2010 has already promised marketers a lot from a digital perspective. For example, people are talking about many exciting things including augmented reality, mobile advertising, ad-exchanges, and social media, but the one topic people seem to shy away from is data. Okay, fair enough, it doesn’t exactly spark reams of excitement – and it probably creates more yawns than it deserves – but if marketers plan to start the New Year with a bang, then data is something that needs to be taken seriously.

Thanks to developments in digital technology, the industry has never been more capable of gathering and using data to its advantage. Therefore we believe marketers should change their perceptions about data and make the most of the benefits it can provide. For example, the right kind of data about customers needs can create and drive extremely powerful and successful marketing campaigns.

With that in mind, if marketers plan to use data effectively this year, there are a few key factors they need to consider as they implement their data management strategy.

The question of data ownership

In today’s hyper-connected world different sets of data are owned by different parts of the marketing eco-system. Agencies usually have access to, and control, the granular campaign data because they’re the ones with direct access to tools (e.g. ad-serving tools) that help to deliver campaigns; whereas marketers tend to have access to platforms that are used to review campaign data (e.g. web analytics platforms).

But where did this divide over data ownership come from? Some believe it’s because marketers may have confused “consumer data” with “campaign data” – with data from platforms like web analytics also getting caught up in the whole process. Combine this with confusion about who should own this data; agencies being slow to offer services like web analytics; and marketers wanting to retain control of their data, it’s no wonder the situation is far from clear.

Management is about integration

Inevitably this traditionally disparate way of doing things must change. Marketers need to work closely with their agencies and share their information by integrating their platforms (usually ad serving and web analytics). This will allow them to create greater campaign insights that simply can’t be sourced from independent sets of data.

By doing this marketers will be able to look at influence from several angles: multi-channel, geo-specific, channel-specific, customer performance (e.g. client-side data, customer preferences, and so on), and campaign-specific influences. And through combining these data sets, all parties will get better more actionable information at their disposal.

Reporting empowers decision making

In order for data integration to really work for marketers what they need is a form of reporting that reports on information from all their technology platforms. Thankfully most of today’s third-party platforms have an API that allows data to be exported from one platform to another. This is important because it makes it easy to seamlessly integrate an insight reporting suite – after all, what good is data management if you cannot put a reporting dashboard in place that provides you with immediate feedback on how your campaigns are doing?

What good is data without action?

Data empowers marketers to make more informed business decisions. By having the right technology and processes in place to own and manage data, businesses and marketers can use information gathered through reporting to design and deliver better products, solutions and services to customers, and ultimately also use the information to deliver better and more targeted marketing campaigns to customers.

Conclusion

While some marketers get caught up in the 2010 industry hype and implement all sorts of new technologies, what they really need to ask themselves first and foremost is whether their data management strategy is set up and in place. If it’s not, they really ought to get it right before considering anything else.