Data-Driven Marketing: All You Need To Know In 2021

As 2021 comes into focus, the importance of a data driven strategy is even higher than it was before. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed so much about how people spend their time and money online. Changes in user behavior that were expected to take years have instead happened in months, meaning that having a data based marketing solution is even more vital to success.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the concept of data-driven marketing by looking at the history of data-driven challenges, the benefits of using this approach, and its limitations. We will also cover a few tangible examples of data-driven marketing and the results they produced.

Data-Driven Marketing: The Business Case

Here are some interesting facts about data-driven marketing.

A study by Forbes showed that 64% of executives “strongly agree” that data-driven marketing provides a competitive edge in deciding on how to compete with other companies in the same field.

According to Media Math, 53% of digital marketers said “a demand to deliver more relevant communications/be more ‘customer-centric’” is one of the top driving factors for companies who are investing in data-driven marketing.

Furthermore, eMarketer reports that 90.7% of US advertisers and marketers segment data to better target and engage with their customers. In fact, over half said that they were more advanced in that area than even five years ago. eMarketer also reports that 92.3% of organizations maintain databases to host information on customers or prospects, at least to some extent.

Finally, this report shows that marketing teams who regularly use integrated marketing technologies are 57% more effective and productive at delivering positive ROI through their work.

All these facts and figures are pointing in the same direction: data-driven marketing is the way forward and the key to satisfying and creating loyal customers now and into the future.

How Did It All Begin? The History of Data-driven Marketing

The humble beginning of a Data-driven marketing approach dates all the way back to the invention of the first Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. CRMs represent databases that are leveraged to gather, record and store customer information which can be leveraged to increase sales, up-sell or cross sell a specific product or service.

V12 data statistics show that 52% of consumers (and 65% of B2B buyers) say they’re likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t personalize communications to them. CRMs are vital to the tracking, collecting and usage of data that can lead to personalized approaches to marketing.

For a full history of the CRM, there is a great article over at FinancesOnline but for the purposes of this piece, we’ll summarize it here.

The first CRM systems were first launched in the ‘70s, and the mass adoption of marketing techniques like sales force automation, consumer information records and hotline numbers. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but we’ve been harassed by unwanted calls from telemarketers for almost 50 years now!

By the 80s, database marketing started to become a thing. It was during this period that marketers realized that connecting on a personal level with their customers could lead to higher conversions. So instead of cold calling each potential consumer with the exact same message, marketers started to create different call scripts for different customer personas.

In the 90s, this evolved into sales force automation that became the first real CRM framework. One database which could manage a company’s contacts, leads and potential opportunities in a single platform. By the end of the century, the first mobile CRM was launched, however, mobile use was limited due to the constraints of technology at the time.

And of course, over the last two decades, with the rapid growth of social media platforms (remember hi5 and Myspace?), marketers adopted their strategies to better engage with consumers at a personal level.

Today, CRM is integral to social marketing so content can be sent straight to the correct targets – so much so that social analytics is becoming just as important as ‘standard’ analytics.

This slowly paved the path to personalization.

Automation and the introduction of cloud-based CRM systems accelerated the collection of relevant data, therefore paving the way to the emergence of data driven marketing techniques. Nowadays, marketers can easily devise new strategies based on data driven marketing concepts to connect with customers at a personal level based on behavioral patterns shown in the data collected about current and potential clients.

The Current State of Data-Driven Marketing

Today’s CRM is significantly more powerful than at any point in the past (just think of the first generation iPhone versus an iPhone XR!). CRMs lie at the heart of business with the aim of engaging with customers with tailored messages.

Previously, marketing messages had one message for everyone. With the collection of relevant data, this approach changed dramatically.

With this came personalization and targeted advertisement techniques – the foundational value add behind data-driven marketing.

Nowadays, the best example of data-driven marketing is how consumers surfing the web or ‘chilling’ on social media see super-targeted ads that are relevant to them, and engage with new brands as a result of these relevant ads.

