Never before have we had so much data at our disposal. It’s being generated at a staggering rate and it’s arriving from all directions. IBM predicts that, by 2020, the global population will generate 35bn terabytes of data every year. It’s this data that can tell us what the weather will be like tomorrow or which route to take to work in the morning, but for marketers, it’s the key to achieving the best possible campaign results.
Society’s growing reliance on technology is perhaps the most obvious reason for this deluge; we live in a world of constantly connected consumers who spend their days working and playing across sizeable collections of devices. They interact with businesses often, with each interaction generating some kind of data. While using it effectively is easier said than done, the potential power of this information, and the competitive advantage that it can offer to brands and businesses, is too great to ignore.
Technology as a solution
The marketing tech landscape has expanded rapidly in recent years and specialists now have countless tools on hand to help them collect the information they need to make better decisions.
These platforms have incredible capabilities, but there’s an issue. Each one satisfies a specific need for a huge group of subscribers, but only provides one piece of a much larger puzzle. In order to truly understand how a website or campaign is performing, you have to collect all of the pieces. According to a recent study from market research firm Signal, the average agency now relies on 17 different marketing technologies across all of its services. This is far from efficient.
A flawed approach
First, it takes time to aggregate data. The agency people tasked with collecting all the necessary information tend to be highly-skilled specialists whose valuable knowledge could be put to better use on more critical tasks.
It’s also likely that many of the tools you, as an agency, are reliant on are also being used by your competitors, so however useful and insightful a particular chart or graph may seem, the conclusions you get from it are unlikely to be unique.
Another issue is that the current approach to data this area favours quantity over all else; it’s a case of data for data’s sake. The focus should be on collecting and using information that’s relevant to the business and website in question – information that can be turned into actionable intelligence. So with these issues in mind, is a shift in the industry inevitable?
A time for change
The industry currently exists in two very different places. At one end of the spectrum, you have agencies offering traditional digital marketing services like search engine optimisation (SEO), content and pay-per-click marketing (PPC). These companies might depend on various technologies to provide such services, but their customers only benefit indirectly.
These tools are delivered by software companies sitting at the other end of the spectrum. They offer technology designed to complete specific parts of the puzzle. They may provide professional services, but this usually only extends to product-related assistance.
In the near future, this gap won’t exist. It will be filled by forward-thinking agencies looking to combine their two most valuable resources – specialist expertise and technology – to generate better results for their clients.
The key to negating all of the problems above lies in the development and use of unique, proprietary data platforms that bring every bit of useful information together in one place.
Instead of spending their time going through the same chain of data sources every time they need to measure the performance of a website, specialists will have all of the relevant data ready and waiting. They can then focus their efforts on making decisions that directly impact their clients’ campaigns.
This shift is about more than just saving time – it’s about creating better intelligence. The countless individual pieces of information already out there may hold value in isolation, but their true potential will only be realised once they’re analysed side by side.
The final piece of the puzzle
Amid all this talk of technology, it’s important not to forget the value of knowledge and understanding. Digital lead generation expert and MWI CEO Joshua Steimle agrees: “No matter how much data can help a business’s marketing efforts, the advantage will always go to the companies who have data plus human creativity.”
The problem until now has been that specialists who know how to use data properly and effectively are in short supply, but with all of the aggregation work removed from the equation by innovative data tools, the experts can focus on what they do best: getting results.
At present, this innovative model has only been adopted by those at the forefront of the industry. Will your agency be next to follow in their footsteps?
Graeme Parton is a brand journalist at Vertical Leap
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