Most marketers collect some form of data throughout the duration of a campaign or client work, but do they actually use it? The answer is a resounding “yes” after looking at a report from data management platform provider BlueKai, which shows that a whopping 91% of respondents agreed the use of data plays a prominent role in segmentation and targeting strategies.
What’s more? Marketers aren’t just using data—they’re shifting their budgets in order to make a bigger investment in data-driven marketing efforts to the tune of a 227% increase so far this year.
Since the survey shows that marketers are making a significantly larger investment in data, how exactly are they using this information to refine their strategies? A number of marketing areas are influenced by data collection and analysis, including email delivery (72%), retargeting (60%), display targeting (51%), creative optimization (49%) and site customization (41%).
And in case you’re curious, first-party data that’s collected from direct contact with customers (think forms and website traffic, to name two examples) is what’s most often used to make marketing decisions. Marketers do use third-party data, too, but to a lesser degree. That’s not terribly surprising—after all, don’t you want to get information directly from your customers so that you can refine and optimize your campaigns and strategies to better serve them?
We’re happy to see survey results like this. We’ve long preached the importance not just of collecting data, but also analyzing and using it—and this report shows that’s happening throughout the marketing industry. What’s even more interesting is that BlueKai reports that one-third of respondents said that data influences 75% to 100% of their digital marketing budget—and that’s a number we’d expect to increase in the next couple of years.
How does your own experience compare to these survey findings? Have you allocated more of your budget to invest in collecting and analyzing data?
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Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”