Learning what makes a company successful, and developing practices that encourage that success is every marketing manager’s mission. With this undertaking comes one of marketing’s greatest tools and, ironically, the greatest issue, data analytics in marketing.
Data is what helps marketers understand what consumers want and how well certain marketing tactics are doing. To interpret this data, marketers use different models that help give meaning to the numbers.
Through time, these models have proven to be effective in estimating marketing effectiveness. However, with our ever-changing marketing landscape, these models now have challenges marketers need a resolution for as soon as possible. In fact, more than half of marketers believe their ability to measure marketing performance needs improvement.
With this problem comes a solution that takes the strengths of each existing model and combines them into one view. This will help marketers know their consumers more than ever. It’s called The Unified Marketing Measurement.
Read on to learn about the future of data analytics in marketing and how a new model will change the way marketers do business for good.
What Data Analytics Are Marketers Using Now?
At this time, marketers are primarily using two different models to understand the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. These two marketing analytics models include Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) (also known as Media Mix Modeling) and Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA). Both of these models have helped marketers comprehend data and build effective marketing strategies for many years now. However, each model has its own unique strengths and weaknesses marketers are now noticing and need a solution for.
MMM
For a while now, Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) has been the predominant method for marketing analytics. Marketing Mix Modeling uses aggregate data comprised over several months or several years. Allowing us to estimate the effectiveness of marketing and advertising on sales. Marketing Mix Modeling also includes data such as weather, competitive activity, and overall economic conditions. This macro-level approach helps marketers and analysts by providing a top-down view of all their marketing channels, online and offline.
Although this method is very useful for estimating the impact of marketing strategies, it can be seen as flawed for being too general. This model doesn’t record the individual transactions of consumers, and cannot give marketers a person-level description of who they are.
MTA
In more recent years, Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) has been adopted by many marketers looking for a more granular description of their data. Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) records micro-level data on consumers and gives analysts a more personal view of who their target audience is. It also helps marketers understand the effectiveness of individual marketing touchpoints consumers will interact with on their shopping journeys. Given our marketing landscape and all the opportunities it brings, Multi-Touch attribution is an almost perfect solution for data analytics in marketing during the technological age.
This method, although a great fit for the digital space, is still faulted for its inability to include offline data. Since this method relies primarily on the digital space and recording consumers’ activity along their shopping journey, it fails to incorporate the offline factors that can influence a consumer’s decision.
Unified Marketing Measurement: The Solution
The idea of a Unified Marketing Measurement (UMM) is a relatively new and anticipated method of marketing analytics. Unified Marketing Measurement combines the perspectives of both Marketing Mix Modeling and Multi-Touch Attribution into a singular, cohesive view. Giving marketers a better look at the market. With the person-level data from Multi-Touch Attribution combined with the large, aggregate data from Marketing Mix Modeling, analysts will have more information on consumers and their needs than ever before.
Unified Marketing Measurement is the best solution for tying data from online and offline channels together. Providing marketers with the most complete story of a consumer’s journey. This model can show what both online and offline factors may have influenced a consumer to make their decision. Further assisting marketers to develop practices that keep consumer spending.
Where UMM Is Now
For marketers to be successful in the constantly evolving marketing landscape, they must effectively adjust their approach to marketing analytics. Currently, only a small percentage of marketers have fully integrated both Marketing Mix Modeling and Multi-Touch Attribution. However, with more and more firms developing UMM software to aid companies in digital marketing analytics, and the constantly evolving digital marketing space, that number is sure to grow exponentially.
Key Takeaways
Marketers, analysts, and business professionals alike all face the same challenges when trying to interpret the copious amounts of data we are so lucky to have today. Whether utilizing Marketing Mix Modeling or Multi-Touch Attribution, there is still no way to get the complete picture. We’re still missing a consumer’s journey on offline channels.
Unified Marketing Measurement is the solution to that problem. The ability to take the effectiveness of both models and combine them into one view to provide an aggregate yet granular view of consumer needs is what will elevate the best marketers in our new digital age.
Your next step is to see just how much you know about your customers. Do you know what could be influencing their purchasing decisions when they are not online? Perhaps you have lots of data but nothing personal enough to deliver that personalized content you know your audience will love.
For more digital marketing tips, check out some of our other blogs by the Colibri Digital Marketing Team.
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