THE REALITIES OF DATA AND MARKETING: SUCCESS, CHALLENGES, AND THE STATE OF PERSONALIZATION
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THE REALITIES OF
DATA AND MARKETING:
SUCCESS, CHALLENGES,
AND THE STATE OF
PERSONALIZATION
“Without big data analytics, companies are
blind and deaf, wandering out onto the Web
like deer on a freeway.”
Geoffrey Moore, Author of Crossing the Chasm & Inside the Tornado
Spring 2018 research survey for the Ascendant Network, sponsored by Verve
OVERVIEW Data-driven marketing. Marketing analytics. GDPR. Privacy. Identity, DMP, CRM. These are the new terms, techniques and technologies that modern marketers have to learn about and put to work in order to stay in the race with consumer. Without question, our survey of the Ascendant Network shows that forward leaning marketers agree: data is the key to success in their efforts, and data is how they will remain competitive. But challenges loom. Since initiating this research, Facebook has disclosed inappropriate access to profiles by firms with which they worked, calling into question what data can be released to their customers for better targeting and attribution. Regulation of data is a common topic of discussion, and data breaches like those at Equifax and Target remain fresh in people’s minds. To realize the data-rich future that marketers envision, they’ll have to build, embrace, and carefully implement the technology that holds such promise — but also give full commitment to protecting their customers in the process. This report captures the excitement and the mandate to make data part of the marketer’s core skill set in pro-consumer, privacy-positive ways. We look at what’s happening now, at the ways in which companies are seeing success, and how marketers are addressing the challenges that emerge along the way. The Realities of Data and Marketing 2
METHODOLOGY
In March 2018, we surveyed the members of the Ascendant Network to understand their perspective
on the purchase, management, and use of customer data (SEE FIGURE 1). We also interviewed five
leading marketing executives from the Ascendant Network to get a deeper understanding of their
use of data, of what successes and challenges data has brought to the table for them, and of how
they think data’s role will evolve in the future.
FIGURE 1
Profile of Survey Respondents
My organization has:
Over 10,000 5,000-10,000 Less Than 5,000
Employees (48%) Employees (10%) Employees (41%)
My marketing focus is:
Consumers Businesses
(76%) (24%)
My role is:
Marketing Leadership Marketing Execution Other Leadership*
(CMO, SVP, VP) (69%) (Dir) (21%) (10%)
Which department owns the customer database?
Marketing Dedicated data/ CRM/Customer IT Other
(31%) analytics team (21%) Engagement Team (21%) (10%) (17%)
I am involved in the following:
90%+
55% 52%
41%
17%
Digital Print TV OOH Other
(all channels)
The Realities of Data and Marketing 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
From our survey and research, senior marketing executives tell us that:
• Data isn’t a passing fad. Universally, respondents are believers in data. And the results justify that
confidence, with expectations of success proving true: half of the respondents saw a data-driven
lift in metrics of over 10%, with nearly 20% seeing a lift greater than 25%.
• The decision to buy data comes from marketing — they’re the business owner of these
initiatives — but, in order to put the data to work in terms of analytics and insights, collaboration
with IT and Business Intelligence teams is mandatory.
• While use cases and activations vary, marketers agree that there is long road to travel before
they can say they have mastered the use of data in their marketing efforts.
“Data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if
unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to
be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to
create a valuable entity that drives profitable
activity; so must data be broken down,
analyzed for it to have value.”
Clive Humby, UK Mathematician and architect of Tesco’s Clubcard, 2006
The Realities of Data and Marketing 4
MARKETERS ARE UNEQUIVOCAL:
CUSTOMER DATA IS MISSION CRITICAL
Data has become a pillar of marketing. It’s at the core of the discipline now. Over the past five
years, and more aggressively in the past two years, marketers have discovered the power of using
customer data to drive marketing success — and they are not looking back.
With nearly unanimous confidence, all of the marketers responding to our survey associate the
word “critical” with “data.” They believe data is not only critically important to marketing success in
2018 and beyond, they also believe that the effective use of customer data is critical to competitive
success versus other things that help them stand out as a company.
