Don’t let big data make your head spin: Building a user-friendly marketing ecosystem

Don’t let big data make your head spin: Building a user-friendly marketing ecosystem

Welcome to today’s marketing data ecosystem.  It’s a myriad of data sources and tools that are supposed to help you to make more informed ‘data driven’ decisions; taking the guess work out of everything from media buying to sales and revenue attribution. That said, in reality, it can seem like a daunting array of ever-proliferating information, technologies, and vendors that makes you wonder: will it really make my job easier? The buzzwords alone - like Hadoop, big data and Machine Learning - are enough to make your head spin.  

Ideally, your marketing data ecosystem allows you to store, ingest, govern, process, analyze and visualise data. It supports all aspects of data and data technology. So, selecting the right partners, vendors and tools for storing, processing and effectively analysing these very large datasets is critical to the success of your marketing data strategy.

To complicate things further, the options vary from generic tools requiring companies to supply all the knowhow, to highly expensive enterprise-wide solutions that promise to solve all marketing and advertising technology needs.  In between, there are boutique products and service-oriented solutions that focus on specific technology needs or provide unique integrated service offerings. 

From an economic perspective, the best way to answer this question might be to look at the values of companies that are driven by data and to note that data adds value.  Companies like Uber, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have market valuations far beyond those of other traditional companies with far greater revenue. 

First you need to know which data sets to use and where they’re going to come from. With so much internal and external data available - from structured data from your ERP and CRM systems to unstructured mega data sets from social outlets etc. – the trick to using this ‘big data’ is to discover and extract the ‘golden nuggets.’ This data mining of valuable customer insights is where science intersects with planning. 

What’s relevant to your marketing department is the value of this data once it’s distilled and analysed. Only then can it deliver a more thorough and insightful understanding of your business and customers.  Armed with this information, CMOs can crafted a stronger, more competitive product positioning, which will have a significant impact on the bottom line.

Moving data from its source and making it available to decision makers in a timely, simplified manner is a task that hasn’t fundamentally changed since mainframe days. Yet, while the goal remains the same, the obstacles and complexity to successfully create and maintain a data-driven source of analytical truth has become exponentially more difficult.

One of the biggest hurdles is the sheer number of new data sources that generate unprecedented amounts of output, often with very little structure.  From social media sources to machine and sensor readings, the onslaught of data from multiple channels can be overwhelming.

Share it:
Share it:

[Social9_Share class=”s9-widget-wrapper”]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You Might Be Interested In

Companies Improve their Supply Chains with Artificial Intelligence

3 Mar, 2022

Many large enterprises use one form or another of a supply chain application to help manage their supply chains. Supply …

Read more

What’s In Store for the Future for Master Data Management (MDM)?

29 Sep, 2018

Master Data Management (MDM) has been around for a long time, and many people like myself, have been involved in …

Read more

Smart Data: 3 Reasons it’s the Future of FinTech

15 Jul, 2016

Despite these advances, the industry continues to lag behind, slow to incorporate new technology into their business practices. But there …

Read more

Do You Want to Share Your Story?

Bring your insights on Data, Visualization, Innovation or Business Agility to our community. Let them learn from your experience.

Get the 3 STEPS

To Drive Analytics Adoption
And manage change

3-steps-to-drive-analytics-adoption

Get Access to Event Discounts

Switch your 7wData account from Subscriber to Event Discount Member by clicking the button below and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Get Access to Event Discounts

Create a 7wData account and get access to event discounts. Learn & Grow together with us in a more profitable way!

Don't miss Out!

Stay in touch and receive in depth articles, guides, news & commentary of all things data.