Here are some effects that data-driven marketing has had on marketers all over the world:

First Names In Emails

While this seems standard now, this personalization technique was not commonly used back in the day. Marketers need to be using their recipients’ first names in either the body or the subject line at the very least. This is because it instantly connects them with the content, making them more likely to purchase a product.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation has helped tailor the customer experience for visitors as it gives them exactly what they are looking for at the right time. For example, automation software can be used to send specific emails based on where a customer is in the purchase funnel if they haven’t replied in 2 days, sending them a follow-up. The first marketing automation emails are believed to have been sent around 2001.

Content

Data-driven marketing also enables marketers to understand the type of content their audience is looking for, allowing for a more personalized service.

They can pinpoint the topics that each demographic requires and create a specific marketing campaign.

The Next Stage – Data-Driven Marketing Personalization

Personalization in data-driven marketing refers to the combination of creative (the ad) media (the channel) and data (about the customer).

Systems have become more complex now with each of these three components becoming a collection of multiple sub-components, each informing ‘parallel-track’ marketing campaigns based on the specific traits of each demographic targeted by a marketing team.

What Are Data-Driven Creatives?

Data-driven creative uses insights and machine learning to create personalized ads to boost the return on investment for a specific media campaign. These ‘smart’ creatives provide actual value to the customer that leads them to take action.

At ComboApp, we use ‘smart’ creatives all the time.

The simplest example is this. Say we’re launching a new social media ad campaign against a specific demographic for a dating app.

We will launch the campaign against 30-40 different creatives where we test both images and text. Based on the engagement levels with these ads we see in our programmatic ad platforms, we remove all non-performing ads and focus on the ones that perform the best. Platforms like Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter all make it very easy for agencies to test, in real time, the effectiveness of their various campaigns and optimize them on the go.

Ultimately, the data we have about specific consumers and the creatives we create determine the types and number of creatives that we design.

A single creative can now come in multiple formats depending on the media and customer data. Let me show you how!

First, there’s behavior data.

Based on past campaigns or market research we conduct on a specific demographic, ComboApp targets a customer group based on their online activity and how they interact with ads.

For example, with the usage of browser-based cookies we collect anonymized information about page clicks, downloads and page level engaged. Then, with the help of tools like google Optimizely and Google Adwords, we can extend retargeting campaigns for users who visit other websites that support Google Adwords.

Additionally, some advertising platforms also tell us demographic data points about users, such as their age, location, interests and more.

So what do we do with all this data?

There are two ways that marketers can become more targeted and relevant with their ads: testing to optimize and testing to inform.

Testing To Optimize

Testing to optimize involves designing a test where the results can be used in a creative to drive performance.

For example, A/B testing is a form of optimization. Marketers wait for the data to come back from the experiment and analyze the results. Based on the data collected, we figure out which variation of an ad performs best and then we use that moving forward.

A very simple A/B test can have a tremendously positive impact on the creative’s performance. Font size, copy, images and more can all be A/B tested in a campaign – and then optimized accordingly.

Testing To Inform

Testing to inform is a method to add more value to the advertising budget.

It provides insight into the creative assets, as well as insights on the campaign as a whole.

For example, marketers may want to test how certain creative categories of products are selling, such as creative assets containing the newest products or creatives containing sale products.

While there may be a lot of work to implement properly, there is great value for the marketing team. For example, if creative assets are performing better for the new products rather than the products on sale, the insight can be used and applied to other channels.

In a nutshell, data makes marketing more nuanced and complex, but with better results.

How Beneficial Is Data-Driven Marketing?

Personalized Content And Campaigns

First and foremost, let’s go back to the common theme around data-driven marketing in this article: it’s all about personalization.

Data-driven marketing gives businesses the opportunity to reach the right people at the right time with the right message.

Marketers must be able to deliver content, products, and relevant recommendations to customers that need it, rather than sending blanket information to the masses and expecting auto-magical conversions.

Personalized messaging is critical to creating valuable relationships with your customers. And the insights created from data-driven marketing methods can produce a holistic picture of every customer – both current and prospective.

Strategic Decision-making

The more actionable data available to marketers, the better insights they will get into their customer’s likes, dislikes, online behavior, engagement and more.

