Working in the martech industry, one question I hear a lot is ‘How do I increase the value of my data?’ There’s over 2.7 zetabytes of data available in the digital universe today and we’re hearing about ‘big data’ more than ever before. Marketers are now strongly focused on becoming data-driven, yet 87% of marketers still consider data their most under-utilised asset. So, how can you increase the value of your data when it’s often difficult to understand where to even start?
For me, it all comes down to taking a step back, taking a close look at your data and asking yourself three key questions:
1. Where are you getting the data from?
Customer data often comes from a wide variety of channels and sources including SEO, social, partners/affiliates, or video to name a few. Understanding all these data sources is important simply because you should be squeezing as much data as possible from each channel. Using all of your available data avenues allows you to create a richer picture of your customer and ultimately allows you to better understand your customer’s behaviour and buying habits. When it comes to the partner channel, you can set up your reporting to delve down into as many layers as you need. This means you can report on a variety of data parameters that add value to your business ranging from SKU to basket value to partner contribution.
2. How are you handling the data?
It’s imperative that your data is both handled and stored correctly; otherwise, you can miss important anomalies and trends. I highly recommend using a data management platform (DMP) to store your data, which allows you to separate and segment your data as needed. Ensuring you are correctly handling your data means you have better visibility of what’s actually happening with it. For example, if a retail brand using a DMP can access a range of data parameters including product category, SKU, brand, product name, device, gender etc. This ultimately allows you to create a fuller picture of your customer and measure against your campaign objectives.
3. What do you intend to do with the data?
Asking yourself what you actually want from your data and how you plan to use the results ensures that you set clear objectives and enables you to measure the use of your data collection. So, what do you want to do with it? Are you going to re-target users from your website? Are you sharing it with another brand through a partnership? Or are you simply using it to give yourself the ability to report back to the rest of your organisation about campaign activity and results?
No matter your intention, it’s important to remember to:
- Ensure you know what success looks like before taking action.
- Encourage your organisation to make data-driven decisions with the data you’ve collected.
- Use the data you have collected in a way that benefits both yourself and your customer.
Answering these three questions will enable you to see the true value in your data, better leverage the data you are capturing, and ultimately improve your marketing decisions.
If you’d like to get more from your data in the partner channel, reach out to the Performance Horizon data team today.
