Report: 39% of Marketers are “Very Concerned” with Data Exhaust

As marketers turn to data and analytics to reach out to their target audiences, new research shows that they are becoming overwhelmed by the information at their fingertips – so much so that they are now worried about data exhaust.

Data exhaust is a term used to describe data that companies toss out because it provides less or no value to their core business.

To gauge marketers’ current attitudes toward data exhaust, Digital Element recently conducted the “Digital Data Exhaust Report.” Statistics showed that the majority of marketers (39 percent) are “very concerned” with data exhaust. About 29 percent were at least “somewhat concerned.”

When it comes to data that is thrown away, the majority of respondents (29 percent) said they toss aside up to 25 percent of data. Nine percent throw away between 50 to 75 percent of their data, while six percent throw away 75 percent to 100 percent of their data.

Marketers and Data Confidence

Previous research suggests that marketers are not very confident in the data they purchase from third party sources, which may be a reason why they are prone to throwing away their analytics.

Lotame published “The State of Audience Data Research Report” and discovered that when it comes to purchasing demographic data, accuracy is “very important” to the majority (84 percent) of marketers. However, only 20 percent are “very confident” in the data accuracy of their purchased data. About 68 percent are only “somewhat confident.”

Nearly 65 percent of marketers stated that they would be willing to spend five percent or more than what they are currently spending on data for information of higher quality.