Data-Driven Budgets To Increase in the New Year

Data-Driven Budgets To Increase in the New Year

December 30, 2015

The importance of data to marketers is no secret. As we’ve reported, there are both upsides and downsides to having a greater quality and volume of data.

Facebook, for example, may be best positioned to offer itself as both a place that provides and measures their media.

A new report by the Global Direct Marketing Association vindicate that aforementioned value, indicating that data-driven investments on behalf of marketers will continue their upward pace into 2016. According to the report:

  • 81.3 percent of surveyed marketers describe data as important to their efforts.
  • Almost 75% are confident in the future growth of data-driven advertising (+ nearly 57% increased such ad spend)-68.6% expected to increase investment
  • More interestingly,  in a list of potential changes to increase its value, improved measurement and attribution techniques and better training topped the list.

Perhaps most importantly, “being customer-centric was the single biggest priority” amongst marketers.

Good thing, too—as pointed out by Marketing Land, the popular tactic of attempting to win back lost customers with gimmicky incentives tends “to bring back the least profitable and highest-maintenance customers.”

Keeping customers from leaving in the first place requires understanding their life cycle (e.g. suspect, to prospect, to lead, to customer) and tracking a campaign beyond immediate impact.

This means, for example, measuring the success of an email campaign by keeping a control group who was not exposed.

As we head into 2016, settling on the most trustworthy metrics, and establishing trust between publisher and marketer, appear to be the ingredients to a illuminating data’s full potential.