When asked about what drives the marketing decision-making process, 88% of respondents said
data is taking a leading role. 56% believe creative and data will work together, but within that mix a
solid one-third of respondents are putting data in the driver’s seat.
This is not a decades-old trend; it is a new development that is shifting the way marketing works.
Even companies we spoke with that have long been analyzing data have only recently shifted to
data-led thinking in marketing. Two-thirds of respondents agree that this shift from creative-led to
data-led is a new approach only in the last three years, in some cases even more recently. That is a
dramatic change from the marketing environment most experienced marketers have known for most
of their careers, but it is a natural dynamic for the new crop of marketers joining the ranks.
96%
…believe effective use of customer data drives
a competitive advantage over companies that
haven’t sharpened their data skills
…believe customer data is important or
critically important to marketing in 2018
of respondents… and beyond
The Realities of Data and Marketing 5
Customer data that companies are confident will support their marketing efforts are already largely
in place (SEE FIGURE 2). Data from broad sources like mobile, CRM, and other company-controlled
data like web traffic, are already being activated and driving results. Furthermore, resources for
customer data like transaction, loyalty, and shopping cart histories are driving results for a large
portion of our survey set. Emerging sources of data, like the output from voice and AR interfaces,
location tracking, and even the use of third-party data remains in the testing phases for over half of
the marketers responding. In general, when it comes to types of data, the marketers we surveyed are
still dependent on data they can trust from internal sources — they are still testing the waters on
external data.
FIGURE 2
Describe your organization’s maturity when it comes to using the
following customer data sources:
INTERNAL DATA Not Using Testing Fully Activated Active and Driving Results
Transaction data 13.6% 22.7% 22.7% 40.9%
First-party data (internal) 27.3% 36.4% 36.4%
Shopping cart data 27.3% 18.2% 18.2% 36.4%
Mobile 13.6% 22.7% 36.4% 27.3%
CRM 4.5% 36.4% 31.8% 27.3%
Loyalty 27.3% 27.3% 22.7% 22.7%
EXTERNAL DATA Not Using Testing Fully Activated Active and Driving Results
Publishers 27.3% 27.3% 22.7% 22.7%
Third-party data (external) 22.7% 31.8% 18.2% 27.3%
EMERGING DATA POINTS Not Using Testing Fully Activated Active and Driving Results
Location 22.7% 45.5% 13.6% 18.2%
Emerging: voice 59.1% 40.9%
Emerging: AR 66.7% 33.3%
The Realities of Data and Marketing 6
Marketers Want More Data, but Organization and
Practical Roadblocks Get in the Way
In many of these interviews, the media team was the organization that had the most direct access
to data, especially among manufacturing brands that do not have a direct relationship with their
customer base, or where performance marketing owns a large budget. When speaking directly with
marketers, it’s clear that a majority must still “sell-in” the need for this data to be accessible and
usable by their marketing teams.
Challenges Marketers Face Regarding Access to Data:
Historical control Technology decisions Skill shortages
Tech or IT controls the Access to data may be Data scientists and marketing
platforms, and therefore limited by legacy technology activation people don’t have
controls the data infrastructure the bandwidth to “play” with
the data.
Corporate challenges Legal issues
Mergers, divisional silos Privacy policies, legislative
compliance, security concerns
Top down has been the approach to data strategy —
new CEO, the board, the US leadership. They have been
driving the desire to be a data-led organization. That has been
huge for hiring the right people, building presentation layers for
decision-making, and putting budget behind the priority.
Head of Digital Activation,
Sports Apparel Manufacturer
The Realities of Data and Marketing 7
The Three Metrics of Success:
Sales, Customer Growth, and ROI
Marketing’s excitement about the use of customer data is not confined to buzzwords and “future-
of” articles in the trades. When asked about buzz versus reality, only 22% of the respondents
said “customer data” remains just a buzzword term within their organization. Conversely, 82% of
respondents said data is driving real, sustainable results for marketers and their businesses. For the
majority in our survey, the application of data to marketing is driving planning, metrics, and sales.
