Marketers Are Noticing Benefits from Big Data

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and harnessing data for better marketing and business results is no exception. It costs time and resources to get, maintain, understand and use data-but decision-makers worldwide are seeing a benefit.

In spring 2015, Forbes Insights surveyed senior data and IT decision-makers about what their firms were doing with big data. For most, big data and analytics were a significant business priority: 21% said it was the single most important way for them to gain an advantage, and 38% put it in the top five.

Many respondents had already noticed an effect on revenues. Nearly eight in 10 had measured some change in revenues due to big data. The largest group saw between a 1% and 3% change, but more than one in four reported changes of more than 3%.

Somewhat fewer respondents had noticed a change in costs due to big data?and those who had tended to notice smaller changes.

The survey found that location-based data was the most commonly used type, and the only one cited by a majority of respondents worldwide.

Different types of data predominate for different applications, research suggests. VentureBeat found in June 2015 that marketers worldwide were most likely to collect email address and name information for personalization purposes. In July, Jivox found that US ad agency executives were most likely to use demographic and location data to create dynamic ads. And US retailers surveyed in June by Yes Lifecycle Marketing most commonly collected customers’ first names and phone numbers.