How to leverage BI to improve your marketing campaigns
Marketing analytics and business intelligence are two essential strategies that every marketing team should use to improve their campaigns. Without the ability to utilize analytics, your marketing team will be flying blind and won’t be able to make the necessary adjustments to improve your return on investment.
But what role do marketing analytics and business intelligence play in campaign optimization? And how can you make sure that you’re using these tools to their fullest potential?
In this article, we’ll take a look at what marketing analytics and business intelligence are, how they can be used to improve your campaigns, and some best practices for getting the most out of these powerful tools.
A primer on data-driven marketing analytics
It’s no secret that data-driven marketing is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses of all sizes. By leveraging data-driven marketing analytics, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers and their behavior, which can help you create more effective campaigns.
Data-driven marketing analytics is the process of using data to make informed decisions about your marketing campaigns. By analyzing data related to your customers, their behavior, and your campaign results, you can identify trends and patterns that can help you improve your campaigns.
This means that you’re no longer guessing what works and what doesn’t — you have the data to back up your decisions.
There are a few different types of data that you can use for marketing analytics, including:
- Demographic data: This includes information like customer age, gender, location, income, and so on.
- Psychographic data: This includes information about your customers’ lifestyles, interests, and values.
- Behavioral data: This includes information about what actions your customers have taken (or haven’t taken) in response to your marketing campaigns.
- Campaign data: This includes information about your campaign performance, including metrics like reach, engagement, conversion rate, spend, and so on.
All of this data can be used to improve your marketing campaigns by helping you better understand your customers and their needs.
How business intelligence can help improve your marketing campaigns
A business intelligence tool is a set of features and techniques that can be used to help you make better business decisions. BI tools can analyze all kinds of data, including data related to your customers, your business, and your competitors.
By using business intelligence to analyze your data, you can gain insights into your business that you wouldn’t otherwise have. This can help you make more informed decisions about your marketing campaigns, which can lead to improved campaign results.
There are a few different types of BI features that you can use to improve your marketing campaigns, including:
- Data analysis tools: These tools allow you to analyze data in order to identify trends and patterns.
- Data visualization tools: These tools allow you to create visualizations of data so that you can understand it more easily.
- Reporting tools: These tools allow you to create reports about your data so that you can share it with others.
- Analytics tools: These tools allow you to track and analyze the performance of your marketing campaigns.
All of these BI features can be used to help you better understand your customers and their needs. They can also help you track the performance of your marketing campaigns so that you can make the necessary adjustments for improved results.
The benefits of data-driven marketing analytics
There are many benefits to using data-driven marketing analytics. Businesses that use marketing analytics to drive their decisions will see massive benefits, like:
Improved customer understanding
By analyzing customer data, you can better understand who your customers are, what they want, and what drives them to take action. This information can be used to create more effective campaigns that resonate with your target audience.
Improved campaign performance
By analyzing campaign data, you can identify areas where your campaigns are performing well and areas that need improvement. This information can be used to make the necessary adjustments to improve your return on investment.
This way, you don’t have to spend money on underperforming campaigns or underinvest in successful ones. You can see exactly what’s doing well and what’s doing poorly.
Even better, you can track marketing success in real time, which lets you dedicate more spend to campaigns that are going well and pull the plug on ones that aren’t.
Improved decision-making
By analyzing data related to your customers and campaigns, you can make more informed decisions about how to best allocate your resources and what strategies to pursue. This leads to more effective marketing campaigns and a higher return on investment.
This is especially useful for managers and executives, who don’t have to trust their gut anymore. They can use the data in front of them to make their decisions, allowing them to formulate more effective strategic plans.
Tips for getting started with data-driven marketing analytics
If you’re looking to get started with data-driven marketing analytics, here are a few tips to help you get started.
Understand your business goals and objectives
Before you can start analyzing your data, you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve. What are your business goals and objectives? What areas of your business need improvement? What data can you use to help you achieve these goals?
Collect as much data as possible
The more data you have, the more insights you can gain. One major advantage of BI tools over other data strategies is that BI tools can connect to many different pieces of software and store their data together, so that you can access it all at once.
This way, you can combine data from different sources into unique, novel data streams, which allows for much greater insight than other, standalone tools. With a BI tool connected to your whole tech stack, you can get a real view of your business data.
Use the right BI tools for the job
Not all BI tools are effective for marketing analytics. Make sure to use the tools that will best help you understand your data and achieve your business goals. Look for tools that feature data visualization, reporting, and analytics capabilities.
One major trend in the business intelligence space is ‘self-service analytics’. Self-service tools are designed for people without data experience so that they can access data insight without any formal training on how to use the tool or how to analyze data.
Experiment and test
Don’t be afraid to experiment with different data sets and visualizations. Try different things and see what works best for your business. The only way to find out what works is to try it out and see for yourself.
Many BI tools have ‘ad hoc’ analytical features, which allow users to build new analytics and visualizations off of pre-existing reports or visualizations. This helps businesses to find novel insights since they can easily adapt or change their analytics if the need arises.
Share your findings with relevant stakeholders
Once you’ve analyzed your data and gained valuable insights, share your findings with relevant stakeholders. This information can be used to make improvements to your marketing campaigns and business strategies.
What BI tool features can I use with marketing analytics?
The sky’s the limit when it comes to BI tools and marketing analytics. However, some BI tool features are more valuable than others when it comes to analyzing marketing data.
Data visualization
Data visualization tools can create charts, graphs, and other visuals that make data easy to understand. This is a valuable tool for marketing analytics because it can help you quickly identify trends and patterns in your data.
Reporting
Reporting tools allow you to generate reports about your data so that you can share your findings with relevant stakeholders. This is a valuable tool for marketing analytics because it can help you communicate your findings and make recommendations for improvement.
Analytics
Analytics tools allow you to perform a more detailed analysis of your data. Not only can you identify trends and patterns, but you can also drill down into the data to understand the underlying causes. This is a valuable tool for marketing analytics because it can help you gain a deeper understanding of your data.
Data mining
Data mining tools allow you to extract valuable information from large data sets. When you can mine your data, you can uncover hidden patterns and trends that can be used to improve your marketing campaigns.
Data modeling
Data modeling tools allow you to create models of your data so that you can better understand how it works. This is a valuable tool for marketing analytics because it can help you create simulations and test different marketing scenarios.
One common use case for data modeling is forecasting. With forecasting, you can use your historical and current data to predict future trends.
Machine learning
Machine learning tools allow you to analyze data automatically and identify patterns. This is a valuable tool for marketing analytics because it can help you gain insights that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to find.
How BI makes marketing analytics easy
A BI system is an essential tool that every marketing team should use to improve their campaigns. Understanding how to use BI features and analytics can make your campaigns more effective and efficient. But the real power of marketing analytics and BI comes from using the right tools for the job.
A BI platform makes it easy to collect, analyze, and visualize data from all aspects of your business. Connectors make it easy to connect to popular marketing data sources, including Google Analytics, AdWords, Salesforce, Marketo, and more. When looking for a BI tool, make sure to look for good data integration features.
Data visualization and reporting features make it easy to understand your data and communicate your findings. Analytics tools allow you to perform a detailed analysis of your data so that you can gain insights that would otherwise be hidden.
BI tools make it easy to share your data and findings with relevant stakeholders by being built upon a cloud-based platform. Web-based interfaces make it easy to give stakeholders access to the information they need when they need it.
If you’re looking for a marketing analytics and BI platform that is easy to use and provides everything you need to improve your marketing campaigns, make sure to look for those features.