When marketers know their consumers at the individual level, they can predict how customers are going to react to a certain message as part of the campaign. As Brian Solis from the CMO Network expertly wrote: ‘extreme personalization is the new personalization.’

When you have actionable insights at your fingertips, as a marketer, you can make strategic decisions based on providing users with the best possible experience. Personalization should be smooth, hassle-free and offer one-to-one engagement.

With data-driven marketing, decisions can also be made faster, enabling marketers to discard what is not working and optimize what is.

Data-driven Marketing Informs Product Development

Businesses can develop relevant products that take into account what customers really want. It will reduce the chances that the product fails when it goes to market.

With actionable user data, you can easily define features and functionalities that would be loved by your customers. Be it a website or mobile app, data-driven marketing insights reframe the conversation around what users need from your brand – and how to best provide your customers what they want.

Again, it comes back to ensuring total customer satisfaction.

Real-Time Interactions

With data-driven marketing, customers can access information from a variety of sources while at home or on-the-go with their smartphones.

It’s important for marketers to understand where users hang out online so they can start connecting with them in real-time.

Advancements in machine learning capabilities can now scan through incredibly large data sets at a fraction of the time it would take for a human to do the same work.

This gives marketers the information they need to see where consumers are most likely to convert into a sale.

Data-driven Marketing Provides Consistency And Longevity

Data-driven marketing ensures that, in the event that there is a significant change, such as a valuable team member leaving the company, processes remain consistent.

When everyone understands the purpose of the data being collected, they can take the appropriate action. In turn, this helps with knowledge transfer and onboarding new marketers on a team.

Paves the Way for Marketing Automation

It’s easy for marketers to become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of data they collect across different marketing channels, especially since not all data is equally useful. Since data-driven marketing is all about extracting actionable insights from large data sets in order to predict the future, it paves the way for marketing automation and algorithmic advertising.

With the help of the right marketing automation tools, it’s possible to turn actionable insights into marketing tasks and workflows. Marketing automation has been demonstrated to have a significantly positive impact on marketing ROI, making it an easy choice for all companies that would like to make every last dollar count.

Multi-Channel Optimization

It’s impossible to run a single marketing campaign across multiple channels with the same success. The same marketing techniques that work great on Facebook may not work at all on Instagram, and social media marketing in general follows completely different rules than email or data driven content marketing. Data-driven marketing helps identify which marketing strategies and formats work for which channels—be it social media, email, blog posts, or video content.

Many companies that implement data-driven marketing quickly discover that most of their leads come from just one or two channels. In those cases, multi-channel optimization becomes all about sensible marketing budget allocation and prioritization to get the maximum return for each dollar invested.

Prevents Egos from Getting in the Way

When marketing intuition and reality clash, the results can be quite ugly. Not all marketers can recognize their own mistakes and own up to them. For companies that depend on marketing and spend a lot of money on it, it’s essential to prevent egos from getting in the way of results. Data-driven marketing both relies on and produces objective metrics that can serve as unquestionable arguments during heated debates.

Data Driven Marketing Has Its Own Challenges

So far, we’ve covered the benefits of taking a data-driven marketing approach to marketing. To be completely fair and transparent though, we should also examine some of the challenges and pitfalls tied to data-driven marketing.

Businesses generate a lot of data every day.

However, this doesn’t mean that all of it is useful. As many have argued before, a lot of marketing data collected is a total mess and really difficult to turn into actionable insights. Filtering the right data to make informed decisions is key to successful data-driven marketing. High-quality data is accurate and ‘clean’ (aka collerations and deductions can be made with a reasonable amount of confidence). When data is ‘clean’ it allows decisions to be based on factual information rather than educated guesses or interpretations. To make the most out of data-driven marketing, marketers need to create a process that prevents inconsistencies creeping in and keep data up-to-date.

Knowing What To Ask

Wrong questions lead to irrelevant answers, resulting in incorrect information used to make business decisions. Businesses need to pay attention to the overall marketing goals behind a product and ask the right questions that will get them the data they really need. Asking the right questions leads to the right insights.

