What Is Marketing Data Analytics? Why Your Business Should Embrace It

Let’s face it – collecting and analyzing customer data from diverse channels can be a daunting task. 

When done ineffectively, it can negatively impact decision-making, leading to business failure. 

I’ve witnessed how poor data quality results in a frustrating cycle of missed opportunities and underachieved marketing goals.

21% of respondents experienced marketing budget wastage (1 in 5 dollars lost) because of poor data quality. 

Forrester

That’s where marketing data analytics comes into play. 

However, in my experience, the true power lies in opting for the right marketing technology and tools that can help gain valuable insights for decision-making.

In this post, I will share my experience in marketing data analytics, revealing why you should embrace it for your firm’s growth. 

What Is Marketing Data Analytics?

Marketing data analytics, by definition, refers to incorporating advanced AI and ML-based tools and technology to extract actionable insights from your marketing data. 

Its goal is to help you optimize and strengthen marketing strategies for positive ROI and overall revenue growth. Let’s compare Marketing Data Analytics to the general term of Analytics:

What’s the Difference?

While marketing data analytics is a specialized field focused on analyzing data related to marketing activities, analytics refers to the broader practice of data analysis across various business functions. Both are essential in sales, marketing, and online technology but have different scopes and applications.

Beyond the numbers, marketing data analytics empowers you to make accurate, informed decisions and gain control over unwelcoming marketing surprises.

Here’s what I see.

Leveraging marketing data analytics tools can help comprehend:

• How have your digital marketing strategies fared in the recent past?
• What’s your current marketing performance?
• What’s your growth potential considering the current marketing strategies (prediction)?
• What actionable steps can scale your marketing game while ensuring revenue growth?
• What marketing areas should you focus on the most?

This can help you build a strategic digital marketing plan, boosting your overall revenue.

No wonder firms are pivoting towards this data-driven approach for their operations. 

Almost all organizations and employees will leverage data-driven tools by 2025, to create differentiated customer experiences.

McKinsey

Top Reasons to Embrace Marketing Data Analytics

Let’s explore the key reasons why you must embrace marketing data analytics.

Reason 1: Gain In-Depth Insights into the Target Market

Understanding your target market’s needs, pain points, and preferences can be a game-changer. 

66% of customers expect the firm to understand their needs and choices.

Salesforce

No wonder, even top-notch firms like Google are focusing on building a data-driven culture. 

The leading SaaS platform insistently leverages tools and tech to understand data, make customer-focused decisions, incorporate customer feedback into solutions, and consistently iterate products that people not only use, but genuinely love. 

Even from my experience as an entrepreneur, I can confidently say that investing in marketing data analytics tools can make your journey hassle-free.

Insights like ever-evolving expectations, trends, and customer behaviors will help you deliver unparalleled value and strengthen customer acquisition.

Let me quote another example here, as I find the success story of Swiftype quite inspiring.

Over 90% of the people that visit the help center find the information they’re looking for without contacting us, which means the search and browse paths are highly effective.

Deanna Horton, Content Manager, SurveyMonkey

This B2B SaaS brand invested in data analytics to shape its content marketing strategy. 

Leveraging target market data helped them discover the exact type of content that resonated the most with their target audience. 

This approach has helped them build engaging, relevant, personalized content tailored to the target market’s needs. 

The result? Enhanced user engagement and traffic on their website.

Reason 2: Fine-Tune Your Marketing Campaigns

The going-with-your-gut approach for decision-making might seem appropriate, but factual insights and data are all you need. 

Here’s a harsh fact: guesswork and instinctual decisions cannot yield positive marketing outcomes in the long term. 

No wonder most marketing experts worldwide emphasize and encourage marketers and businesses to leverage tech. 

Here’s what I see.

Data analytics can help you understand your past data and current digital marketing trends and analyze what resonates with the audience.

It can empower you to analyze past campaigns and reveal the reasons behind successful and failed strategies. Besides, this gives you room to comprehend what needs to be done. 

This can prove vital in gauging the current market situation in real time and gaining actionable recommendations on what will work for your target audience.

My SaaS venture, Revlitix, is proof of it.

Predictive marketing data analytics technology empowered our marketing team to track and analyze historical and current customer data. It helped us build a powerful marketing strategy that worked wonders. Besides, the prescriptive analytics recommendations empowered us to take the next-best actions (NBAs).

The outcome? Within three months, our customer engagement surged by an exceptional 45%, surpassing our initial target (which was 20% – you read that right!)

So, go ahead and deploy a data analytics tool for your marketing. It can prove central to your success too.

Reason 3: Provide Exemplary Customer Experience (CX)

A positive customer experience is undeniably the gateway to outshining competitors. It can take your business to greater heights while boosting your revenue growth. 

SaaS firms with an annual revenue of $1 billion can expect an average increased revenue of $700 million within three years of committing to enhancing customer experience.

Tempkin Group

That’s nearly a staggering 70% increase in overall revenue within 36 months!

Here’s how marketing data analytics can prove instrumental in your endeavors.

It can help you –

• Understand customer perception of your services and products.
• Connect to them and share a prompt and accurate response to their queries.
• Create personalized marketing strategies for improved customer retention and high revenue stream. 
• Maintaining brand voice across channels eliminates bottlenecks, building a solid omnichannel experience. This is crucial to strengthening customer relationships.

HubSpot’s success stands as a testament to this. This SaaS company, serving B2B audiences, uses marketing data analytics tools to gain all the mentioned insights and create strategies to attract and retain customers. Besides, its consistent omnichannel presence has played a massive role in retaining customers.

Notice their website’s content and X account.

Website

X

If you observe closely, they ensure the brand voice is consistent despite the different content formats on distinct channels.

No wonder they are counted among the leading SaaS players. 

88% of respondent organizations are investing in CX.

Deloitte

Having said that, you will be shocked to hear:

Over 50% of senior marketing leaders are dissatisfied with the outcomes of marketing analytics investments. 

Gartner

The reason is poor-quality marketing data analytics tools that lack advanced features.

So, here’s my advice – choose an advanced marketing data analytics platform with AI and automation features. This can streamline your marketing journey, allowing your team to focus on what matters the most.

Summing Up

Marketing data analytics is a must-have tool in your tech stack. Not leveraging its capabilities can be a massive loss in today’s competitive landscape. I am sure you would draw inspiration from the instances I shared when embarking on your marketing journey.  

Let me know if you have any questions about marketing data analytics. I would be more than happy to help!