sessions instead of relying on a buckshot approach of scheduling ads on a bunch of disparate channels,” says Argyilan.
By knowing which products a customer is viewing on a smartphone, and aggregating this information with a customer’s favorite TV show or preferred mobile phone app, Target can deliver personalized messages that promote the right products, on the right channel. In fact, 48% of survey respondents consider more-targeted campaigns and personalized messaging a significant source of value derived from data-driven marketing activities (Figure 9).
Savvy data-driven marketers are also leveraging data earlier in the customer journey. Buying behavior and demographic details can significantly influence a cam-paign’s messaging and content. However, more ma-ture marketers like Nationwide are realizing the power of consumer intelligence to actually shape an entire campaign, from pre-launch to post-performance. For example, Nationwide collected and analyzed vast amounts of data on customers that were abandon-ing the process of receivabandon-ing a competitive quote on its automobile and home insurance policies. Next, the company built a data analytic model that, when populated with a variety of data such as demographic details and purchasing history, could identify custom-ers that were most—and least—likely to complete the quote approval process.
As a result, Lemons says, Nationwide was able to focus on a smaller group of customers that have a
higher likelihood of buying the company’s products. The result: greater marketing efficiencies and cost savings.
In fact, when asked where consumer intelligence/ data has the greatest impact on data-driven market-ing initiatives, 64% of respondents selected the initial deployment of a marketing campaign; 56% respond-ed persona development; and 54% citrespond-ed the planning and strategizing phase of a marketing campaign—all early stages in the digital campaign life cycle.
STRATEGIES: TRANSFORMING
CHAOS INTO CLARITY
Best practices: Embracing the newfound power of data takes more than innovative
technologies. Rather, advanced organizations establish best practices to glean greater
value from their data. While approaches may vary, there are a number of key strategies
that are emerging among today’s most successful marketers.
Figure 9. Which of the following are significant sources of value derived from your data-driven marketing activities? Data-driven marketing… 60% 54% 49% 48% 48% 48% 44% 44% 43% 40% 35% Drives profitability Drives sales
Enhances brand awareness
Serves as a competitive differentiator
Allows more time/focus on creative
Raises the profile of marketing
Integrates marketing within the organization
Improves employee satisfaction
Improves customer experience and loyalty
Increases efficiency and speed of decision making/executing
Creates more targeted campaigns and personalized messaging
Allstate is another company that’s leveraging data sooner rather than later. “It’s important for us to under-stand where you are in the buying journey,” says Moy. “Are you someone who is not shopping but is likely to this year? Or are you shopping right now? We’re developing these segments even before the market-ing messages to understand what these groups are and what messages are most relevant to them.” That’s not to suggest, however, that brands aren’t inter-ested in the bottom line. Fifty-one percent of respon-dents measure the impact of data-driven marketing initiatives in terms of profitability. In fact, Allstate mea-sures both customer loyalty and bottom-line benefits when gauging campaign success. “Our success met-rics relate to generating quotes and sales, but we also have to look at customer loyalty and satisfaction with our existing customers,” says Moy. “So those are strong and important metrics for us as well.”
Either way, Lemons of Nationwide says the key to properly measuring campaign performance is remain-ing flexible. For example, when determinremain-ing campaign success, the insurer examines cost per buy—how much Nationwide needs to allocate in marketing spend to convince a single customer to sign on the dotted line. Next, Nationwide relies on marketing mix modeling to estimate the impact of its various marketing strategies on sales.
“We’ve invested heavily over the last few years to build up our marketing mix modeling capabilities, to optimize the media mix and maximize return on in-vestment,” says Lemons. “We’ll adjust our marketing spend based on the feedback we receive each month.” In addition to “rebalancing its portfolio of invest-ments,” Nationwide also uses data to support initia-tives on how best to time marketing initiainitia-tives and where it’s worth funneling the most energy and re-sources into customers with greater profit potential. “We had a lot of of hypotheses, but we didn’t have the facts to back them up,” says Lemons. “The ultimate
skill is being able to take what you’ve learned through data analytics and communicate it in a logical man-ner that is understandable by people who are not data scientists. That’s how you can drive the appropriate business results and actions from data.”
