60% of B2B Marketers Believe Accuracy is Primary Benefit of Data-Backed Decisions

According to new survey results by Openprise, 60 percent of B2B marketers name making more accurate decisions as the most valuable benefit of marketing data.

However, with the growth of marketing technology tools, many organizations have an incredible amount of data and managing it is an ongoing challenge for marketing departments.

According to the results, survey respondents are employing marketing data strategies to improve ROI measurability (72 percent), improve data quality (65 percent), and increase data use/accessibility (63 percent).

“No doubt, better data management impacts revenue, but that’s the final connection in a long string of cause-and-effect relationships,” says John Donlon, Research Director of Marketing Operations and Strategies at SiriusDecision. “Marketing operations leaders can build better credibility—and better understand the causal relationships—by telling the entire story end-to-end.”

In a comparison between survey results naming the organization’s most important data management goals versus their most significant barriers, some of the top goals were also struggles (ROI measurability, data quality, data use/accessibility).

Notably, while data skills were named as a significant barrier to success by 34 percent of respondents, only 10 percent named it as an important goal. The study claims this illustrates that companies recognize the importance of data quality but are unwilling to devote the budget or attention it requires.

A total of 183 B2B marketing professionals from 101 organizations participated in the survey across different verticals and company sizes.

Data Management Issues Hampering Marketing Automation Adoption

In another Openprise study released earlier this year, the data showed marketers were still lagging in terms of marketing automation software adoption. The “2016 MarTech Data Report” found two-thirds of marketers were not using a marketing automation platform. Even those who have deployed a marketing automation platform, they reported only “basic” to “moderate” usage.

Budget and time were named as hindrances to advanced marketing. Of those who have a marketing automation in place, nearly half (45 percent) claim that a lack of time is holding them back from advanced marketing. For marketers without an existing marketing automation platform, 34 percent state the reason is a limited budget.