Intro
This might seem obvious to most of us, but considering how widely spread is the misconception that messy data is a reality marketers need to come to terms with — the following needs to be said as loudly and as clearly as possible:
B2B Marketing performance is based first and foremost on accurate measurement.
Not only that, but a marketer’s quality of measurement is the very key to their success, both in terms of getting internal buy-in and in terms of hitting their personal, team, and business KPIs.
Why? The “garbage in – garbage out” concept paints a very vivid picture.
When you base your performance measurement and forecasting on inaccurate data — you’re bound to make the wrong decisions, invest where you shouldn’t necessarily invest, waste countless of hard-earned dollars on budget-draining initiatives that deliver miserable ROI, and very likely miss out on lucrative opportunities that could have a dramatic impact on your ability to scale.
And although most if not all marketers are aware of the fact that getting their data in shape is paramount to doing their job right, trying to piece together the truth from multiple data sources that operate in silos — is in most cases an exercise in futility.
So why in the name of all spreadsheets are you basing off your most critical decision-making on messy or skewed data?
The first step on your path to recovery is to realize that you don’t know what you don’t know, and the only way for you to make confident, data-informed decisions — is to centralize, clean & model your data.
There’s literally no other way for you to make sense of it all, identify trends, track the actual performance of your Marketing efforts, and pivot your strategy accordingly to ensure the highest possible ROI.
Incomplete data – And how a holistic view of touchpoints and associated costs impacts your revenue generation
Unfortunately for us, the data sources we rely on are disparate across way too many platforms that operate in various data formats and often don’t speak to one another, causing us to face serious challenges when it comes to understanding our data.
Cost reporting is a zero-sum game, and working with partial data is equal to not having the data to begin with. How can you assess the true ROI of your campaigns, optimize efficiently, and decide how to allocate your budget without it?
To add to this complexity, accounts could take a long time to convert from the first lead to a closed-won opportunity, during which time their journey to conversion can include an average of 100 touchpoints made by several contacts within the same account.
To be able to deal with this increasingly complex reality, you need a holistic view of all touchpoints across all channels, so you can understand the full story behind each of your accounts’ journeys, and get critical insights into what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be done to fix it.
Inaccurate data – The most daunting spend-related problem
Accurate ROI and ROAS data are by all means the holy grail for performance Marketing. On the flip side, working with inaccurate ROI data can completely derail your strategy and subsequently even risk the financial stability of your business.
Marketing activities usually span dozens of channels, campaigns, and events. And when marketers attempt to normalize cost data from so many sources — they soon find this to be an extremely labor-intensive, time-draining task that’s prone to dangerous errors.
Thing is, even when marketers enlist data analysts to normalize their data, they still need to consolidate their cost and attribution data, which is not only a massive challenge in its own right, but can also easily lead to inaccurate insights.
The result?
- Navigating with a faulty compass – Spend miscalculations and skewed budgeting assumptions that cannot be trusted, inability to identify and double down on profitable channels or cut off inefficient channels, inability to track the true ROI of your investments and adjust your strategy accordingly.
- Wasted resources – Money down the drain because it’s not invested where it should be.
- Eroded credibility – Loss of confidence in Marketing decisions, and difficulty getting internal buy-in from relevant stakeholders
Data integrity – And why it’s crucial to maintain across your systems
In today’s B2B Marketing, attribution data is the source of every decision. But regardless of how sophisticated your marketing BI or data analysis is, if the input parameters for your calculations are wrong — you can rest assured your predictions and action plan that follow will be wrong too.
The two main culprits for this mess?
- Siloed data sources
- Lack of ability to drill down beneath static dashboards to reach meaningful insights.
Unfortunately in both cases, great looking reporting tools lead you to believe you made smart, data-driven decisions. And what’s worse, you’re likely to do this over and over again on a growing scale that will inevitably bring your business to bleed cash.
To help you minimize the risks, here are the three most common pitfalls you need to be extra mindful of when it comes to Marketing performance measurement:
1. Manual processes
Relying on manual data entry processes across various forms is rightfully considered to be extremely frustrating.
Not only is it labor-intensive, but it also opens the door to plenty of errors and inconsistencies. Typos inevitably find their way in, crucial fields might be overlooked, and maintaining consistency is a painfully manual task. This results in a cluttered data landscape that makes analysis complex and unreliable.
