Mike Plimsoll, Industry Marketing Director at Adobe talks to theMarketingblog about big data. The piece below takes a new look at the next step in the big data story, speed data. Bringing together examples of the importance of harnessing the power of speed data and the theory behind it
If I told you companies have always produced and consumed large volumes of data about their customers; about their businesses, and about their ideas you probably wouldn’t be surprised. Neither would you be shocked if I said data volumes are growing exponentially – it’s been well documented.
But if I quantified it and said in 2010 the world broke the one zettabyte of data barrier in the digital universe, but by 2020 IDC predicts we will have created 35 zettabytes – this unprecedented growth gives you a background and context that helps you understand why everyone’s talking about Big Data. The Adobe Marketing Cloud
Adobe alone processes and analyses 1.5 trillion transactions on behalf of its customers every quarter. And it’s clear that data is only going to get bigger, posing both a challenge and an opportunity for companies. The challenge is to make sense of what to capture, when, how and where to store it. The opportunity comes from the advantages to be gained by accessing, integrating and analysing the data to extract business insights that help drive revenues and growth.
But, nowadays, that opportunity only exists for marketers if ‘Big Data’ is turned into ‘Speed Data’. We can no longer wait for number crunchers to come back days or even weeks later with an insight on whether a campaign worked or didn’t work, it’s too late then to make any changes. The key to unlocking the latent power of such a huge amount of intelligence and granular data is the ability to act on it in real-time, taking into account changing customer needs and preferences.
Speed is of the essence
As we all know, customer behaviour, if analysed correctly, can be used to deliver more targeted and contextually relevant advertising and marketing content. We also know that this content is far more likely to lead to conversion if served at the right time to the right person by delivering a better customer experience. But in today’s fast moving world, this window of opportunity only exists for a short period of time. Any delay for that behavioural data to be analysed and actioned renders it useless. Speed is of the essence.
For example, if I search for a flight to New York in two weeks’ time, serving me up car hire or hotel offers at the same time is good. In one month’s time, after my booking date, targeting me with further offers for flights to New York, when I have most likely been and returned, is useless, maybe even irritating.
The delays in getting access to data have, in the past, been down to the challenge of bringing it together from previously siloed areas of a business to create a single customer view. Additionally, data was the domain of a select group of specialists that ‘crunched’ numbers. The marketing department had to wait to get the insight before it could even begin to react and create a campaign.
However, the technology now exists to bring all this data together into one place to be analysed and acted upon. Today, with the right tools, tracking a customer journey across multiple channels, both off and on-line, and bringing this information into a single customer view is much simpler to do. Having mentioned the importance of speed, it can be done in real-time so the insight gained can be actioned in real-time too, and by virtually anyone in the business – without specialist analytical skills. What we are witnessing is the democratisation of Big Data.
How does this speedy single view of a customer work in real life? Let’s take the example of someone moving house. That person will most likely visit the bank to change their home address, something that has to be done at a physical branch. If a marketer has this data in real-time they can ensure that when the customer next goes online and logs into their bank account, they are served offers for home and buildings insurance. Previously these two customer touchpoints, on and offline, may have worked as separate streams of data and by the time they were brought together the cross sell/up sell opportunity is lost. This one view approach to the customer is absolutely invaluable to marketers to give them the information to act quickly and innovatively with tailored insight.
We know how important this is at Adobe and it’s what we’ve been working to achieve with our Marketing Cloud. The Adobe Marketing Cloud brings previously disparate data sets together to create this single view of the customer, giving the marketing team the information to be able to serve up relevant content at exactly the right time.
We’ve focused on ensuring we can give marketers both speed and accuracy with complete set of analytics, social, advertising, targeting and web experience management solutions along with a real-time dashboard to provide fast, easy access to critical insights. This data democratisation – i.e. making it available to more people within the business – means companies can make the most of the opportunities Big Data provides by matching insight with customer needs and preferences.
We’ve been working with several customers on Big Data projects and one company that has benefited from working with us is The Economist. The publication is arguably one of the most successful quality titles in the world to make the transition from being solely print based to having a strong digital proposition.
With a wealth of content across multiple channels the company wanted to gain a deeper understanding of website metrics in order to monetise audiences across its properties, content areas, and platforms. It also wanted an expanded view of its cross-platform audiences and how they interact with properties and content. Finally, it wanted to uncover revenue opportunities that could impact or validate strategic business decisions.
The Economist
The results have been impressive. Besides streamlining a number of business processes, the Economist has been able to identify highly engaged user segments and successfully develop new sponsorship and advertising opportunities specifically targeted to them. It’s also been able to look back at past trends to gain greater historical perspective which in turn has had led to more accurate predictions of future project revenues. It has also used these insights into audience behaviour to improve the customer experience across all of its channels and it has strengthened engagement by gaining new insights into the impact and activities of customers active on mobile platforms and social media sites.
What the experience of The Economist and many more customers like it tells us is that brands are increasingly changing their focus to highly targeted, highly relevant content based on accurate and timely current insights. And these insights come directly from what marketers can do with Big Data. The key is to be able to act fast in order to make Big Data meaningful to the business.
Michael Plimsoll, Industry Marketing Director, Adobe
Michael is a seasoned innovative marketer focused on driving efficiencies and improved return on investment through the better use of data and analytics. He currently works for Adobe Systems Europe.
Prior to this, he worked at BSkyB where he was responsible for leading and implementing the strategy for optimising the online media channels through in-depth attribution modelling and better insight. He was also responsible for improving BSkyB’s Audience Management capabilities, allowing the business to buy, target and re-target advertising in more efficient ways through the better use of its own data. Michael also oversaw the on-site Test & Learn program, delivering improved conversion rates through not only A/B and Multivariate Testing, but also on-site behavioural targeting.
Michael has also held various client service roles within the creative agencies of Ogilvy and Wunderman Interactive, working on such account as American Express, Microsoft, IBM and BT. Within these roles he oversaw the delivery of successful BTL marketing campaigns for both B2C and B2B.