By Sara Skrmetti, Adroit Digital
With December fast approaching, retailers are armed with test campaigns, focus group results and last year’s numbers as they prepare for their holiday campaigns. But there’s one piece of the puzzle they might be overlooking: the data going into and coming out of these campaigns. U.S. retailers lose $100 billion annually due to cross-channel marketing campaigns that are poorly delivered, according to The 2014 Digital Marketer Report by Experian. Choosing and using the wrong data contributes greatly to these marketing flops.
As you ramp up your 2014 holiday advertising efforts, avoid these three common misconceptions about marketing data so you unleash the full potential of your campaigns.
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“I know my target audience”
You’re probably using your own data and some third-party data, but have you thought about how accurate and fresh that information is? Are you using the most up-to-date consumer information and thinking about new data sources?
For instance, pooling and sharing your first-party data with brands similar to yours and leveraging audience modeling can result in better, broader insights into consumer behaviors. Optimizing campaigns regularly, as often as daily, with this fresh data helps you put current actions and trends to task.
“Data from social media isn’t trustworthy and reliable”
Social media has an endless wealth of fresh, self-reported consumer data. When else might a brand encounter this level of honesty from a consumer about the products and services they care about most?
A common misunderstanding is that social media data is less reliable or trustworthy due to its informal context when, in reality, leveraging this data can prove to be a huge asset to brands. According to Gartner, social commerce will be responsible for 50% of online sales in 2015. Social networks are expanding their capabilities – from the Facebook Exchange to Twitter’s future plans for its targeting capabilities. Brands can use this data for cross-channel attribution and better target their online strategies based on where consumers are logging on and interacting with ads.
“I don’t need people to execute my campaigns when computers can do that for me”
Once you have all the right data in place, it’s important to leverage the brainpower of both computerized algorithms and the people who spend their days analyzing this kind of information. Technology is able to do a great job of sorting through data in certain respects (e.g. time of day people are visiting sites, previous purchases, cart conversion rates), but they’re unable to evaluate the emotional side of campaigns.
People are able to make predictive insights, factor in real-world events and draw conclusions about consumer interests based on past behaviors. You have to choose the right partner to complement and enhance your strategy. Two major components to consider:
- They should act as an extension of your team to ensure you get the service and attention you need. They should act as a partner equally invested in your business goals.
- They should offer complete transparency into what is happening behind the scenes. The right partner will share all the results, even poor ones, so you can optimize over time.
In this data-driven day, brands must come to terms with the fact that without smart data and tactics, their campaigns will fall short and on deaf ears. Understanding how to make sense of all the available data and how to pick the right data partners to help you navigate this busy landscape will be essential to your success. By acknowledging these data misconceptions and learning from them, retail marketers can refine and grow their data sets and continually fine-tune their campaigns across channels to keep pace with the ever-elusive digital consumer.
Sara Skrmetti is the Senior Director of Yield at Adroit Digital. Sara has led the Yield team at Adroit Digital since July 2013 where her data-driven team is responsible for optimizing and managing all Adroit campaigns to power the best results.
