This time of year is known for its sugary treats, but marketers are more concerned with finding the sweet spot of balancing data quality and privacy.

Data quality has taken a hit—in 2020 alone OMI purged over 6 million businesses and 13 million contacts (10%) from our database to address rapid data decay from the pandemic and Great Resignation. And challenges with quality have been exacerbated by a revolving door of privacy restrictions. In turn, marketers are looking to new and more sources for their data needs.

Salesforce’s eighth annual “State of Marketing” report indicates the number of customer data sources has increased significantly. In 2021, companies averaged 10 different sources for customer data, but in 2022 the number increased to 15. Salesforce projects the figure to reach upwards of 18 different sources by the end of 2023. Marketers are using multiple data sources to increase both reach and quality, as omnichannel campaigns need data that gives a full picture of each prospect. 

Looking at the type of data marketers are using, the report showed third-party data and anonymized data running mid-pack—below transactional data / known digital identities and above non-transactional data and offline identities—each being used by 75% of respondents. While tracking cookies are on their way out, third-party data is not dependent on cookies and still one of the best sources, especially for marketers looking to increase sales through new customer acquisition.

I dove into this topic more in my new article for Forbes Agency Council, covering the data quality-privacy sweet spot for marketers and some of the best data solutions that will get brands where they want to be.

You can read the full article here.

Contact me or my team today to learn more about our opted-in data and privacy-focused solutions for your acquisition campaigns. We think you’ll agree that high-quality contact data that follows privacy guidelines is a recipe for sweet success.

Did you know? Over 75 million of OMI’s 100 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.