Unlike the name Customer Data Platform suggests, it is not “just” about customer data

Marketing data is the lifeblood of modern marketing and marketers are hungry to work in a more data-driven way. This explains how a relatively new type of MarTech, the CDP, is becoming so popular. But unlike the name Customer Data Platform suggests, it is not “just” about customer data. The recent Data Culture Report from Lexer finds that only a fraction of brands feel they are capitalizing on the full potential of their data. Some 80% of companies are investing in specific customer data projects to fill that gap. High performers show it is important to do more in-house and have better access to data and insights. A Customer Data Platform lets you bring together and centralize data so you can use it for, for instance, analytics and real-time…

While data-driven marketing is certainly an invaluable tool in any marketer’s arsenal, without any creativity, it’s just more numbers.

In this article, Rik talks about the data overload happening in the marketing community. He offers tips and tools to marketing professionals in bringing creativity back to the forefront and the positive results this can lead to in their marketing efforts.

If your organization has become over-reliant on data, these tips can infuse some creativity into your ranks.

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Technology has provided marketers with unprecedented opportunities to gather data on the wants, needs, and behaviors of consumers — and on a very micro level, at that. So it only stands to reason that many brands would take a much more data-driven approach to marketing.

But overreliance on data can blindside…

Everything you need to know about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the use of big data what the future holds for Facebook

Each year, targeting technologies get increasingly sophisticated. Machine Learning has turned simple algorithms into sophisticated Big Data which helps companies precisely focus specific messages at apt times to appropriate audiences Many rely on extrapolating data from Silicon Valley giants to target users with ads across platforms. Some companies openly market stockpiles of raw data to third parties. Companies like Nielsen, Comscore, Xaxis, Rocketfuel, and an array of anonymous data brokers nestle on top of a summit of hoard of consumer information. Reportedly much of this data has been exploited to power political campaigns around the world. From a consumer perspective, the mushrooming sector, with its ever-blooming spores of bits and bytes of data on all of us of has remained mostly unregulated. The wider public has for years,…

Why do your Facebook, Google Analytics, AdWords and Bing display entirely different numbers? It’s called Data discrepancies

Data discrepancies are very common, and misunderstanding them will lead you to the wrong conclusions. But there’s good news: we've finally solved them to give you simple explanations about each discrepancy type and how to deal with it. Keep reading and learn how to identify data-discrepancies and how to get the correct numbers. [si_guide_block id="71497" title="Download FREE Resource – Google Analytics fast start- 10 mistakes to avoid" description="The top 10 set-up and usage mistakes to avoid when using Google Analytics."/] Your marketing efforts and budgets eventually all lead to one thing - your company’s goals. You want to be on top of each new sign-up, subscriber or visitor, and every bit counts. The problems arise when your different marketing or analytics tools each report a different number of conversions and visitors. Numbers from Facebook, Google…

Interview: Itamar Ben Hemo, CEO of Rivery

One of the many recurring questions we get asked at Smart Insights and in our member's Facebook group is, is there one platform that tracks and manages all ads and content across various distribution channels? Monitoring performance of campaigns all in one place is a burning desire for many marketers - the idea being that it's much simpler than having separate tools. Our essential digital marketing tools wheel highlights the different options available across the Smart Insights RACE framework to help you review where you could make better use of these tools across the customer lifecycle. A new data consolidation platform, Rivery, has launched a tool that collects data from all sources, including advertising, social, Google, email, internal data etc.) so it can then be streamlined and manipulated from a single source. We spoke to CEO…

More and more businesses are embracing the concept of big data versus treating it like just another buzz-phrase.

Once heralded as “the next big thing,” adoption of big data analytics is at an all-time high with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. With big data and business analytics software projected to reach nearly $200 billion in revenue by 2019, it's clear that the business world's decision to bet on data has paid off so far. So, what's the catalyst for such rapid adoption in the first place? After all, not all data is created equal and the need for massive numbers varies from company to company. According to a 2017 big data survey conducted by NewVantage, the top reasons for big data initiatives include decreasing expenses, exploring innovation opportunities and launching new products and services: Although big data…

Be proactive not reactive: Five simple steps to protect your brand reputation from future cyber attacks

On Friday 12th May, a global coordinated ransomware 'attack' began, affecting thousands of large and small private and public sector businesses. The attacks most high-profile victim, the NHS, suffered incredibly by way of operational business functionality, but also by way of business reputation. Cybersecurity firm Secarma are warning businesses, large and small, that prevention is key to avoiding future attacks, and according to research from the Kaspersky Lab, 90% of businesses underestimate the threat of malware to their business continuity and brand reputation. A cyber attack on a business can be hugely detrimental to the longevity of that business. According to IBM, small and mid-sized organisations are hit by 62% of all cyber-attacks, and unfortunately, the US' National Cyber Security Alliance reported that 60% of small businesses are unable to sustain their…

Chart of the day: Data, analytics, and insight are critical to business success. Insight and data are empowering growth.

Marketers understand the important of data and businesses understand how data drives growth. The research by Mediasense, in association with Ipsos MORI and ISBA, asked respondents what factors they thought would be critical to business success in 2020. Almost 8 in 10 (78%) thought data, analytics, and insight were the most critical factor. Content marketing was down compared with 2015 data whilst SEO was found to be one of the least critical factors, but scores for SEO were not as low as Pay per click and community management. Source: Media2020 report  Sample: 250+ senior marketers Recommended resource: …

How to avoid the costly data analysis mistakes that most marketers make

If you're a digital marketer, you can't failed to have noticed—there’s been a seismic data shift over the last several years that encourages empirical marketing based on data and analytics. The sentiment underlying this shift seems to be that if you think your art and copy are good, then you better have the stats to prove it. This evidence-based approach is heartening in many ways, but many people are still learning how to apply its principles. Just because you have the numbers, doesn’t mean you know how to apply them. In this short article, I want to look at three 'boneheaded' ways that people are looking at their data and offer some suggestions to help put your data analysis back on track.

You’re Not Doing It At All

Sadly, a lot of people are in this category. But I get it. Again, the…

Chart of the day: Poor quality data is the reason for bad digital marketing campaign planning

Over 4 in 10 (43%) respondents to a survey by ExchangeWire Research and Xaxis said lack of quality data was the main reason for not using audience data when campaign planning for digital media. Time was also a major obstacle, whilst small data sets, narrowing campaign audience too much and a lack of there being a central data repository were all big factors. Marketers are finding that too much targeting is narrowing the audience down too much. Privacy concerns were not a major issue when it comes to data use for digital campaigns. Source: ExchangeWire Research/ Xaxis Sample: 616 digital marketing professionals across Europe; data collected from November 2016 to January 2017 Recommended Resource: Marketing Campaign Planning Toolkit …