AI and the Data Quality Wake-Up Call Facing All CMOs

According to McKinsey, marketing personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs, increase revenues by 5-15%, and increase marketing ROI by 10-30%. Personalized experiences continue to be a priority for buyers as well, and that’s why brands need to step up their game.  

Many CMOs are responding through the use of new genAI tools. But here’s the catch: success with AI and personalization is intricately tied to the data fueling these initiatives. A recent ANA article notes that the advantages of AI are contingent upon having clean data; but ironically, ANA also reported that data hygiene ranked “dead last” in a 2023 Ascend2 and Aptitude 8 study asking marketers what they are prioritizing for improvement.

At OMI, data quality is the foundation of our mission – it’s what has differentiated our business since our founding. Before you turn to new AI tools to double down on personalization, we advise you to take a look at your data quality–it may not be as accurate as you think it is.

(For a deep dive into today’s startling data decay conditions, go here.)

To get your data ready for what’s happening now and what’s coming next in modern marketing, here are three proactive strategies you can use: 

Boost Your Personalization Power with B2BC Matching

Today we are seeing a convergence of our personal and business lives. That’s why more brands and marketers want the capability to connect with B2B prospects at work and at home--using business and personal postal addresses for direct mail, and business and personal email addresses to anchor omni-channel marketing. To gain a more complete view of each prospect, they also want visibility into prospects’ social URLs.

This convergence has created a “B2BC” data matching movement, where personal contact data is matched to B2B data to power improved marketing reach and more personalized campaigns. Telecom/wireless is one industry where demand for B2BC matching is high, and a lot of companies in this sector are turning to OMI. Using our cutting edge data matching services, we can deliver high B2BC match rates of upwards of 50% -- well beyond our competitors.

When recently working with a leading global tech company, OMI’s B2BC data outperformed the data provided by the company’s dedicated ad agency by a whopping 50%. Our match rate was 70% to LinkedIn and 42% to Meta -- which is considered exceptional. While a smaller portion of the tech company's budget was spent with OMI, the results using OMI data were significantly better. One key reason for our success was the quality of our data: the tech company noted only a 3% error factor, which data industry insiders would regard as nearly perfect.

Augment With Third-Party Data

Many organizations simply don’t have the database scale and accuracy to fuel effective new customer acquisition campaigns, especially with all the changes caused by the pandemic, layoffs, and more. Third-party data offers volume and breadth, providing you with new contacts who match your ideal customer profile – across parameters such as industry, location, and size of the business, as well as individual roles, job titles, age, gender, and more.

You can also use third-party data to augment your existing database to improve accuracy and enhance your omni-channel personalization efforts with additional data, including social URLs and firmographics, for a more complete view of the prospect.

It's worth noting that at OMI we guarantee 95% email validity for the first 30 days with our B2B database, which includes more than 145 million B2B contacts with email addresses.

Commit to Data Hygiene

Most companies’ marketing contact data comes from multiple sources, including their own customer/prospect database (first-party data) as well as third-party data sources, with varying degrees of quality across channel points.

Contrary to popular belief, if you’re using only first-party data and think that means the quality is high—think again. Whether from database typos or data decay from layoffs or from contacts changing jobs, moving, getting a new email address, phone, etc., it still needs to be maintained and updated regularly. A professional-grade data cleansing service provider like OMI will strengthen the accuracy of the full record and the associated email addresses and social profiles, ensuring your first- and even your third-party database is clean, accurate, and up to date to make your marketing efforts shine.

 

Every CMO needs to be fully aware of the various ways data can positively or negatively impact their programs. Contact our team today for tips on strengthening personalization, AI, and other aspects of your omni-channel campaigns, such as media activation, with modern strategies driven by high-quality data.