What to Do with Your Marketing Data

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It’s late-2022. By now, you’ve likely heard all about the importance of data for marketing purposes – this magical, intangible phenomena which supposedly runs all of our lives. 

Data, or the results of it, are all around us at any one time. It’s our internet browsing history, our screen time, our purchase record, our location, our political alignment – it’s everything. 

According to global intelligence firm, IDC, the globe had accumulated 33 zettabytes of digitised information by 2018. That’s approximately 33 trillion gigabytes, with that figure predicted to grow to 175 zettabytes by 2025. 

Our ability to accumulate and store information truly knows no bounds. 

So what do we, as marketers, do with all of this unorganised, unanalysed information? Well, we do just that. 

As a white label digital marketing agency, it’s Agency Stack’s job to interpret data to gain insights and develop marketing strategies off the back of them. 

We know data can be confusing sometimes, but we hope this blog serves to clear up any confusion you might have in interpreting your own. 

Some Definitions

Before you dissect your data and start googling all kinds of acronyms like CTR, CPC, CAC, CTA, BR, or CR, let’s clear up some confusion. 

You’re highly likely to come across some of these on whatever analytics program you use, such as Google Analytics, Semrush, MailChimp, or other.

Click-through rate (CTR)

This is the number or percentage of users who have chosen to progress from one step of your marketing campaign to another (often your website). It may be from an email, a social post, a Google ad, or some other origin. 

This is calculated as the number of people who click-through, divided by the number who had the opportunity to do so. 

Cost-per-click (CPC)

CPC would be calculated as the total sum spent on a digital ad, divided by the number of clicks it receives. 

This stat may not become relevant until you gauge the market value of each click. Ask yourself: how much is each click earning you in return? What’s the average CPC for your search terms? 

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

A very holistic statistic, CAC encompasses every cost you’ve incurred over a given period, divided by the number of new customers you’ve realised. This will give you the true cost of each customer, giving you something to compare to your LTV (see below).

Include everything from advertising spend, to salaries, commissions, bonuses and operating costs.

Lifetime value (LTV)

Once you’ve acquired a customer, their LTV will become the all-important focus of many marketing departments. How long can you retain a customer for and how much can you encourage them to spend in this time?

This can be calculated by simply multiplying the average customer spend by their average period of interaction with you (eg. $1000 x 1 year).

For a more in-depth explanation, try HubSpot’s blog, here.

If you need any more explanation on key marketing terms, contact Agency Stack to learn more.

Now, on with the blog!

Stride towards your BHAG

Think of data as a tool, just as you might a hammer or a pencil. Without a job to do or a goal to achieve, your tools are just miscellaneous objects. 

Only once you set some big, hairy, audacious goal (BHAG) can you begin using your tools to achieve something. 

So, before you dive into the data without a clearly defined purpose, consider what you hope to achieve from your upcoming marketing campaign. 

This could be an increase in sales, conversions, subscriptions, website traffic, referrals, or something else entirely – so long as you can define the campaign as successful or otherwise once it’s all said and done.

Find Unique, Relevant, High-quality Data

Unique, relevant, and high-quality. Let’s walk through these, shall we? 

The very purpose of marketing is to appeal to your audience and convince them to interact with your business above all others. 

If you’re not setting your company apart and positioning yourself as the best option, you’re likely losing a large chunk of other companies who are doing just this. 

So, if your data isn’t unique, your campaign strategies won’t be unique and your point of difference won’t be so pointy. 

Make sure to gather data that is specific to your products, your ads, your unique audience, and your niche in the market. 

If you’re using data based on broad, large-scale research that anyone can access, then it’s highly likely that everyone has accessed it. A world with no unique data is a world where every company’s advertising looks and feels eerily similar. 

For relevancy, it’s important to collate data that will actually move the dial towards that BHAG you set earlier. 

Any data that doesn’t serve to achieve this goal only clutters an already sizable task, so be selective. 

High-quality data is current, comprehensive, and correct. If you’re not ticking all three boxes, you may be wasting your time finding results that won’t achieve anything. 

To avoid poor-quality data, set a relevant timeframe, look at the data from different angles, avoid having “too many cooks” messing with your findings, and fact check at every opportunity. 

Use Insights Effectively

Data is just data until we inspect it closer. A closer look, through the lens of our BHAG, will reveal pathways to a unique marketing campaign that more closely targets your desired audience. 

You may find that a certain age group incurs a cheaper CPC on a certain social media platform at a certain time of day. 

This may seem pedantic, but the more specific your findings are, the more efficiently you can spend your marketing budget.

If a certain platform isn’t performing well enough, test the same content on a different platform and compare the results. 

We never promised this part of the process would be easy, or fast for that matter. 

In fact, the more time you spend testing, analysing, and retesting your theories, the more effective the eventual campaign will become. 

Contact Agency Stack

To avoid an information overload, we’ll leave the trial and error to you. 

If you need any support gleaning insights from your data, our expert performance team is sure to support you in whatever endeavours you desire. 

Get in touch with us to learn more about marketing data, and reap the rewards of more effective campaigns.

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