Normalizing Data

No two people are the same and neither is their data. The challenge here is unifying it to generate actionable insights. This will require a lot of managing and analysis due to the constant advancements in the marketing industry. Defining the right normalization data strategy is critical to creating relevant data sets.

Interpreting Data

While the collected data is great, knowing what it all means is just as important as finding the right data.

Analytics tools and services can help with this challenge, enabling businesses to make quick and informed decisions. They can also help to understand which marketing activities are having the greatest impacts on customers.

Linking Data

While technology can help, data is usually stored in a single location. Integrated analytics tools are essential for linking data to create a cohesive picture. Big data gets increasingly bigger every day. Ultimately, being able to bring everything together will determine how successful the campaign will be.

Unsuitable Technology

This is one of the most serious problems that data-driven marketing runs into. Unsuitable technology can contribute to all of the challenges listed above, such as providing the wrong data and not transforming it into a digestible and actionable plan.

Even if the businesses do have an actionable plan, many of them still fail to execute it due to the lack of the right tech tools, for example, project management tools, business phone systems, CRMs, etc. Tools like these are very important for managing and streamlining the business processes.

Marketers must find the right tools that will give them the results they need to meet department and business goals.

The Building Blocks Of Data-Driven Marketing – The Technology Stack

The marketing technology stack focuses on measuring the impact of activities for more efficient processes.

With many marketing technologies available across an ever-growing number of industries, marketers need to stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of these solutions while they can.

At the same time, it is essential that marketing teams know which technologies are best suited to their business or clients.

A standard data-driven marketing stack is made up of 3 foundational building-blocks:

1. Campaign management

2. Analytics and reporting

3. Attribution and optimization

Campaign Management

This technology refers to the creation of campaign groups targeting specific user types and tracking how effective different campaigns are at a given moment in time. Send personalized content, reminders, updates, special offers, etc to the people that require each variation. One of the most common forms of marketing is through email campaigns and there are lots of technologies that can help.

For example, MailChimp can be used to manage email marketing campaigns. It allows marketers to sync data and content from third-party services and learn how each campaign is affecting the business. It will also provide tips for improving ongoing campaigns, as well as insights into their effectiveness.

Another useful campaign management tool is Aweber. A great feature of this technology is its autoresponder. Its analytics capabilities are some of the best around and overall, the tool is very easy to use.

Analytics And Reporting

Analytics tools provide granular information about the groups targeted by various marketing campaigns, such as how users behave and how they interact with a specific campaign (likes, shares, sales, social shout-outs etc).

This information is useful to marketers because they can optimize the customer experience and develop relationships that last to create loyalty to the brand.

Robust analytics reporting creates a logical output of the data to enable marketers to make informed decisions. But it also helps with data visualization techniques which can be distributed among internal stakeholders via such as graphs, tables and pie charts. Standalone reporting solutions aggregate activity and performance into one place. For reference, reporting software is also referred to as marketing dashboards.

Again, there are a lot of analytics tools on the market.

Perhaps the most common analytics tool out there is Google Analytics. GA is free to use and can help businesses develop a better strategy through campaign tracking and customized data reports. GA also allows for goal settings and monitoring various funnels on a website/ mobile app.

Additionally, Google Analytics can be synced up to a lot of reporting software like Google Data Studio, as well as the campaign management tools like the aforementioned Aweber.

For businesses that are keen to utilize social media for their campaigns, it may be useful to leverage specialized marketing analytics tools like Sprout Social. This technology allows teams to see the keywords their brand is being linked with across various social channels, including data collected from the number of competitors on each platform.

Optimization

Once marketers have access to the right data, they can refine various marketing campaigns and make improvements over time. When a business understands the contributions to marketing activities, they can begin to deploy their budget more effectively.

For example, Jive is collaboration software that connects users and team members together. It is used to optimize engagement online and identify influencers.

Analytics services like Amplitude can be used by marketers to measure conversion rates and customer behavior.

One of Amplitude’s unique features is that it maps out the exact route that customers take to achieve specific conversion goals.

Another key feature Amplitude is famous for refers to a web analytics concept they pioneered: cohort analysis.

