Navigating Data-Driven Marketing in a Privacy-First World

“If you’re early, you’re on time and if you’re on time, you’re late.”

Whether you’re always punctual or known for hitting the “snooze” button, I think we can all agree that as marketers, keeping up with new technology and strategies and adapting to trends on the front end can give you a leg up on the competition.

It’s one of the reasons I keep up with recent marketing surveys and analyst reports. Knowing what other professionals are doing – and finding out what’s working and what’s not -- empowers us to make the best decisions for our business and our customers.

I came across the recent Third Edition Salesforce Marketing Intelligence Report, which shares crucial insights on data, analytics and privacy in today’s economic climate. It especially caught my attention for its focus on how marketers are adapting to a privacy-focused data ecosystem and the role of data in marketing-led growth and customer experiences.

The report says marketers have a “dual mandate,” with the top objectives being how to get new customers and how to improve customer experience. Add in the balancing act of privacy concerns, and it’s clear that marketers in 2022 have their work cut out for themselves. Here are a few of my takeaways on how marketing leaders can navigate the challenges:

1. Data is the foundation of getting new customers and keeping the ones you have (by improving customer experience).

Marketers can use third-party data to grow their customer base through acquisition campaigns. Data is also critical to personalizing customer experiences and building relationships. Nearly 80% of marketers say data quality is key to driving marketing-led growth and improved customer experiences. But gathering that data, preparing it, analyzing it, and using the insights to inform decisions has significant challenges. According to the report, “As the quantity and variety of data continue to increase, and rules and norms around privacy take hold, effective use of data is becoming central to marketing success.”

2. Marketers are changing their approach to data in response to privacy.

Privacy concerns aren’t going away, and in all likelihood, they’ll continue to increase. Most marketers are taking note. The report notes states that 90% of marketers agree that recent data privacy changes have fundamentally shifted how they measure marketing performance, with the past hallmarks, such as email opens, no longer holding the same significance. Additionally, 64% of marketers have revised their approach to customer data collection in response to data privacy changes.

Clearly, today’s marketers are focused on “earning and maintaining trust with customer data,” Salesforce states.

As I wrote in a previous blog, the issue with privacy isn’t that data is being used, but rather the problem is when it is used without permission. OMI’s B2B contact database is one of the largest in the industry AND it uses opted-in data that is obtained with the user’s permission. OMI’s third-party data adheres to privacy guidelines because it’s been acquired with the user’s permission.

3. Timing is everything for data-driven action.

Data has an expiration date, and if you don’t know how to harness its insights in a timely manner, you’ll miss out. For example, when it comes to intent data, speed is crucial to be able to target in-market buyers—before they make the purchase elsewhere. At OMI, we provide more than 14 billion new B2B intent signals to our clients each week. The signals are grouped into buckets by industry and interest level, with additional insights added about the types of departments and contacts most likely to be associated with these buckets.

From there, the data is matched by IP address to the company associated with the searches—and to the potential buyer contacts as well, using our database of more than 18 million companies and 80 million contacts with email. This enables even greater application of the data for use in a variety of channels.

4. Omnichannel has room for improvement.

When it comes to implementing omnichannel strategies, nearly all marketers (98%) say it’s important to have a complete view of cross-channel marketing. But the results show that more than 70% monitor and evaluate the channels separately “rather than in one centralized place.” Siloed data is incomplete data.

Today’s digital-first environment means marketers need to be ready to pivot and adapt as necessary. Marketers need to be aware of privacy issues, but data-driven strategies and maintaining privacy don’t have to be at odds with each other. There are options for high-quality third-party data that offers greater privacy and opted-in user permission. Contact me or my team to learn more about OMI’s opted-in data and how it can drive business and new customer growth.

Did you know? Over 75 million of OMI’s 80 million manager- and professional-level and above contacts are matched to the LiveRamp RampID graph, including 65 million records from our SMB and medical market databases. Contact us today to learn more about building a custom audience.