How do you get the most out of Big Data? Senior level, multi-channel marketers may respond saying that Big Data has huge potential, but any kind of IT infrastructure is extremely costly to implement and requires a complete overhaul of marketing processes.
The Teradata PARTNERS 2012 User Group Conference in Washington in October eliminated any uncertainty surrounding the technical obstacles associated with gathering detailed multi-channel customer data. The five day event underlined the opportunities available for organisations to understand customers in granular detail.
The arrival of technologies that gather individual-level online data, the ability to access and mine unstructured data - e.g. social media - and advanced call centre and voice analysis software, mean that organisations can now amass huge amounts of insight allowing them to market to individual customer requirements.
However, extracting meaningful customer information from the vast streams of Big Data continues to be a challenge for web analysts. Almost instinctively organisations collect large amounts of online data using various tagging systems and web analytic tools. However, forward thinking web analysts and marketers are beginning to appreciate that the skill, and therefore commercial value, comes from being able to understand an individual’s online interactions over time.
One organisation which has grasped the importance of detailed digital big data is Dutch insurer Centraal Beheer Achmea, which is using it to create informed campaign attribution modelling. Digital Web Analysts at Centraal Beheer Achmea believed that there should be a more accurate model other than the ‘last click’ model, to decide where advertising spend is allocated. Through collecting highly detailed, accurate and granular data from the online customer journey, Centraal Beheer Achmea increased their understanding of how customers converted, where the online customer journey started and what customers did in-between. Over time they have developed a complete picture of an individual online customer’s journey.
The result is that Central Beheer Achmea is on target to achieve a minimum of 10% reduction in advertising spend as a result of better insight and raising the overall online conversion rate by 5%. Through extracting insight from digital Big Data to create a successful campaign attribution model, Digital Analysts at Central Beheer Achmea can equip marketers with the ability to prove maximum marketing efficiency and ROI.
Turning Big Data into actionable insight is where the true value lies. No matter how well data can be gathered and analysed, unless the effort actually results in enhanced customer engagement, an improved customer experience and ultimately increased revenue and/or reduced costs, it appears to be a pointless task.
The Teradata PARTNERS 2012 User Group Conference reaffirmed the transition Big Data has made from an IT-focussed term into something that now needs to be understood by the wider business. It is critical that marketers understand the importance Big Data has on driving value for businesses - Big Data should lead to big returns, not huge headaches.
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