High-quality data empowers marketers to effectively understand and influence shoppers at the right moment, while also demonstrating accountability for their spend. New research from marketing measurement firm Marketing Evolution shows that marketers rely on high-quality data for fueling successful marketing initiatives, but they struggle to achieve it—while 82 percent of organizations place a high priority on refining data quality, 26 percent of marketing campaigns were hurt by substandard data in the last 12 months.
The firm’s new report, Why Marketers Can’t Ignore Data Quality, conducted by Forrester Consulting, evaluates the state of organizations’ marketing/media data quality and the tactics that help marketers promote quality efficiently and effectively.
In the age of empowered customers, competitive advantage hinges on an organization’s ability to harness the data needed to improve customer understanding and engagement. But poor data quality remains marketers’ Achilles heel, hindering insight while draining valuable resources. To improve data quality, the research identifies seven dimensions that best define data quality: timeliness, completeness, consistency, relevance, transparency, accuracy, and representativeness.
Tackling data quality improvements and boosting marketers’ trust in their data is a worthwhile effort
Per study findings, wasted media spend is the highest ranked repercussion of poor data quality (37 percent). A whopping 21 cents of every media dollar spent by organizations in the last year was wasted due to poor data quality, resulting in inaccurate targeting (35 percent) and lost customers (30 percent).
“Data offers today’s marketers an extraordinary advantage and is key for improving customer understanding and engagement,” said Rex Briggs, CEO of Marketing Evolution, in a news release. “But data is only as valuable as the insights it produces, the actions it influences, and the results it fosters. Without the ability to ensure data integrity, marketers are relinquishing their most powerful tool—and a massive competitive advantage.”
Among the study’s additional findings:
- The vast majority of respondents (87 percent) ranked “high-quality data” as important or very important for marketing success
- As much as 32 percent of marketing teams’ time is spent managing data quality, and 26 percent of campaigns in the last year were hurt by poor data quality, on average.
- Firms with above average confidence across the seven quality dimensions cited benefits, including improved customer experiences and customer targeting, faster decision-making, and reduced media spending waste.
Download the full report here.
Earlier in 2019, Marketing Evolution commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct an online survey of 409 US-based midsize and enterprise organizations from retail, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, media and entertainment, automotive, energy, and utility industries, to evaluate their approach to managing marketing/media data quality. The survey fielding took place from April to May 2019.
