4 Reasons why Data Democratization Matters

Amazon shoppers spend approximately $443K every minute, according to Domo’s Data Never Sleeps 10.0 Report. This, along with the millions of social media uploads and Google searches, is proof that the opportunity for e-commerce using data is huge.?

With data quickly cementing its position as the fuel of today’s digital economy, the modern marketplace is highly dependent on it. We make all business-critical decisions using insights we gather from data, and it starts with the accessibility of first-party data from retailers.?

Data is both an opportunity and a challenge, and understanding how to align your company with a source of truth for data is key to driving growth. While a lot of data is available, it can at times be restricted or too complicated for the average end user.?

This is why data democratization is a topic worth exploring today, especially when it comes to e-commerce. In this article, we’ll cover the four most important reasons why data democratization is necessary for retail businesses today.?

Omnichannel Success?

While an omnichannel strategy diversifies your campaigns and significantly increases the revenue your business can generate, it's not possible without data democratization. This is challenging for many brands, with 77% of CX leaders saying they lack a technology framework to coordinate CX activities across all their organizations.?

Being able to sync your data across teams and offices is crucial today, allowing you to bring together all your data points from multiple retailers and giving you a bird's eye view of your strategy.?

Untapped Value?

When your workforce has both access and the understanding of all your data, you can unlock all its value that would otherwise be lost among the millions of reports and campaign plans. Analytics is the new battleground in the ‘third wave’ of retail media, and the challenge is to regulate a common set of metrics for media and ad measurement.?

47% of ANA members reported their RMN measurement capability to be ‘significantly weaker’ than others in the marketing mix due to a lack of quality and consistency in data and reporting from different retailer offerings. You can solve this with cross-platform data management and standardization.?

Improved Operations?

For brands, bringing customers, stores, and back-office operations together despite the hurdles of silos has become the top priority, further accelerated by the pandemic. Sales forecasts, consumer behavior, and inventory control are just some aspects you can gain a competitive edge with by democratizing data and turning shopper trends into actionable insights.?

Now we see retailers leveraging solutions that provide self-service capabilities to brands, helping combat the bottleneck problem with data. Brands that are investing in training and equipment to manage this at the entry-level can already see the advantage of customizable access controls in RMNs.?

Smarter Retail Investment Decisions?

Retailers are increasingly providing more and more data to ideally drive smarter decisions. ?

Amazon provides the most with access to Amazon Marketing Cloud (which is mostly free), although it really does require experienced analysts to know how to massage the data into robust reporting or actions. Walmart has announced plans to introduce a free version of their robust data Walmart Luminate while Instacart has enabled market basket and customer share data. In each case, it still requires a person or a platform to help turn siloed data into actions. ?

Access to precious data can directly help you gauge which ads, campaigns, and other opportunities you should invest in to maximize your profits. Such a strategic approach with access to your performance metrics can help you build a better brand image while also lowering the chances of any oversight.?

Hopefully, this article gave you a peek behind the curtain to learn why democratizing access to authentic data is a game-changer for marketplace advertising and long-term business growth. To know how Pacvue can help you win across a dozen platforms and grow your market share, learn more and book a demo here!?