When asked to rank their top-three outcomes, respondents told us that conversion, sales and ROI
led by a mile (SEE FIGURE 3).
FIGURE 3
What business outcomes are you expecting (choose your top 3)?
Higher
81.8%
conversions
Optimized marketing
77.3%
spend/ROI
Higher
63.6%
sales
Increase in
36.4%
brand awareness
Increase in average
18.2%
shopping cart
Other 4.5%
The Realities of Data and Marketing 8
Additionally, marketers have set a plan for their spending on customer data and those plans seem
to be yielding strong results. Half are generating greater than 10% lift in their business metrics, and
nearly one-fifth are driving increases above 25% in business outcomes that matter to them
(SEE FIGURE 4).
FIGURE 4
What level of improvement to business Is this lift higher or lower than
outcomes have you seen from your expectations?
applying data to marketing?
4.5%
9.1%
13.6% 18.2% 9.1%
9.1%
27.3% 31.8%
72.7%
Higher than 25% lift n=22 Much higher n=22
10-25% Somewhat higher
5-10% As expected
1-5% Somewhat lower
Not measurable Much lower
The Realities of Data and Marketing 9
Still, challenges exist. Despite the confidence with which marketers cite the need for — and value of
— customer data, they are not always maximizing data’s impact. Nearly half the respondents believe
they have only scratched the surface of what customer data means to their marketing efforts, and
one-quarter believe they are seeing benefits limited to specific campaigns (SEE FIGURE 5). Insight-
driven approaches and decisions that come from advanced analytics are implemented by less than
20% of the responding marketers.
FIGURE 5
What level of improvement to business outcomes have you seen from
applying data to marketing?
Barely scratched
45.5%
the surface
We are running data-driven
27.3%
campaigns that are showing results
We use advanced analytics to gain
13.6%
insight, then act using traditional methods
Reporting is pointing to lots of wins
9.1%
in the future
Data drives decisions and provides
4.5%
deep insight into outcomes
n=22
The key question is how people are using data to drive their business. It’s great that
companies come in and talk about the potential of data, but in reality, no one knows what
to do with it. What is data doing to drive the business? Marketers still need to have a strategy rather
than just mashing a lot of data together.
SVP Head of Brand Marketing,
Fitness Brand
The Realities of Data and Marketing 10Ownership of Decisions, Data,
and Tools is a Shared Effort
One of the challenges with the customer data effort is that it’s not always, or even typically, owned
and managed by a single team. IT manages the tech and security, for example, while business
intelligence often houses the company’s data scientists. Meanwhile, marketers, who claim the lion’s
share of the business justification for incorporating data and analytics into the organization’s mix,
often lack the needed skills to work with data they intend to use. In fact, only 8% of the marketers we
surveyed have a data-ready marketing team (SEE FIGURE 6).
FIGURE 6
Who in your organization is best equipped to tie customer data to
marketing success or marketing ROI?
Data scientists and analytics team
Marketing campaign managers
The whole marketing team is data-ready
24% 20%
The head of marketing leads this charge
Our agencies help us analyze our how
effectively we use customer data
No one is really on top of it yet
Other
16%
16%
Analytics Marketing channel teams
(search, display, email,
Finance etc) in partnership with
8%
8%
Partnership between analytics
marketing and data
science teams
No one fully equipped yet, 8%
but the goal is to share
All levels get involved, across brand, analytics,
including the agency and agencies
The Realities of Data and Marketing 11As a further example of challenges around data education in marketing departments, one newly
growing area — the Customer Data Platform or CDP, defined as a marketer-based management
system that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems —
was unfamiliar to 48% of respondents. The technology challenge is not a small one and the number
of platforms, tools, and vendors that need to be managed continues to grow (SEE FIGURE 7A).
Even so, with so much technology to digest, 64% of marketers say they still lead the discussion
around the business and marketing needs they want data providers and platforms to satisfy
(SEE FIGURE 7B). In other words, when it comes to defining the goals for what organizations purchase
regarding data and data tools, marketing still leans on its own resources and instincts.