Amplitude was the first analytics provider which understood that different users behave differently on a website. And they provided the functionality to marketers and product leaders to define specific audiences which can be segmented and analyzed on their own. Through cohort analysis, marketers can make better decisions about their digital products and optimizing various digital campaigns over time.

Invest In SEO As Part of Your Data Driven Marketing Strategy

SEO is a key strategy for increasing organic through search engines to the website. SEO works well with data driven content marketing and there are many tools that can help with keyword research, such as Ahrefs, which we often use in our own SEO campaigns for our clients.

As we wrote in the past, SEO and content strategy are some of the most effective strategies to attract new customers, see how customers interact with your website or mobile app and test out various conversion campaigns on your platform.

Invest in A Robust Content Management System

A Content Management System (CMS) powers websites and blogs where marketers want to engage with their customers, such as WordPress, Hubspot or Sitecore.

A robust CMS allows for the easy creation and management of content which is why we consider it a pivotal data-driven marketing foundational building block.

Examples Of Data-Driven Digital Marketing

Now that we know what data-driven marketing is, let’s review some tangible examples of how it is used today.

Data-Driven Email Marketing

We have already seen that email marketing is one of the most popular strategies. However, data-driven email marketing can take it to another level and tailor it to each and every customer, rather than just groups of customers.

Marketing teams can create content based on an individual’s preferences, making it the perfect way to build relationships. Learning to manage your inbox is of the utmost importance here. The last thing the marketing team needs is to lose a potential customer’s email just because their inbox is swamped.

On some of the most complex projects we’ve worked on, we’ve created up to 50 different variations of emails based on specific marketing personas identified for our clients. The more relevant an email becomes, the higher chances it has to convert a user.

Retargeting

Marketers can use retargeting to advertise to potential customers even if they leave your website or mobile app. Many online visitors tend to browse the internet for more than one reason so why not appeal to them after they leave your website?

This data driven advertising method gives consumers a gentle reminder about the product or service they had previously looked at. It can be particularly effective across social media since 30% of all time spent online is on these platforms.

In addition, consider these amazing stats from Invesp about retargeting:

• 4 in 5 consumers notice retargeting ads.
• 1 in 5 marketers now has a budget dedicated to retargeting campaigns.
• 46% of SEM professionals say retargeting is the most underused marketing technique.
• The average clickthrough rate for regular ads is 0.07% versus retargeting ads which is 0.7% (a 900% increase in CTR!).
• Retargeted customers are 3x more likely to click on your ad than those who see your ad for the first time.

Retargeting can also be combined with technologies to create hyper-specific marketing campaigns for certain customers.

For example, if a current customer purchased a cellphone, retargeting could be used to offer that customer, accessories like a case, screen protector or charger.

Retargeting is one of the most famous – and effective – data-driven marketing techniques ever invented! And we have Google to thank for that!

Data Driven Advertising

Data driven advertising can be used by marketers to reach their target audience, regardless of their location.

Data insights and automation technology can create personalized adverts that increase click-through rates and conversion rates.

Each individual has different needs. The data collected about these needs allows marketers to be really precise with their efforts by selecting content that will have the greatest impact. Actionable insights allows for targeting specific buyer personas which, when combined with machine learning and other data marketing technologies, can produce more effective data driven advertising to drive better clicks and conversions.

Again, social media is a great channel to implement data driven advertising, with Facebook proving to be effective for advertising in particular.

Facebook users are clicking on ads more and more every year, with data-driven ads being the primary driver behind this increase in engagement with Facebook ads.

Acting Based on Marketing Trends

Businesses can feel cautious testing new channels when an existing method is working well. After all, why take the risk?

Using marketing trends from various channels leads to building a more efficient and optimized marketing process. This is done by running PPC campaigns for a short amount of time until the keyword search volume is known.

PPC campaigns can also be used to determine if specific keywords have a commercial intent. This gives marketers a better estimation if the keywords are worth going after. At ComboApp, we use the Ahrefs content explorer functionality.

But you can also use SEO marketing trends to decide on how to market specific demographics. Let’s look at how we used Ahrefs’ to determine writing this article on our blog.

Here’s a data extract about ‘data-driven marketing’ keywords. This is an amazing example of data-driven marketing in action!