Here’s a common example that might hit close to home:
As a marketer, when your AEs forget or don’t bother to connect contacts to a deal or opportunity, you end up losing valuable historical touchpoints, and your contributions to nurturing and engaging with that lead up to that point — are entirely disregarded.
This creates misalignment between Sales and Marketing efforts, and makes it even more challenging for marketers to accurately measure their impact on the sales cycle.
2. Automation drawbacks
CRM automation tools tend to promise streamlined workflows, but when outdated or legacy automations are left unchecked — they can become a problem. Old automations can silently alter data values in the background, which often goes unnoticed until discrepancies emerge. And by this point, it might already be too late.
Over time, these hidden changes can compromise the reliability of your CRM data, making it extremely important to regularly review and update your automations, align them with your current business practices, and ensure your data integrity is maintained.
3. CRM structural limitations
Most CRM systems, including popular ones like Salesforce, were initially designed with a broader customer relationship management focus rather than specifically catering to B2B Marketing nuances.
Here’s one example: Salesforce separates leads from contacts, even though they often represent the same individual in a B2B context.
This structural disconnect can lead to fragmented data and missed opportunities for targeted ABM efforts, which is why it’s so important to align your CRM’s data structure with B2B Marketing requirements.
The data doctor prescribes: Clean data practices
To help you break the cruel “garbage in – garbage out” cycle, here are four key steps that will enable you to improve your data quality and transform your Marketing team into a shining beacon of data-informed excellence:
- Run regular data audits
Periodic data audits are like giving your CRM a thorough spring cleaning. These audits will help you identify inconsistencies, duplicates, and inaccuracies in your data. This proactive approach will ensure your data remains relevant and actionable, and allow you to identify and fix potential issues before they cause harm.
- Incorporate data quality tools
Incorporate trusted data quality tools that automate the processes of data validation, cleansing, and enrichment. These tools can help you identify errors, standardize formats, save time, and reduce the risk of errors. For seamless data management, be sure to look for tools that offer a robust platform and easy integrations with your existing systems.
- Offer relevant training programs
Knowledge is power. Invest in training programs like workshops, online courses, and certifications to improve your Marketing team’s data literacy and analytical skills. When they know how to understand and interpret data effectively, they can make informed decisions and contribute more effectively to your marketing strategies.
- Implement a revenue marketing platform
This step can be a data management game-changer that not only improves your data quality, but also enhances its usability. A revenue marketing platform integrates with your CRM, ad platforms, and marketing automation tools — and consolidates data from these various sources.
It then cleans, enriches, and standardizes your data to create a trustworthy dataset, and with a unified view of your data, you can now gain actionable insights that drive much more effective decisions.
So, when considering a revenue marketing or a marketing attribution platform (and we do hope InfiniGrow is on your shortlist), be sure to ask vendors what are the actual automated workflows they run on your CRM data. For example, do they consolidate duplicates? Track field changes? Match orphaned contacts and leads to their relevant accounts? Pair leads to accounts?
If these vendors tell you that they use your CRM data as is, offer minimal workflows, or are unclear on the exact workflows they’ll run on your data — you got yourself a major red flag, because it means your decisions will be based on flawed data.
TLDR
- Navigating the complexities of B2B marketing requires a foundation built on trustworthy data. The challenges posed by fragmented and siloed data sources, untrusted CRM data, manual errors, outdated automations, and structural limitations — can hinder your marketing efforts and diminish internal credibility.
- Ensuring data integrity is not just a best practice, it’s a necessity for driving B2B Marketing success. Without accurate and reliable data, your Marketing strategies are built on shaky ground, leading to misguided decisions, wrong actions, wasted resources, and missed opportunities.
- It’s essential to identify data discrepancies before they tarnish your calculations and planning, and prioritize data quality across your systems. By doing so, you pave the way for more informed decision-making, well-targeted campaigns, and meaningful collaborations between the Sales & Marketing teams.
- Bear in mind that the quality of your Marketing data can make or break your success, and that embracing data quality isn’t just about avoiding problems. It’s about unlocking the full potential of your B2B Marketing efforts with confidence and precision.
- Invest the time and resources needed to ensure it’s accurate and actionable. Your Marketing, organization and personal success depend on it.