Conversely, when technology tools — often referring to technology apart from data analysis tools
— are being tested and priced, IT remains in a leadership role, and they seek support from business
intelligence. Business intelligence teams come into play by helping to determine deal parameters and
set more detailed user requirements.
FIGURE 7A FIGURE 7B
Which of the following technology tools Who leads the discussion
do you use to manage and act on of which data providers and
customer data (select all that apply)? platforms to use?
CRM 72%
Email automation 72%
24%
Programmatic tools 64%
Cookies 64%
12% 64%
Personalization 60%
Marketing automation 56%
Marketing clouds 52%
Demand-side platforms 40% Marketing Digital Center of Excellence –
leads from Analytics, CRM
IT and Data Architecture
Cross-device
40% Marketing and Engineering
measurement
Other Digital/advertising team in
Data clouds 28% partnership with martech/
n=25 analytics
Identity management 16%
All of the above
vendors
The Realities of Data and Marketing 12Beyond questions of which departments lead which purchases, IT’s role cannot be overstated when
it comes to filling in the knowledge/skills gaps that marketers cited earlier in this report, and IT is
particularly involved when it comes to solving problems with the data that marketers want to use.
Across categories, IT is a key partner for well over half the marketers surveyed as they implement
new tools to drive campaign success (SEE FIGURE 7C).
FIGURE 7C:
How would you rate the following technical challenges around customer data?
Analysis Struggling to Working with IT or Already
paralysis choose a vendor another dept mastered
Privacy protection/data matching 9.1% 4.5% 77.3% 9.1%
Reporting 0.0% 13.6% 72.7% 13.6%
Customer Identity Management 4.5% 18.2% 63.6% 13.6%
Advanced analytics 9.1% 18.2% 59.1% 13.6%
Segmentation 9.1% 13.6% 59.1% 18.2%
Test and learn 4.8% 14.3% 57.1% 23.8%
Data science for competitive
23.8% 14.3% 52.4% 9.5%
advantage
In 2016 the company restructured
the marketing approach — including
leadership, tools, and investment decisions
VP Marketing, — to focus on data. In that process a lot
Full Price Retailer of changes were made on the team. That
gave us permission to ring-fence technology
for marketing rather than having that be
managed centrally. So, I get to work closely
with my marketing tech peer on all data and
technology decisions.
The Realities of Data and Marketing 13Acting on Customer Data is an Uphill Climb,
But the Payoff is Worth It
As noted at the beginning of this report, marketers are confident that data is worth the investment.
But it’s a hard row to hoe. When we asked marketers a range of questions about the perception
versus the reality of putting customer data to work, they responded uniformly on some key points
(SEE FIGURE 8A):
• Aligning customer data with corporate systems is more difficult than marketers assumed it
would prove when they planned their strategy — 84% agree or strongly agree; 72% agree that
difficulties related to legacy systems play a role.
• The push to support data implementation is unquestioned; there is evidence of buy-in at scale.
Only 4% feel that utilizing customer data is more of a concept than a reality.
• Again, skills are critical to the success of data in the marketing effort: 40% agree that their
marketing staff is not ready for a data-driven world and twice that percentage say that activating
customer data for marketing is still a learning-curve for their team.
FIGURE 8A
Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements
as they relate to your use of customer data in marketing
Strongly disagree Testing Neither agree nor disagree Agree Strongly agree
Customer data integration and management is
harder than we first thought. 4% 12% 48% 36%
Our company’s systems prevent me from fully
acting on data for marketing purposes. 8% 20% 44% 28%
My staff is not equipped to be data-driven
marketers. 4% 24% 32% 32% 8%
No marketing decision gets made without
customer data. 12% 24% 36% 20% 8%
Activating marketing with customer data is an
emerging skill set. 16% 4% 52% 28%
The Realities of Data and Marketing 14These answers reflect differing states of data maturity among the marketers responding. Only 24%
have a fully developed effort in place, while the bulk of respondents (52%) have some core elements
in place. And when asked to rate their success, 48% gave their status as “in progress” for the
integration of data, while 64% rate themselves as “in progress” when it comes to activating customer
data to drive results.
