You have enough data. You need a Data Plan. 

Marketers and advertisers have more than enough data for evidence-based advertising.
A first-party data plan will help you put it to work!

If you and your team keep saying things like ….
“We should be making better use of our data for better advertising results but …” 
“It would be great to get into more advanced, data-led advertising activities but …”
“We have to level up our use of martech and adtech but …”

It’s time to consider: What is the “but” that is holding you back?

• You don’t think you have enough data? You do.
• You don’t think you have the right data? It’s there – you just have to know how to access it. 
• You feel like your data’s a mess and you’re not really sure what you have? That’s ok.
• You haven’t invested much in data management and martech tools and you’re still working with spreadsheets? You are not alone. 
• You feel like you have gaps in your data? That’s fixable. 

“If you can’t use your data, it’s worthless. If you don’t use your data, you’re missing opportunities. ”

– Someone super smart

The truth is, you and your data are ready to work with advertising services and media buying partners that focus on insight-driven, evidence-based advertising. 

What you need is a First-Party Data Plan. Here’s why. 

1. The way you leverage your data won’t improve without a plan of action. 
   Most companies’ data is largely unstructured. It is stored within a variety of platforms, cloud services, applications and storage solutions, and dispersed across networks. If you don’t know exactly what data you have, where it is and how to access it, you’re not alone. 
   
   To make better use of your data to inform advertising investment, you can’t rely on old strategy. You can’t improve by following the same analytics roadmap you used before. Not without reassessment, anyway.
   
   You need a fresh first-party data plan. Map out how you are going to access, capture, create, test, analyse and learn from available data. Intentionally use data to measure and improve advertising performance.
   
   
2. You have more data than you know what to do with.
   You need a plan to assess – or audit – all the data you have and all the data you should have. That’s how you can gain control of your data situation.
   
   (Don’t worry – we’ve written an article on how to approach a data audit.)
   
   
3. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find out during the data planning process.
   This exercise will help you access data you didn’t even know was available to you. It will make you consider your data in new ways. It will help you more and different questions of your data.  
   
   Therefore, to make your data assessment and planning even more revelatory, involve partners from outside your organisation. Get help from people who know how to use data well, specifically to inform better advertising and media-buying decisions.
   
   Draw on assistance from advisers who can help build bridges between the marketing team and the IT and data teams. Get their help to modernise how you are using the data and technology solutions available to you. 
   
   Their experience yet unbiased, external perspective can instigate innovative thinking. They will sidestep preconceived notions about what has been deemed impossible or impractical.
   
   
4. Better use of first-party data for better marketing and advertising decisions can impact the bottom line
   Here are some practical examples of how data-informed marketing strategies can impact the bottom line: 
   
   • Improved Call Handling: A call centre or sales team can use predictive analytics to prioritize and route calls.
     
   • Smart Pricing Strategies: Discounts and price breaks can help reach sales targets, but create next year’s churn problem. Analysing pricing, sales, acquisition, and churn data can identify whether discounts boost profits or lead to customer loss. An evidence-based plan helps connect the dots, allowing businesses to develop acquisition strategies that minimise churn.
     
   • Strategic Market Insights: Market data analysis helped our client identify a holiday month where their overall category size was smaller. The competition consistently operated at reduced capacity during this holiday period. Planning ahead, our client increased staffing and outspent competitors during that period. They won their share of category, made the overall category bigger that month, and had their best month ever.
     
   • Cashflow Management: Service-based businesses can enhance cashflow by tracking billings for clients or projects with high profitability potential. With a data plan, they can foresee highs and lows based on client onboarding and project types and proactively manage cashflow.
     
     
5. Data is Good. Insights are Better.
   If you can’t use your data, it’s worthless. If you don’t use your data, you’re missing opportunities. 
   
   If you find interesting information in your data, that’s only a step in the right direction. 
   
   You need more than data, more than reports and more than information; you need insights. Actually, you need actionable insights. There’s a difference. 
   
   Here’s an example: 
   • Information: Search is the most responsive channel for leads
   • Insight: When you spend less on search and re-allocate that budget to other media channels, leads go down but sales go up.
   • Actionable insight: The point of diminishing return for monthly search investment for maximising sales is $X.
     

Marketing and advertising strategy can impact the bottom line and contribute value that will be recognised by business leaders. As long as it uses analytics with skill and intention to derive actionable insights and relevant measurements.

What will get you there?

• Follow an evidence-based advertising approach
• Develop an intentional first-party data plan
• Align marketing and advertising strategy with business objectives and drivers of shareholder value

Contact us to find out how we can help, from data audit to data access, integration and advanced analytics through to evidence-based advertising strategies.