In the mid-2020s, keeping an eye on the advertising world usually means looking at a smartphone or a computer screen. These days, more and more content is created for an online audience. Videos are produced in a style and at a length that catches attention on social media, be it Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Ads and articles are specifically designed to break through online noise and reach the devices of customers and constituents who need to see them. And data drives it all.
Advertisers who impress and convert customers today leverage data insights to guide their campaigns, enhance their creatives, and ensure their success. Here’s what you need to know to join them.
In the distant past, marketing campaigns were founded on things like gut feelings about trends, rudimentary customer observation, and demographic assumptions.
Over the years, market and trend data have become more available and sophisticated. Widespread internet use has given companies access to unprecedented data about customer behavior, online and offline. Now, with the right platforms, marketers can crunch this data into insights on which they can base actions.
Today's most innovative and award-winning campaigns often tout data as central to their success. CPG conglomerate Unilever, for instance, found that shifting to data-driven marketing inspired a “significant step up” in marketing effectiveness.
Here are some benefits marketers can anticipate from a data-driven strategy.
Talking to the right audience: Even the best marketing materials receive limited clickthroughs when spammed to an email list of unengaged leads. Today, targeting is crucial. Marketers use data about customer interactions with a brand’s website, spending habits on and offline, interests, and more to target prospects likely to engage. CRM software enables segment-specific messaging, and more sophisticated data techniques bring marketers closer to truly personalized communications.
Improving ROI: Marketing to a targeted audience means you don’t waste resources on uninterested customers; those you reach are more likely to convert. That’s a double ROI advantage: a lower investment with a higher return.
Enhancing Creativity: At the cutting edge of advertising, data science is fueling imaginations to create incredibly impressive and effective advertising, such as Nescafé and Google’s Unskippable Labs’ hyper-personalized video campaign. In it, advertisers created a short-form video of a Rube Goldberg machine-activated coffee maker, then used data to identify lifestyle-based segments likely to use the product, e.g., “fashionista” and “travel enthusiast.” The team created variant videos for each segment, using different color palettes and machine characteristics. Each successfully provoked outstanding engagement from its target segment.
Now let’s explore where all this data comes from.
First-party data: When a customer interacts with a brand directly, the company collects first-party data (e.g., website visits, transactions, etc.).
Third-party data: Third-party data is sold by firms that collect, aggregate, analyze, and sell data about customer behavior, which advertisers can use to target campaigns more effectively.
Social media and search analytics: Today, everyone is on social media and using search engines, and the data this behavior generates is critical for data-driven advertising.
So, how can you supercharge your campaigns with data? The following steps can guide your approach:
Implement the right tools: Marketing platforms like HubSpot and analytics platforms like Google Analytics are industry standards for executing and honing data-driven advertising campaigns.
Employ data-savvy staff: Once data is pouring in, you need skilled marketers to make the most of those insights.
A/B test and iterate: Send out different iterations of your messaging, see who resonates with it, quantify your success with advertising analytics-based KPIs, and repeat.
As you pursue a data-driven strategy, though, there are some important things to keep in mind.
Privacy is a serious business: Privacy is always a concern for marketers using data. Getting too personal can creep out customers and drive them off.
Best practices for data storage and use can help prevent brand-damaging privacy mishaps. Europe’s data protection legislation, the Global Data Protection Rule (GDPR), standardizes how businesses can legally and ethically collect and use data in the EU. Aligning your data use with GDPR can help ensure you don’t violate a customer’s trust, wherever you are.
Overcoming data overload: A mountain of data can create an unworkable avalanche of insights. The solution? Data-savvy staff who understand your campaigns’ purpose can separate what’s useful from the pile.
Data-driven insights help you know who to contact and how to message. They can streamline your budget, improve your ROI, and even boost your creativity. Data is an advertiser’s best friend—if you know how to use it.
Every business should adopt a data-forward approach, and every marketer should be competent and confident in using data tools as the foundation for campaigns. Competing in advertising today means competing for customer attention. To capture attention in the digital world, you have to know data!
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