FIGURE 8B
How would you rate your maturity with customer data, i.e. how far
along the journey to mastering customer data for marketing purposes?
4% 20% 52% 12% 12%
1 Just getting started
2 Plans are being developed
3 Some elements are in place
4 We’ve executed well, waiting for results to further assess
5 We are leaders in our market sector
FIGURE 8C
How would you rate your success at integrating customer data?
4% 12% 48% 12% 24%
How would you rate your success at activating customer data?
4% 16% 64% 8% 8%
1 Nascent
2 Planned
3 In progress
4 Excellent, but still a side project
5 Embedded in every discussion
The Realities of Data and Marketing 15My team and I have to go to a lot of people to get
data. First-party data is managed by many divisions.
We go to Google Analytics to get website traffic data. Some
social data comes from Salesforce Social Suite, but that’s
doesn’t get us all we need, so we also use an outside party
for insight. For CRM, we have to go to IT to get access.
EVP Franchise Management,
Entertainment Company
True Personalization is Still a
Challenge for Most Marketers
Personalization remains one of the top use cases for customer data, after customer acquisition
and ahead of retargeting. Even today, however, marketers are conservative when it comes to using
data and analysis to create truly personalized consumer experiences. Messages are customized in
broad strokes instead, based on cohorts or wider segments by 78% of respondents. Half are using
expressed behaviors to inform personalization, and a small percentage (14%) are using data to
personalize, or contextualize, based on physical factors such as weather and location.
The biggest perceived area of risk seems to be related to content personalization. Marketers are fine
with push email content (i.e. customized marketing efforts) but shy away from using a customer’s
history with a brand to create more directed personalization outputs (SEE FIGURE 9).
FIGURE 9A
Which of these reflect your best use cases for customer data?
Customer acquisition 26.1%
Personalization 21.7%
Retargeting to existing customers 17.4%
Customer service enhancements 8.7%
Understanding customer behavior 8.7%
Customer retention 4.3%
Other 13.0%
n=23
The Realities of Data and Marketing 16FIGURE 9B
If you apply customer data to personalization, at what level do you customize?
Messages are customized by
broad segmentation 8.7%
Messages are customized to
cohorts of 50 or more individuals 13.0%
Every customer gets a 47.8%
unique message
Not applicable
30.4%
n=23
FIGURE 9C
What inputs are used to personalize each message?
Messages are customized
based on behaviors
Messages are customized
22.7%
based on physical factors
(location, gender)
Messages are not customized 50%
beyond name/greeting 13.6%
All of the above
13.6%
n=22
FIGURE 9D
Are you personalizing any content?
Yes, but just for push and 4.3%
email outputs 13%
Yes, every piece of marketing is
informed by customer-specific data
Yes, but only based on name,
not customer history
13% 52.2%
Yes, but only for advertising
placement
17.4%
No
n=23
The Realities of Data and Marketing 17THERE WILL BE MANY VERSIONS
OF THE DATA-DRIVEN FUTURE
Marketers Will Embrace Multiple Options
Marketers will likely fall into one of at least two primary camps
in the data-driven future:
1. The In-Crowd.
Marketers who have the mandate to invest in data are seeing — and will continue to see — more successful
campaign outcomes. They will have direct or team-driven input into data and technology decisions, allowing
them to act on data and review the impact of decisions on a real-time basis. Retail companies, which typically
have first-party customer data at their disposal, and direct-to-consumer brands (e.g., Stitch Fix) that have
emerged in the last five years, are examples of leaders working with marketing in this respect. They are the
“cool kids” of data-driven marketing.
2. The Drop-Outs.
Companies that lag behind will more often be those that have historically relied on outside channels for
customer input and on IT for technology decisions without a mandate to become more involved with customer
data and analytics at their organization. These brands will inevitably know less about their customers than
data-savvy competitors, lacking the tools, allocation, and mindset to make data acquisition and activation a
priority.
