Survey: Most Marketers Have Only Been “Somewhat Successful” Using a Data Dashboard Strategy
More marketers are turning to data dashboards – a tool used to visualize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – to better understand the impact of their marketing efforts. However, new research suggests that not all of them are seeing success.
Ascend2 recently published the “Visualizing Marketing Data with Dashboards” survey to gauge how this tool is helping marketers better visualize their efficiency according to their KPIs. Statistics showed that in terms of primary objectives, most marketers (55 percent) want to see an improvement in decision-making through the use of a data dashboard, while 49 percent want to improve overall efficiency. However, the majority of respondents (54 percent) said that they have only been “somewhat successful” when it comes to utilizing a data dashboard strategy. This is compared to 43 percent of best-in-class marketers who stated that they have been “very successful.”
Attributing revenue to marketing efforts (49 percent) has been the most critical challenge for marketers seeking success with a data dashboard strategy. This is followed by improving the efficiency of marketing (42 percent) and increasing speed/ease of analyzing data (40 percent).
Marketers Lack Access to Useful Data
Many marketers struggle to leverage the data available at their fingertips, and according to previous research, access to useful data has not always been available.
MIT SMR and SAS conducted the “2019 Data Analytics Report” and statistics showed that back in 2017, about 78 percent of marketers “somewhat” or “significantly improved their access to useful data over the course of 12 months. In 2018, this percentage fell to 76 percent.
Back in 2017, approximately 44 percent of respondents reported “frequently” or “always” having the right data to inform business decisions. This percentage also dropped to 43 percent in 2018. Just one-in-five organizations take a formal approach to data quality, according to the report.