Figure 10. Which best describes how you measure the impact of data-driven marketing initiatives?
Business outcomes: For all the work that goes into crafting a data-driven,
customer-centric campaign, marketers are split on how best to gauge success. The good news is
many marketers are looking beyond dollars and cents to determine whether or not a
campaign is effective. When they were asked which best describes how you measure
the impact of data-driven marketing initiatives, the top three responses involved
customer experience: 56% responded customer loyalty; 55% answered customer
satisfaction; and 54% cited customer retention (Figure 10).
56% 55% 54% 54% 51% 51% 47% 45% 44% 43% 38% 38% 36% 31% 0% Customer loyalty Customer satisfaction Customer retention Revenue increase Profitability
New customer acquisition
Revenue per customer
Brand recognition
Customer acquisition costs
Website visits
Lifetime value of customer
Social media mentions/brand ambassadors
Conversion rates
Customer churn
“The ultimate skill is being able to take
what you’ve learned through data analytics
and communicate it [to] people who are
not data scientists. That’s how you can drive
the appropriate business results from data.”
—BRAD LEMONS SVP of Customer Insights and Analytics, Nationwide
Team transformation/People principles: Savvy marketers are finding that it’s talent—
not tools—that is converting data into actionable insights. After all, a human touch can
produce the insights needed to help marketers better understand their customers and
make them a top priority. In fact, 44% of respondents cited finding the right skills and
talent as one of the factors most likely to have a positive impact on their marketing
programs (Figure 6). But there’s more than one way for organizations to bolster brain
trusts around their data-driven marketing strategies.
Concerned that “there just is not enough talent to go around,” Argyilan says Target prefers to scour the world for seasoned data specialists than to train in-ternally. “We’re willing to recruit from anywhere,” she says. “We leverage our talent in Minneapolis and also have large groups of people sitting in Silicon Valley and India. We are very intentional about understand-ing where the talent sits and buildunderstand-ing centers there so that we tap into the pools of talent that are out there.” For others, a more obvious answer is investing inter-nally in employee training. After all, providing decision makers at all levels the proper training and support can help them master the power of data to better reach their markets. For this reason, 47% of respon-dents believe hiring advanced analytics talent has been an extremely important data analytics–related
investment, while 45% cite employee training as a worthwhile investment (Figure 11). In fact, 61% of re-spondents use internal training as a way to encourage data-driven marketing approaches.
However, not all data-analytics skills can be taught via coursework, argues Lemons. “The ultimate skill is be-ing able to take what you have learned [through data analytics] and communicate it in a logical manner that is understandable by people who are not data scien-tists,” he says. “That’s how you can drive the appropri-ate business results and actions from data.”
Yet nearly half—46%—of respondents cite finding the right talent as an obstacle to translating data insights into business opportunities. That’s because many data scientists are unable to turn their sophisticated
1 – Not
Important 2 3 4 5- Extremely Important
Employee training 3% 2% 12% 37% 45%
Hiring advanced analytics talent 1% 2% 7% 43% 47%
Deploying new marketing technologies 1% 1% 9% 34% 55%
IT infrastructure 1% 2% 10% 53% 33%
Consulting/professional services 2% 7% 27% 30% 35%
Data workflow and processes redesign 1% 4% 7% 52% 36%
Third-party data 3% 4% 16% 33% 44%
Figure 11. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “Not Important” to 5 being “Extremely Important,” what have been your most important data analytics-related investments to date?
algorithms into compelling stories about a company’s cus-tomers. Conversely, many marketers are painfully ill-equipped to understand the data that’s shaping their campaigns.
