News

While there's no question that artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming marketing, there are other significant developments impacting our industry. As the founder and CEO of a performance marketing agency, where data is the foundation of everything we do, we've had a front-row seat to several emerging data trends this year. Here are four of them that are moving the needle for our Fortune 1000 clients:

1. B2B2C/Universal Person Data Movement

The surge in remote work during and since the pandemic accelerated the B2B2C, or "universal person," movement, driven by the blending of our personal and professional lives. In fact, 71% of B2B executives say customers increasingly want B2C-like experiences with fast response times, consistent experiences across multiple channels and availability 24/7. Brands recognize that they must now connect with customers and prospects on both B2C and B2B channels to reach them wherever they are—at work or home—on their preferred channels.

CMOs are learning that audience building requires both B2B and B2C data to accomplish this and connect with prospects at work and home. From my experience, marketers who weave B2B2C data into their omnichannel campaigns gain a more complete view of their prospects, improving audience reach, personalization and campaign results.

2. Build-Your-Own Identity Graphs

The B2B2C movement arrived in tandem with the rise of do-it-yourself identity graphs. Identity graphs are tables or databases that stitch together customer and prospect data with online identifiers to create a single profile for each potential customer. The aim is to give marketers a way to better target and connect with these individual prospects—and market to them more effectively. Today, as more brands amass both B2B and B2C data, they are finding they have the data elements required to build their own in-house identity graphs, thereby sidestepping the need for using costly third-party graphs to fuel improved reach and scale for their campaigns.

Whether a shakeout has arrived or not, change is happening. Brands want to gain more control of their data while filling in any data gaps about their prospects by leaning into personal and professional identifiers.

This year, our agency has witnessed the rise of DIY identity graphs across our customer base of large telecom and e-commerce platform providers, direct mail companies and other agencies. We're seeing that a majority of these companies have either started building their own identity graphs or have shown an interest in doing so, and they are working with third-party partners for assistance in filling those data gaps to get the job done.

3. Fast, Secure And Seamless Integration

According to a report by Ascend2, “The demand for efficient data integration has increased for 93% of firms, 43% significantly.” While data integration is nothing new, it has become more critical with the emergence of AI and ever-increasing market demands for improvements to personalization and digital customer experience.

Making the most of your data while gaining a holistic understanding of your audience and their digital needs hinges upon seamless integration. But making it seamless is complex. Marketers depend upon many data sources, from customer relationship management (CRM) data to cross-channel analytics, real-time analytics, third-party business contact data, telemetry data, intent data and much more.

Brands are very focused this year on building APIs to connect data to popular tools and platforms to activate it instantly, securely and efficiently. It has become more urgent than ever for marketers to know how to do this effectively.

One use case our team is seeing more of this year is the integration of intent data with prospect contact information, enabling marketers to connect with targeted, qualified prospects who have already shown an interest in what their brand offers. By integrating the data across an entire marketing technology stack, brands can apply it to targeted audience campaigns, social campaigns, programmatic display advertising, email acquisition marketing and more. It enables precision targeting at scale and higher-impact omnichannel engagement, translating to better business outcomes.

4. Generational Marketing

As Gen Z professionals increasingly enter the workforce and millennials move into leadership roles, B2B decision-making power is shifting. In fact, 71% of today’s B2B buyers are millennials and Gen Zers, according to Forrester. CMOs must guide their teams in evolving their content and channel selection strategies to address each generation's unique preferences and expectations.

In addition, we're still in the era of B2B buying groups, Forrester reports. Campaigns must be optimized and coordinated to reach all relevant buyers, working to create an agreement for a decision. This necessitates accurate data with firmographic, demographic, social URLs and more to meet buyers where they are with messages that resonate.

CMOs and other senior marketers today are stepping into roles that require them to be not just marketers but also AI experts, data-driven decision-makers and visionary leaders. A futurist mentality is necessary for staying ahead of the curve when it comes to technology, customer needs, data insights and trends and so much more.

The data trends above are top-of-mind for us now, and we highly recommend learning more about them. But stay tuned—it has been another year of change and marketers can expect more transformation ahead.

Paula Chiocchi Forbes Councils Member

Paula Chiocchi is CEO of Outward Media, Inc., a provider of 145MM B2BC contacts, with email and digital IDs, that drive business growth.