The role of data in marketing automation

More and more companies are seeing the benefits of marketing automation. Data-driven decision-making plays an increasingly important role in this. Four clear pillars can be identified: personalization, predictive analytics, real-time data and cross-channel integration. In this blog, Sebastiaan de Ruiter zooms in on these four pillars. In doing so, he certainly doesn't forget to pay attention to the common thread running through it all: privacy and data protection. Because as great as the power of data is, you have to make sure that its use is ethical and legal.

Growing focus on marketing automation

This year's flying start confirms what we have seen before: the demand for marketing automation tools is growing rapidly. More and more marketers are seeing the benefits of such tooling, such as making processes more efficient and improving customer engagement. A key element in this trend is data-driven decision-making. We see that marketing automation allows marketers to do more and more with data from - potential - customers and website visitors. For example, this data can be used to optimize automated marketing campaigns and improve target group segmentation, many times better and faster than we as humans could. Four pillars can be distinguished here.

Personalization

An important aspect of marketing automation is acting on the behavior you see based on data. You can't analyze everything on your own and draw conclusions from that; you need tooling to analyze statistics for that. With the right marketingautomation tools, you can apply data-driven personalization and create personalized content faster, such as specific offers based on purchase history and website behavior.

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics is also an important aspect of marketing automation. With advanced analytical tools, you can predict which products or services customers would like to buy in the future. This helps you as an organization better tailor your offerings to customer needs. Using machine learning algorithms, you can analyze the buying behavior of - potential - customers and website visitors and discover patterns and trends. This allows you to make recommendations for other products that this person might find interesting. Amazon, for example, uses predictive analytics to make personalized recommendations based on customers' buying behavior and search queries. This allows them to offer the customer a better shopping experience and increase the likelihood that the customer will buy more products.

Real-time data

Real-time data is playing an increasingly important role in marketing automation because it allows you to react immediately to customer behavior and offer relevant marketing campaigns. Real-time data also allows you as a marketer to notice trends and changes in customer behavior more quickly and respond accordingly.

Cross-channel integration

When using data, it is important to remember that cross-channel integration is essential. Not everything happens on one channel. For example, customers may call, email, buy online and also visit a physical store. Therefore, it is important to bring together consistency in your analytics capability across channels. If you only analyze a potential customer's behavior on the e-mail channel and he has just unsubscribed from the newsletter, you might think there is no more interest. But it could very well be that this person does show loyalty on another channel, such as by making a purchase in your store. One does not exclude the other.

The common thread: privacy

Last but not least: privacy and data protection. Whatever you do with the data collected, it is important to know how you got the data and whether you are allowed to use it. Only use data for which you have received explicit permission. Make sure the data you use for marketing purposes is collected, stored and used in a safe and responsible way.

Want to know more about our solutions?

Then request a no-obligation demo of our Brand Management solutions. Would you like to talk further about the benefits of marketing automation for your organization? Of course, that too is always possible! Give a call to (0)20 820 83 82 or email to info@comrads.nl. We would love to get to know you.