Companies today can leverage consumer data to make more strategic decisions about how to boost customer engagement, improve product development and more. While there is plenty of data available for brands to analyze, both the quality of that data and a brand’s ability to identify patterns within it are key to producing the most valuable insights.
When betting on data to inform a marketing strategy, brands often overlook certain factors that are of key importance. Here, members of Forbes Agency Council share some considerations marketers should keep in mind if they’re relying on consumer data to make the soundest and most strategic decisions for their brands.
Forbes Agency Council members share factors marketers commonly overlook when betting on consumer data.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. External Data-Backed Insights
Marketers overlook the value of data-backed insights from beyond their own four walls. The last decade has been about how marketers use internal data to drive business decisions. But internal data is only half of the picture. The other half is solved by using audience, market and competitive intelligence to provide a holistic view that enables marketers to drive more strategic decision making. – Charlie Grinnell, RightMetric
2. The Context Surrounding The Data
Using data is a fantastic way to drive strategic decisions. However, there is typically context around the data that is worth understanding. Often, marketers forget to consider the context surrounding the data and instead take it as the ultimate truth. If that context isn’t considered, drawing conclusions from data may be misleading. – Tellef Lundevall, Accelerated Digital Media
3. Looking At All The Datasets From Every Angle
Data, in itself, can be manipulated in many ways. If a strategic decision is being driven by one set of data, make sure you’re looking at all the data from every angle. That way, nothing will be overlooked and the decision will be sound. – Leeza Hoyt, The Hoyt Organization, Inc.
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4. Implicit Behaviors And Motivations Behind Explicit Behaviors
Evaluating consumer data in order to inform strategic decision making isn’t always black and white. Often, marketers will miss implicit behaviors and/or the motivations behind explicit behaviors. Only by performing a behavior analysis in conjunction with the consumer data being examined is it possible to see opportunities others don’t. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
5. The Interpretation Of The Data
Truly meaningful strategic insights come from observation of behavior. These insights should be supported by data, rather than being driven by data. It’s akin to reading the room rather than counting the number of people in it. When we focus on the data in lieu of interpreting that data, we risk seeing what we want (or don’t want) to see instead of seeing the opportunity. – Hamish Anderson, Three Piece Marketing
6. The Goal Of Using The Data
Marketers often overlook how to use the data and what part of the funnel this piece of data is going to be marketed to. For example, do I want to customer match the data we gleaned from previous site visits and remarket to them, or do I just want to do a brand/reach campaign to drive awareness? Understanding the goal before leveraging consumer data is important to making the purchase of this data profitable. – Jerry Kelly, Marketing 360®
7. The Demographics Included In The Data
Pay attention to the demographics. If the demographics included in the consumer data do not match those of your client base, you may be advertising to the wrong audience. Take a step back and reassess which parts of the data are relevant to your goals and adjust your strategy accordingly. – Hannah Trivette, NUVEW Web Solutions
8. The Value Of Qualitative Feedback
The value of qualitative feedback is massively overlooked. Raw, numerical data is great at describing trends and behavioral patterns, but this is only half of the story. In order to understand the drivers of an observed effect, we have to ask consumers why and, most importantly, interpret what impact their answers have on our decisions. – Chris Martin, FlexMR
9. How Much Of The Data Has Decayed
One of the downsides of consumer data is how much its accuracy decreases over time. Businesses need to consider when the data was collected and how much of the data has decayed. If you are working with a data partner, I suggest running a test with a smaller dataset to determine the amount of loss you should expect. This can be viewed in terms of email bounces or returned mailers. – Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint
10. Attribution Data Across The Entire Funnel
Looking at filtered data as opposed to raw data is a big mistake. Marketers are great at uncovering data that supports their objective (usually, this is not intentional), but they need to look at attribution data across the entire funnel to truly understand impact when building their strategies. Marketers must also be willing to look for holes in the data to weigh the risks with any new strategy. – Bernard May, National Positions
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
