For 2020: Clean, Personalized, Predictive Data

As 2019 closes, marketers have a year's worth of multichannel customer, campaign and sales information to analyze for 2020 plans. So what are the big data trends that will maximize ROI? Clean, up-to-date, quality data is still the basis for effective marketing. So start by monitoring data for issues such as duplicates, missing information or bad records to figure out how and where they are occurring. Then standardize processes at each data entry point. Next validate the accuracy of data via data tools or expert data services. Identify and scrub duplicates. Once data is standardized, validated and de-duped, improve its analytic value with third-party data appending. Establish a feedback process to spot and update/purge incorrect information, and communicate standards and processes so all teams understand the value of clean data in segmentation targeting, lead response, customer service, etc. Meanwhile, the 2019 Martech Conference highlighted other trends, such as the role of data in personalization. Expect to see increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for personalization. For example, for more personalized acquisition, ML can recognize if people from certain areas are more likely to respond to a specific offer or which past high-response special offers may resonate in future. When personalization is combined with elimination of data silos and creation of a single customer view across channels, marketing becomes especially powerful. Indeed, data integration and elimination of data silos are key to the growing "agile marketing" trend, which breaks down team silos to focus on high-value projects collectively. Marketers should also boost use of predictive modeling. Why? A study by ClickZ and analytics platform provider Keen found that 58% of marketers using predictive modeling experienced a 10%-25% ROI lift, while another 19% saw more than a 50% uplift. While retroactive campaign data can be very useful, it’s not as good at informing future multichannel directions. Standard data analysis often mistakenly gives most credit to last-click channels such as search or transactional activities. The Keen/ClickZ survey found marketers using predictive modeling boosted results in multiple areas, including better understanding of the target audience (71%), optimizing touchpoints on the customer journey (53%), and improving creative performance (44%). For more detail, see https://www.acculist.com/prep-for-2020-marketing-with-clean-personalized-predictive-data/