To address this issue, some marketers are overhaul-ing their organizational structure. In fact, over a third—35%—of respondents believe changing organi-zational behavior is most likely to have a positive im-pact on marketing programs.
The retail behemoth Target recently established a center of excellence in data and analytics. This gov-erning body ensures that data is managed securely and consistently across the organization and focuses on strengthening the company’s data, analytics and business intelligence capabilities.
Nationwide is another example of a company that has designed a unique organizational structure around data-driven marketing. On the one hand, a data ana-lytics group builds cloud computing environments and data warehouses in order to properly centralize data. On the other, a customer analytics group, which sits within the marketing department, works on cre-ating new models, managing marketing spend and optimizing data processes. Despite these disparate duties, Lemons says, “the two groups have to work closely together because their needs overlap one another.” In fact, he adds, “at Nationwide, IT and marketing are joined at the hip to decide where we’re going to invest in marketing technologies. Every day is new when it comes to data and customer
expectations, so having the ability to manage that together is important.”
And then there’s Allstate. The insurance company boasts a center of excellence that ensures the right data infrastructure and data-sharing policies are in place. On top of this, a data and analytics lead is assigned to every department across the organiza-tion, from marketing to product development, to focus on more tactical issues that arise on a day-to-day basis when working with data.
Another way marketing leaders are fostering a data-centric culture is by encouraging greater collaboration among key decision makers. At Nationwide, IT and marketing “are joined at the hip to decide where we’re going to invest in marketing technologies,” says Lem-ons. “Every day is a new day with data and customer expectations. So having the ability to manage that to-gether is important.”
Fifty-three percent of respondents describe the level of collaboration between marketing and IT as “exten-sive,” and 51% rate the importance of collaboration between marketing and IT as “extremely important.” Similarly, 62% of respondents view collaboration be-tween marketing and business analytics as “extremely important.”
For Allstate, the key to encouraging greater collabo-ration is making sure that everyone’s needs are be-ing met through data-driven marketbe-ing endeavors. “Aligning our goals across the organization has been
critical in encouraging cross-functional collabora-tion,” says Moy. “Whereas we used to be about driv-ing the quote, our new focus now is on makdriv-ing sure marketing is driving a quote in areas where we are most profitable and most able to get the sales, so that everybody benefits. It’s the right thing to do for the company.”
Despite working hand in hand, more can be done to encourage data sharing across an organization. Less than half—39%—of respondents “strongly agree,” and 45% “agree,” that data from marketing campaigns is actively shared across the organization—a missed op-portunity to pool resources and data expertise.
If there’s one thing organizations share, it’s an opin-ion on who should spearhead data-driven market-ing initiatives. Seventy-two percent of respondents describe the role of CEO as a key driver or decision maker in the development of a data-driven market-ing strategy. Thirty percent of respondents cite a chief marketer, and 48% of respondents consider the role of chief analytics officer to be that of a key driver/deci-sion maker.
Figure 12. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “little collaboration,” and 5 being “extensive collaboration,” how would you describe the level of collaboration among the following departments/functions around data-driven marketing initiatives?
1 –Little
collaboration 2 3 4 collaboration5 - Extensive
Marketing and IT 3% 4% 9% 31% 53%
Marketing and Operations 1% 4% 15% 52% 28%
Marketing and Business Analytics 1% 1% 14% 46% 37%
Marketing and HR 2% 5% 20% 43% 30%
Marketing and Finance 1% 4% 15% 31% 49%
Marketing and Product Development 1% 1% 14% 38% 46%
Marketing and the C-suite 1% 4% 15% 43% 36%
FUTURE:
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
As organizations increasingly recognize the relevance of data-driven marketing, they
are investing more heavily in the necessary tools, talent and technologies. Consider
this: 25% of respondents invested between $25 million and $50 million in data
analytics over the past two years (Figure 13). However, nearly the same number—23%—
expect to invest between $50 million and $100 million over the next two years.
