3 Challenges with Big Data for Marketers

Is big data really the ideal solution for marketers? We explore three very real roadblocks to marketers embracing big data and why we feel less mature marketers may turn towards other customer data management solutions instead

There is no doubt that big data – the huge volume of data flowing from various sources in a steady – and high-speed – stream has the potential to change the way businesses can leverage data to find their competitive edge.

While marketers too understand the potential of big data to transform their understanding of the customer, unfortunately, they also realize that big data is not a magical remedy for them. For starters, marketers are not professionally trained data scientists; progressive technologies such as the ones that drive big data are usually well beyond a marketer’s capabilities, and the control of big data still lies with technology people, who may or may not understand the business outcomes functions like marketing are chasing. Wore, because big data is – well, big – and encompasses all the data from all the sources that belong to the business –data relevant to marketing is in very real danger of getting lost in the deluge.

Hence, even though big data is now commonplace – even the smallest of companies can accurately claim to be generating big data in this always-on era – a lot of marketers don’t feel adequately prepared to start using it as a tool to drive their CX efforts.

Martech Advisor tracked the relationship between marketing and big data and we are forced to admit that we see 3 big practical problems when it comes to leveraging big data as a realistic or practical resource for improved marketing decision making:

Here are 3 of the most glaring roadblocks to marketing making the most of big data:

1. Collaborating with the IT team to use big data: this is the first stumbling block to using big data. It needs complex technologies (you’ve probably heard of something called Hadoop) that can structure and transform the data into a format that makes it usable. Remember, big data is a torrent of data flowing into the company from multiple sources – including logistics, manufacturing, billing, customer service, etc. Now, while there is merit in juxtaposing all that information about a customer’s experience on top of all the marketing related information that comes in from purely marketing systems, there is the very real danger of the torrent turning into a deluge. Marketers with limited resources may prefer to start with the pure marketing related data – flowing in from multiple marketing systems. Collaborating with IT, who is the custodian of organization-wide big data, and being dependent on them to get the insights they need is a least appealing option to marketers. It’s exactly why CDP and DMP companies are thriving – they are giving control of customer data to marketers, without needing any additional technical skills.

2. Integrating and translating big data points into useful insight: using any data optimally is a challenge for all business leader, and marketers are no different. Marketers are still developing their data analysis skills, just with the data generated by the marketing systems.