As you can see from the screenshot above, it was a no-brainer for us to write an article about data-driven marketing. The data collected by Ahrefs makes it super clear that we should take the time and create an article on this topic.

ComboApp is a data driven marketing agency. Our clients are companies that need data driven marketing solutions. Who other than professional marketers would ever look up ‘data driven marketing’? Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but let’s be serious here!

Secondly, we see a decent search interest. 1,300 searches in the US alone and 3,800 globally.

Third, we see a huge bidding war over this keyword. Competitors of ComboApp spend $18 dollars for each click they get via Google Ads (which is huge!). If they spend this much money, it means it’s worth it to attract new customers.

Lastly, we also see that despite companies spending $18 per click for this search term, the overwhelming majority of Google users DO NOT click on an ad. Over the last month, Ahrefs estimates that only 52 out of 1,300 users clicked on an ad.

When taking all these data points into account, it made sense for us to create this ultimate guide to data-driven marketing!

All Is Not Great With Data-Driven Marketing

While data is great, decisions should not be just made based on what customers do, they should also factor why customers do it. That is, the qualitative aspect of things.

There are some suggestions that data-driven marketing is not driven by data at all. This is because it’s based on the assumption that because something worked in the past, it is going to work now and in the future.

After all, the marketing and advertising industry know all too well that trends and customer preferences can change in the blink of an eye.

Furthermore, data-driven marketing is, in some ways, killing the creativity that fueled earlier generations of marketers. Fostering creativity can enable companies to make 10% more revenue than their peers.

But focusing on creatives doesn’t mean that businesses should ignore data altogether. The best data marketing teams strike a balance between the science of data-driven marketing and the art of creativity to see optimal results.

Over 50% of marketing campaigns are attributed to the creative element. Businesses can have data of the highest quality but it will fail if it doesn’t resonate with the end consumer.

The Importance Of A Data Driven Marketing Agency

Odds are that someone reading this article will be trying to figure out what to do with all of this information and how it applies to their business. Taking all of this information and trying to develop your own data driven marketing strategy from scratch is a difficult task unless you have experience doing so. This is one of the reasons why it is so important for a business to outsource this work to a data driven marketing agency.

A data driven digital marketing agency will benefit their clients by giving them access to their experience with big data marketing. Partnering with an agency also means that businesses can focus on the running of their day to day operations, without having to try to learn how to use all this information for themselves. They will craft data driven marketing solutions that are tailored to their clients needs and help them put a data driven strategy into action. Trying to run everything in-house can seem tempting, but can leave a business behind the curve. You need to have both the tools and the knowledge of how to use them properly, and an agency has the resources and skills that your business can benefit from.

ComboApp is one such data based marketing agency, they are full-cycle and help companies develop a data driven strategy from start to finish. This means that from crafting data driven advertising campaigns to building an app, and everything in between; ComboApp is there to help businesses succeed. We will put our experience with data driven digital marketing to work for businesses. Contact us today to find out more of how big data and marketing can come together to boost your business in 2021 and beyond.

Summary

Data-driven marketing is here to stay. In fact, the use of big data in marketing will only continue to rise in importance as we move into 2021. The place of big data in marketing is solidified and growing, it is up to businesses to decide if they will put it to use for them or fall behind the curve. COVID-19 means more people than ever are spending more time than ever online, knowing their habits and interests can help businesses to grow and thrive through this accelerated online growth phase.

Success will come from fine-tuning the data and getting creative on how to use big data marketing to reach out to customers. The challenges a marketing team faces need to be addressed first and a robust data driven marketing strategy can then be created following that. Partnering with a full cycle marketing agency such as ComboApp is vital, as they can put their experience with data based marketing to use in helping a business develop a successful data driven strategy.

This article covered:

• Where data-driven marketing came from and how it has evolved over time;
• How marketers can take advantage of data-driven marketing;
• The challenges marketing teams face;
• Real-world examples of data driven marketing concepts being used.

For a limited time, ComboApp is offering free marketing audits to marketers interested in taking their SEO and content strategy to the next level. Interested? Let’s talk. Contact us to get started.