Figure 13. What is the total investment (people, technology, processes, etc.) that your organization has made over the past two years, and expects to make over the next two years, in data analytics?
So where are these additional dollars most like-ly to be funneled? More than half—56%—of re-spondents say that deploying new marketing technologies is most likely to be important in the next two years. One of these important tech-nologies is programmatic ad buying. In fact, 46% of respondents strongly agree that program-matic ad buying is a key component of a marketing strategy (Figure 14). Nearly half—49%—of respon-dents are currently in the process of implementing a programmatic approach to data-driven marketing.
And 67% of respondents report that programmat-ic has helped improve segmentation and targeting of customers.
Thirty-one percent of respondents believe that tech-nology should be an organization’s top priority to become world-class at data-driven marketing in the next two years (Figure 15). But a whopping 69% believe that people-driven factors—organizational structure, talent, or culture—should be the key priorities.
Less than $1 million
Between $25 million and $50 million Between $1 million and $5 million
Between $50 million and $100 million Between $5 million and $10 million
Over $100 million
Between $10 million and $25 million Now 10% 19% 15% 11% 25% 18% 2% In Two Years 2% 12% 10% 19% 14% 23% 20%
That’s a far cry from the past, when the majority of organizations did not offer training and education to develop their employees’ data-driven marketing skills. Moving forward, investing in employee training will be a critical game changer.
Another way savvy companies are preparing their teams for the growing complexities of data-driven marketing: change management. After all, not all mar-keters are eager to embrace the chaos of introducing data-driven marketing strategies and technologies. “Being willing to change is critical for marketing peo-ple,” says Lemons of Nationwide. “It’s always going to be a challenge to change your way of thinking based on data and analytics because it’s still new.” The se-cret, he says, is striking a balance between question-ing the data you collect and trustquestion-ing in its accuracy. Personalization will also play a greater role in helping marketers reach customers as the chaos grows. By being able to anticipate a customer’s query via ana-lytics, Lemons says, a company can respond faster to queries and with greater consideration for who they are as an individual and what channels they’ve already been through. “We view every customer interaction as an opportunity to get smarter and better at meet-ing needs,” says Lemon. Better yet, he says that by creating predictive models, a company can “enter the mode of knowing what people are likely to call about. That way, it’s possible to be ready to provide them with the right information in an efficient manner, the first time they call.”
For every customer query Nationwide would like to intercept, there’s a personalized message Target is hoping to send to its preferred audience. “There is an expectation from our guests that our messaging will be personal,” says Argyilan. “That stems from what they’re experiencing through some of their favorite channels like Facebook, Google and others. Custom-ers want digital marketCustom-ers to really undCustom-erstand their behavior and interests so that we personalize the ex-perience for them.” All of which is a promise that only data-driven marketing can deliver.
Moy of Allstate agrees. “Data is driving a fundamental change in marketing, from a traditional mass-market approach to a much more targeted, one-to-one ap-proach, which we think is good for consumers,” she says. “We’re using data to find the most attractive tar-gets, and then to connect with them with information that’s specific to their individual needs.”
For example, Moy says, Allstate’s agents used to rely on “a Rolodex of people” to identify and acquire new customers. However, Allstate is currently piloting a program that provides agents with access to more detailed information on “the people in their neighbor-hood who are most likely to become customers—in-sights through the use of consumer data—that make these conversations more productive for both the agent and the prospect.”
Figure 14. How has programmatic impacted your organization?
67% 52% 52% 31% 29% 28% 2% Increased efficiencies
Increased the need for third-party data providers
Needed more training
Needed new talent/capabilities
Needed to restructure the department
Has not had a significant effect Improved segmentation/targeting
Figure 15. What should be your organization’s top priority to become world-class at data-driven marketing in the next two years? Technology Organizational structure Culture Talent 31% 30% 20% 19%
