The quality of marketing data – including measurement data – continues to be an obstacle for marketers. Indeed, while improving data quality is the biggest challenge to marketing data success, it’s also easily the most important objective of a marketing data strategy, according to new research [download page] from Ascend2 and its Research Partners. So how are marketers trying to solve this problem?
The study looked at the perceived effectiveness of tactics used to improve marketing data quality, finding that two tactics stood taller than the rest: validating contact data as collected (49%); and assigning data quality responsibility (47%). The analysts note that the former has become a popular automated process that can be integrated into digital contact forms quite easily. Nevertheless, it also ranks as one of the tactics requiring the most effort (skill, time and expense) to perform, according to the survey’s 250 marketing influencer respondents. By contrast, assigning data quality responsibility appears to be one of the easier tasks.
Another popular tactic is integrating sales and marketing data – yet this is considered the most difficult tactic in terms of the effort required. In fact, research from Adobe and Econsultancy indicates that for almost 2 in 3 company marketers, the siloed nature of their organization prevents them from better using data in marketing.
Meanwhile, the easiest tactic (of those listed) is standardizing lead capture forms. The catch? It’s also perceived to be the least effective of the various tactics. Generally speaking – as the above chart demonstrates (click to enlarge), the more difficult the tactic, the more effective it’s perceived to be. Improving data quality is not a simple task, it seems…
About the Data: The results are based on a survey of 250 marketing influencers around the world. Half of the respondents are from companies with more than 500 employees. Some 41% are B2B-focused, while 38% are B2C and the remaining 21% are B2B and B2C equally.
