Survey Says Many Businesses Aren't Utilizing Behavioral Data

Digital marketing company Razorfish recently conducted a study regarding the use of behavior data by marketers. After surveying 685 C-suite executives, they found that 76 percent of marketers don't apply behavior data in neither segmentation analysis nor targeting. As intertwined with big data as social media and technology is, such a large percentage came as a bit of a shock.

However, CEO of Razorfish, Pete Stein, says the reasons for this result are twofold. First, problem with many digital marketing teams today is that many of them use tools, technology, and processes that were established 20 years previous to pull in customers. In short, many marketers may be up to date with the technology aspect of marketing, but they still use outdated techniques.

With the advancements in technology has come a revival of marketing techniques – such as hashtags, trending topics, crowdsourcing, physical business check-ins on mobile devices, and more. Without fully understanding these marketing methods and taking advantage of their incredibly popular uses, businesses can quickly fall behind.

"Secondly,” said Stein, “there’s been exponential growth in the availability of behavioral data. There’s been a lot of talk and investment in the past few years on the importance of data and analytics, but many companies are struggling to translate this data, with technology and skills, into better data-led customer-facing experiences. We see this gap closing rapidly because of the proliferation of scalable data management platforms and advanced near-real-time segmentation technology."

Having someone aboard your team who knows how to analyze big data may seem like a no brainer, but some companies are finding it hard to shell out the spending on such a person. Continuously accruing big data will simply become a waste of time and efforts if there is no company knowledge on how to properly utilize it.

Other findings by Razorfish’s study also included:

• Fifty-eight percent of businesses believed they had solid skills with focusing experiences to segmented groups
• Thirty-eight percent believed themselves able to target prospective customers versus reoccurring customers
• Thirteen percent claimed that their businesses currently push segmented experiences, and they measuring results
• But under 5 percent said they are handling experiences for customers who are “always-on”

Stein commented that, especially in regards to the first two points, the study "makes it clear there's a disconnect between [audience] segmentation development and execution."

"Regardless of channel type, there is a huge difference between spending money on speaking to someone who is never going to buy your product or service versus investing in speaking to someone who is likely to convert or influence other converters," he said. "But you can’t know the difference between these two audiences without data. Knowing who you are reaching and how they respond to different tactics helps optimize marketing spend."

Source: https://www.adweek.com/news/technology/76-marketing-execs-say-they-dont-target-behavioral-data-156408

Image: by Duncan Hull https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/9756073295/