How to Succeed with Data-Driven Marketing

Liveramp recently brought their ‘Ramp Up on the Road’ data and analytics conference series down to Austin and I was fortunate to be able to attend and represent all the great work we do here at PMG. There were some fantastic speakers and panels as well as attendees from all sorts of industry leading companies. Topics mostly centered around not just making sure that the right data is collected (which is important), but also making sure that the data you collect is actually being used effectively and that you can draw actionable insights from it.

What makes some brands succeed and others fail?

A particularly interesting discussion contrasted two major beverage brands to illustrate how some seem to be still learning their way while others are taking charge and leading the way.

‘Brand A’ is a niche coffee brand that utilizes a non-targeted, one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing. After a few years of declining sales and profits, they are struggling and unable to devote time or resources to combing through their raw customer data and figuring out how to re-engage with consumers.

‘Brand B’ is a global soft drink company that several years ago devoted a considerable amount of resources into developing the digital infrastructure necessary to not only capture customer data but also organize it in a way that enabled their data analysts to sketch out actual customer models. These insights were then used to create individualized profiles that the media team was able to divide out into audience segments for truly advanced targeting. As a result, this brand has achieved tremendous success and increased profits year over year.  

The lesson was that, while ‘Brand A’ was smart enough to understand how important it is in 2017 to collect as much first party data as possible from their customers, they unfortunately just didn’t know what to do with it all once the vast amount of raw data in front of them.

‘Brand B’ understood that collecting tons and tons of data is utterly meaningless if you don’t have the personnel and technology infrastructure in place to turn the raw data into customer insights and then customer insights into actionable strategy.

This comparison struck me as particularly empowering since PMG also believes in the ‘Brand B’ approach and has invested in an industry leading Data Analytics team that works hand in hand with the Advanced Media Team to deliver exceptional results.