Make Your Data Actionable for Marketing Success

In today's digital age, the advertising and marketing industry relies heavily on data. ?However, actually using data to make informed decisions, refine strategies, and ultimately drive success continues to be an elusive goal for many marketers. An approach that can help break down the barriers to making data actionable is to divide the process into two fundamental areas of analytics - data analytics and applied analytics. While these terms might sound similar, they serve distinct purposes and have unique applications. In this edition of the newsletter, I'll explore the key differences between data analytics and applied analytics in the advertising and marketing industry.

Data Analytics: Unearthing Valuable Insights

Data analytics is the foundational process of collecting, processing, and organizing data so that you can identify trends and patterns. With marketing campaigns, the sources of data that we can pull from may seem endless. Website traffic, social media interactions, CRM systems, sales reports, lead forms and consumer surveys are just a few of the marketing sources of data that need to be captured. We also may need to consider the impact of non-media factors in our industry, for example weather, the financial market, historical business performance and so on. The primary objective of data analytics is to gather and transform all of this raw data into meaningful information that can be evaluated so we can begin the decision-making process. There are three vital components of data analytics:

• Data Collection: Gathering data from diverse sources to create comprehensive datasets.
• Data Cleaning and Preparation: Ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and quality by cleaning and transforming raw data.
• Data Visualization: Representing data in visual formats like charts and graphs for easy interpretation and decision-making.

Once we have accomplished these vital steps, we can use data analytics to be more informed about the return on our marketing investment. This could include identifying patterns such the most effective advertising channel, specific high-value audiences or the best performing creative. ?The next and crucial step to bridge the gap between insights and action on the data is to implement applied analytics.

Applied Analytics: Turning Insights into Action

Applied analytics takes the insights gleaned from data analytics and translates them into actionable strategies. It's the practical application of data-driven decisions made from analyzing our marketing data. While data analytics focuses on understanding what is happening, applied analytics is all about making it happen – turning insights into real-world solutions. A basic approach that Coegi takes to implement applied analytics is in these four areas:

• Strategy Development: Using current and historical data to create marketing plans and develop campaign strategy that will take the insights from previous performance and apply them for better performance moving forward
• Segmentation/Testing: Dividing audiences into specific groups based on their behavior, preferences, and other relevant characteristics then implementing tactics such as A/B testing to prove hypotheses we outlined during the planning phase
• Optimization: Continuously fine-tuning active advertising campaigns based on real-time data to achieve the maximum impact.
• Performance Evaluation: Regularly assessing the success of marketing campaigns, making adjustments as needed to achieve desired outcomes, which ideally will be a clear and defined business goal i.e.; sales, market share, leads, brand favorability, etc.

So, again, applied analytics bridges the gap between insights and action, ensuring that marketing efforts are aligned with the identified opportunities. Without this component of analytics, we are simply stuck with a mountain of data that we have no idea what to do with.

In summary, data analytics and applied analytics work hand-in-hand to drive success. Data analytics provides the raw material – data and insights – while applied analytics shapes this information into strategies and actions that deliver results. Without data analytics, applied analytics would lack the foundation it needs to make informed decisions. Conversely, without applied analytics, data insights would remain untapped potential. This podcast also features our Director of Data & Technology, Jacob Amann, in a discussion with the head one of our sister companies, RADaR, as they dive further into this subject.?

Feel free to reach out to me directly if you would like learn more about how Coegi has used data and applied analytics to help clients accomplish business objectives such as driving sales, increasing market share or improving brand favorability.

Thanks for reading!

Sean