Is your data telling you the whole story?

Ask any current CMO what one of the biggest challenges of marketing today is and they will likely tell you "getting a unified view of the customer". What they won't tell you is that that is a symptom of a larger problem, because they are not being advised of the problem or don't have the budget to fix the problem. This compounds a bigger problem looming on the horizon as marketing becomes more location based. The ability to know your customer AND their journey on the path to purchase is becoming more important as ad tech evolves and the ability to track and deliver in real time becomes more of a reality.

It's not you....it's your data - I love hearing marketers tell me "you're going to make me a hero here" when we discuss data and the amount and type we have. Most marketers never explore outside of their first party data until they realize two things - 1. Most first party data sources don't buy. A recent study done on first party data showed most customers coming to your site that you are re-marketing to don't buy. To the tune of about 60% of the first party consumers you are marketing to on a regular basis may never buy from you. This means that not only do you start with a small sample, but then only a small portion of that sample are buyers. This brings you back to square one if your end goal is to market to consumers with a higher propensity to buy at or near the location of your business. Not just a consumer who has seen you before, but any consumer with a history of buying products or brands like the ones you sell.

Getting the right data  - As marketers plans evolve the realization that their audience size is not big enough begins to set in.  Then the second realization that it is difficult to get a full picture of the consumer begins to take hold as they reach out to acquire the data they need. For the most part the data market is very fractional, especially if you are working with the larger players. You have many different core flavors of online, offline, demographic, psychographic, intent based, deterministic and more. From a marketer perspective it is a learning curve just to learn what the jargon means. This is where it becomes sort of a chicken and egg scenario. You need data to be able to get a complete view of the consumer and how they like to be marketed to (direct mail, e-mail, mobile, display) to get to them and cut through the noise. But you also don't want to buy data you don't need. The answer here is data is gold, and you always need more gold. Having online, offline and mobile data together on a customer will help you to have a more complete view of them to make more accurate assumptions and be able to reach them in the ways they want to be reached. There will always be dead ends. An example would be Cathy consumer spends a huge amount of time online looking at and researching products she is interested in before making a purchase....but the reality is she typically buys when she gets a e-mail from a brand or retailer offering a deal on a similar product. How do we know? By looking at her history of email openers and then redeeming offers in those e-mails vs the number of times she has purchased online or in store based on an ad the has been served (Cathy has a low conversion rate for display). Attribution here is obviously imperative (which is a whole other conversation). But what if Cathy has not shopped or even looked at your site before? How do you find Cathy? This is where 2nd and third party data becomes your new best friend and helps make you the hero. If you have the right data provider the data will be opt in, it will be updated and verified and they will have as much data available on consumers as possible without violating PII standards. If you stick to just those guidelines you will find it narrows the field considerably. Many will offer only intent or online data, still others are great at list building for direct mail or e-mail but rarely both. some with be good at telephone numbers, land or mobile, and some will have more granualar levels of some of the silos mentioned. The next concern is age of the data and quality. Is the data fresh and is it free of records that could potentially ruin your campaign or worse, put you in violation of the law. When you get done going through the list of the many companies that supply data you will find few that can give you online, offline and mobile data on a customer to help you build a complete picture and find the best way to market to a consumer without violating PII standards.

The bottom line - Getting the right audience and the right data to make educated assumptions about what your audience wants to see and how to get it to them is a journey. How long that journey takes and where it delivers you to depends a lot on who you use. Attribution and ROI are what makes marketers heroes these days within their companies. Many settle for "good results with little transparency" because they think that is the industry norm. A little discovery work and A/B testing and you might be surprised to find there actually are companies out there that can deliver the data and help you solve the view ability, last click, engagement, transparency issues that have plagued your other campaigns. If you need help with this feel free to reach out and contact me.

Looking for help with data? Datastream Group, Inc. has over 800 million data records providing data for of companies who use the data for everything from e-mail campaigns, telemarketing, display campaigns, programmatic, as well as for TV and radio live transfer leads. Datastream provides consumer online and offline information for use in any number of different types of marketing campaigns.
OneDB is derived from self-reported consumer data,and compiled data.
Datastream’s OneDB records are opted in, and consumers can be targeted offline by postal and telemarketing efforts, and online by interest and intent. Audiences can be targeted by intent to purchase categories, IP Address (B2B & B2C), and by device (desktop, tablet, and smart phone). Data can be licensed for append purposes, marketing purposes, and hygiene & verification uses. Datastream will also enhance and enrich a company’s existing records through their OneDB platform.
Datastream has a competitive edge licensing their data because there is a large appetite in the current market for a marriage of digital identities to households. The Consumer Master File is built from active online consumer and business audiences and can be traced back to a postal address. We specialize in that. ([email protected])

Need help? - reach out to Bryan Gissiner who has been in Digital Advertising for over 20 years in everything from retail to founding his own tier two ad network. Currently, he helps companies utilize the right mix of current advanced technologies and marketing to outperform all of the other available alternative solutions in their target markets. He is a regular contributor on LinkedIn, with a large following of other experts from a number of different areas.

Bryan Gissiner has worked on both the publisher and advertiser side helping them to find ways to save budget and increase return on those budgets, often making them 2-3x more successful.

Connect with me! - please go to www.dhirubhai.net/in/bryangiss, @bryangiss on twitter or contact directly [email protected] and send me an invite with specific requests, to discuss how he can bring his experience to add value to your company and help it continue to grow revenue and ROI.