I expect that the future will be about how we use
data smarter, and about how we empower more
people with data. It would be great if there was a better
data culture, not just a marketing culture. Data will be more
VP Digital Marketing and
present in terms of how marketers evaluate campaign Big Data Platforms,
strategy, run creative, create conversational experiences, and Credit Card Company
understand the customers’ problems before selling them
things. We want data to become more integrated into the
journey rather than just a way to track results.
The Realities of Data and Marketing 18Consumers Have Different Data Boundaries
Thinking about the diverse consumer audiences with which marketers engage, how will customers evolve as
data’s influence continues to expand? Here’s a consideration of ways consumer types could develop and what
the industry can potentially expect.
CONSUMER TYPE STANCE DEMOS
The Privacy Advocates Tech savvy, proactive Tech savvy,
consumers who actually 30-50 years old
read privacy statements and
test boundaries
Millennials: Will exchange data for The first digital natives to
What’s In It For Me? something of value enter the workforce and
(coupons, free swag, etc) have families
Blissfully Unaware Don’t realize they could be Older and/or less educated
impacted by a sharing data on technical operations
Non-sharers Only provide information to Retain control of data, but
known recipients either because they care
a lot or just know there is
nothing they can do
GenZ: You Don’t Know People (especially teens) Younger consumers are
The Real Me create multiple accounts to savvy about profiles and
reflect different relationships how to manage them
The Realities of Data and Marketing 19CONCLUSIONS Given what we’ve learned about marketers, data, and the realities of data in the marketplace, what can we identify as next steps for organizations, for brands and advertisers and the marketing teams that support them? The following list highlights some key strategies for a data-rich future. If faced with resistance to data investment, don’t be afraid to start small. The marketers that are leaders now learned early on that they need to prove the value of data-driven efforts. Small steps helped them prove the bigger case to management. Partner with IT, wherever they are in the world. Building strong relationships with the central technology buyers — whether they are down the hall or on another continent — and being confident about add-ons to core platforms will help keep data innovation at the leading edge. Educate yourself and your team. Now. Those with the aptitude to learn how to make data work for marketing should be given the opportunity to learn even more in the near term. For some companies, this will become a mandate as strategies shift from a legacy marketing to a data-led approach to the customer journey. Prepare for the future: major platforms will be more regulated. Everyone interviewed for this report said that further regulations of data and privacy are coming. But the consensus is that the platforms — including media, CRM, and marketing clouds — will develop and evolve to leverage whatever consumer-facing advantages emerge from the next generation of data rules. Voice and IoT interfaces will contribute to a more complete view of the customer. What’s next in data inputs? The customer journey is moving toward voice-enabled requests, IoT- based inputs, and new ways of understanding behavior from first- and third-party sources. Expect the next wave of data-smarts to include learning how to interpret passive inputs like activity monitoring, complementing active inputs like search. The Realities of Data and Marketing 20
About Ascendant Network Ascendant Network runs two networks for marketing professionals; the Retail Ascendant and the Digital Ascendant; each is home to twice-yearly events and a selective community (invite-only via nominations) of senior change agents (VP, SVP, and C-level) spearheading today’s marketing evolution. Each gathering brings together 100 transformative marketers from the nation’s most progressive brands to share + connect + tackle industry problems. Our closed-door/no press forum is deliberate -- it supports candid sharing and relationship-building among the industry’s “who’s who”. Ascendant Network also produces &THEN, a conference and trade with 4,000 attendees for the Data & Marketing Association and custom Ascendant Boot Camps for F500 enterprises. About Verve Verve™ is a location-based mobile marketing platform that connects advertisers with consumers to deliver successful business outcomes. The company’s proprietary location intelligence, patented technology, premium mobile inventory, and analytics capabilities empower marketers to identify, reach, and engage consumers with compelling mobile advertising experiences. For more information, visit www.verve.com. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vervemobile.
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