Over the past few years, data has rightfully earned its reputation as “the new oil” as companies look increasingly to hard numbers and analytics to make more informed business decisions. Marketing data, in particular, has changed the way businesses operate, giving them a much clearer picture of which marketing activities are successful and which are not.
There is now more data available than ever before, for example:
- Site Analytics – There are a number of tools that will very accurately tell you exactly how users are interacting with your website or app. This includes the number of hits, geographic locations, time on page and which elements of the page they are looking at or clicking on. Search Console data from Google will also show you the exact terms that your rank for in Google and how often you appear in the search results.
- Social media – Social media is a rich source of user data, and there is an increasing range of tools available to help companies make sense of it. For example, companies are able to use AI to automatically understand public sentiment towards them on site such as Twitter.
- Email – Email in itself is perhaps not that useful as a source of marketing data, but you can use it as a valuable reference point in a CRM system to track your interactions with customers.
Overlaying these data sources with your sales data can make it incredibly valuable, giving you a very clear picture of the types of prospects that tend to convert to paying customers, and the optimal journeys that these customers tend to take.
This data can be used for a number of specific purposes including:
- Personalisation – Serve customers a customised experience based on the data that you hold on them. For example people that land on the site via a particular channel or ad might convert better with a particular landing page compared to customers who find your site through a different channel.
- Serve more highly targeted ads – If you know exactly where you customers are coming from and which cohort of prospect convert best, you can focus your marketing spend on those specific types of people. That might include using Facebook ads to target a very specific group of users with a high chance of converting.
Marketing data and GDPR
While there is an ever-increasing volume of data available, the rules and regulations around its use are also becoming more stringent and complex. The General Data Protection Regulation that comes into effect in May 2018 aims to put more control back into the hands of the consumer and will more strictly punish companies who misuse data.
How to start making your data work for you
As an award-winning digital agency, AsOne has long understood the value of marketing data. We’ve worked closely with companies from a wide range of industries to track and maximise the value of their campaigns using this valuable information.
For more information on how you can unlock the value of your data, don’t hesitate to get in touch and speak to one of our experts.
