– The text highlights the problem with the ecommerce data industry, which focuses on platforms that provide information on conversion sources but not the reasons behind them.
– The author emphasizes the need for combining data from various sources and using zero party intent data to make informed decisions.
– The text suggests that most marketers are not truly data-driven and rely more on speculation rather than a comprehensive understanding of customer behavior.Combine data from different sources and use zero party data to gain a clearer understanding of customer behavior and make informed decisions in marketing.People: We’re a data-driven marketing agency/company.
Me: Tell me more.
People: We compare data from Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, and Shopify to understand trends in our business.
Me: That sounds like you compare data.
People: Well, yeah, it’s all in dashboards so we can see it all in the same place.
Me: Do you combine the data to tell a story of what actions to take?
People: We compare it, and we can see which channel is performing the best.
Me: How do you deal with delayed and inaccurate attribution?
People: Well, we use [insert attribution software here] too.
Me: Cool, so you have a better idea of attribution, but do you know why those people converted?
People: Well, it’s because they love our product.
Me: Do you know why they love your product and what makes someone more or less likely to purchase?
People: Uh… price? Features?
This is my problem with the e-commerce data industry. We celebrate platforms that can tell you where conversion is coming from but not the why.
We love products that can create pretty dashboards and let you do self-calculations but don’t really combine data in meaningful ways.
The truth is you need all of it to work together.
You need informed decision-making not only on attribution but also zero-party intent data in combination with conversion data.
There’s a big difference between someone clicked on my ad and purchased vs. someone clicked on my ad, signed up for my newsletter, looked at some pages, and purchased vs. someone clicked on my ad, subscribed to my newsletter, told me what they were interested in, why it mattered, and when they were looking to purchase, checked out some pages, and then purchased.
As marketers, most of the time we look at number 1. Number 2 is a nice-to-have that we set up flows for in GA and maybe our ESP or retargeting.
Number 3 is where we need to transition to in order to actually be data-driven. Tracking is going away, sooner or later the decisions you make are going to be based on understanding where people came from, the zero-party data about them and their actual purchase behavior, that’s about it.
Most people generally aren’t data-driven.
They can look at data and compare it, but the rest is mostly speculation.
How do you tell the difference?
Ask the following:
Do you aggregate data to compare or combine data to see a clearer picture?
Do you use zero party data to augment the existing data you’re aggregating or combining?
From what I’ve seen most will say they do the first, few if any will say they do the second.#ecommerce #data #marketinghttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jivanco