Are you data-driven or insight-driven?

According to 43% of CMOs, marketing technology, data, and analytics are their top priorities (Statista). The Gretel team belongs to the 43% who believe that data analysis is essential for a company to develop or accomplish its goals. That's why we ask you: are you data-driven or insights-driven? And yes, you can't be both!

First, let's talk about data in marketing

If we want to move from data-driven to insight-driven, we first need to understand what data-driven implies, so here we go!

Let’s take a look at the fundamentals: Data in marketing is any quantifiable information resulting from our marketing campaigns or external sources: let’s say they are our numbers, stats, and figures. Very broad, isn't it? However, understanding data in the marketing industry is one of the most crucial aspects of our job 🎯 (whether we like it or not!). 

Data itself does not tell us anything. They are just numbers, really. It doesn’t matter whether the information comes from private data that we have obtained from internal tools, public data that we have gathered from external sources, or data from our own analysis. To make this data valuable, we need to transform these figures into insights for our business. 

So, what do we do with the data to make it valuable? We must engage in the analysis of this data, a process known as insights-driven marketing. Whether you are aware of it or not, most of us are really used to it and even engage in it, but we cannot do it right because we lack the time to properly analyze it.

For those, probably a tiny minority, who still wonder why we should turn our data into insights, according to McKinsey research, marketers who used data-driven campaigns saw a return on investment (ROI) over 5 times greater than the marketing budget used to launch the campaigns. They also discovered that using a data-driven marketing strategy is essential for success in the contemporary economy, with 64% of marketing executives polled expressing "strong agreement" with this statement.

64% does not sound so shocking, indeed, but we will keep focusing on the first sentence. The possibility of having an increase in ROI with these magnitudes should always be taken into account, right? It almost sounds too good to be true.

What does being insight-driven mean? Basically, it means that we need to use our data, learn from campaigns, and apply the right insights and decisions to our future campaigns. 

Have you ever run a campaign based on your “gut” feelings? It's a bit scary, isn't it? 👻 Lowering the budget of a Google Ads campaign because you have the “gut” that it’s not working isn't a strong reason, but doing so because it is generating 50% of unqualified leads might be a more compelling argument, right?

"Imposter syndrome" is a common feeling among marketing managers and among marketing professionals in general because we frequently have to make important, timely decisions for the business without having the right information (check this webinar for tips to solve this feeling).

This is not a matter of quantity, but rather finding what you need.

How to become insight-driven with your data. ⚙️

As we were saying, we need to convert marketing data into valuable insights, but the volume of data we manage and the number of factors that can affect our decisions can overwhelm us as our team members and campaigns expand.

A lot of companies apply what's called the “80/20 rule”: they spend 80% of the time just finding valuable data, cleaning and organizing it, and then only leave 20% to analyze it. 

We need to reverse this rule and start finding a way to dedicate time to analyzing our data, not just looking for it.

Data is just a tool, and we need to analyze it to gain the right understanding to support our decisions and use it correctly. Kapiche state, "only 17% of businesses have a tool to properly integrate insights across their whole company. Even for companies that do have the tools to properly interpret data, 78% of them struggle to know the right way to do so".

So how to convert this data into insights?

• 📊 Use dashboards from your tools: this is what most of us do, access each tool (Google Analytics, Meta, Hubspot, etc.) and create specific dashboards that allow us to understand what is happening. Be careful, a lot of tools will not bring you insights from this data, only compile it, so you have it organized. 
• 🔨 Use specific analysis tools: Improvado, Supermetrics, or Funnel.io are marketing analytics platforms that compile all your information from different platforms into visual dashboards, allowing you to have all your data in one place.
• ⚙️ Use marketing insights tools: here we only know Gretel, but some other tools are starting to work on this. It is a good complement to tools, like the previous ones mentioned. Gretel informs you in real-time of every anomaly or change, receiving an instant notification when something happens. These are proactive insights, helping you to quickly understand what is happening with your data.

Using marketing insight tools like Gretel can help to detect in real-time every anomaly or change, receiving an instant notification when something happens.

Our tip: Start working with real-time data.

Working with data is the first step. Working with real-time data should be next. It’s hard, but we are here to help! This is not only about having the data to analyze but having the data updated in real-time to know what to do NOW with your actual data. 

Real-time data analysis tools like Gretel or Improvado, Supermetrics, or Funnel.io let you stay informed about the progress of your campaigns. These resources allow us to make better business decisions, not tomorrow, but now, when they need to be done. 

We'll leave you with a few customer quotes from Supermetrics that we think are essential to grasping its significance:

“By analyzing specific insights, you can target your prospects accordingly and move them through the funnel faster. You also have the ability to optimize your marketing campaigns to reach your target audience more effectively. When you understand your customers better, you’re able to sell to them more easily. '' Melanie Bedwell, Ecommerce Manager at OLIPOP.

According to Ross Simmonds, Founder of Foundation Marketing, “Most marketers never turn data into insights because they’re not trained to think critically or qualitatively around how data can actually translate into real human insights.”

“Most marketers also don’t turn data into insights because they rely solely on industry tools to make decisions rather than going into the communities and spaces where their audience is spending time.” Ross Simmonds, Founder, Foundation Marketing.

We encourage you to try these tools to start going a step further with your data, not only being data-driven but being a master of analyzing real-time data and using it for its greatest purpose: to stop feeling like an impostor and be sure of your decisions. 💪