Marketing Data Health Check in Five Metrics
If data is the lifeblood of demand creation, shouldn’t it have a heart monitor attached? I talk with many companies about their reporting and dashboards, and data is rarely part of the conversation. That should change. The best leading indicator of demand creation throughput is the effectiveness of tactics designed to add contacts to the database. When the focus is only on downstream results, including conversions and marketing qualified leads, it is more difficult to pinpoint problems upstream that clog the flow of data. Adding data to regular reporting allows another level of diagnosis, and some of the problems it finds can have a huge impact.
Take the case of an organization that invests heavily in inbound marketing activities to draw people to its website to request assets. The marketing operations team gathers reports from the web team, which show the number of visits to the site and the pages viewed. What they don’t see is how many of those web visitors hit a form page, completed the form, and were added to the database as marketable contacts. They also don’t see how many of the contacts who came in via inbound tactics fit the most desirable demographics for marketing to attract. Marketing ops may also get reports from the field marketing team or demand center, showing click-throughs and conversions on emails, and all leads created by campaign. They also don’t see how many of the individuals who clicked through an emails and saw a form, but did not complete it and were not added to the database; and if the name came from a list rental, then that’s money out the window. And, there’s no ability with this reporting to monitor on a cumulative basis how many of the most desirable contacts (or all contacts for that matter) are opting out and the impact that has on database growth.
The solution is adding at least one key performance indicator (KPI) plus a few key metrics around database health. Together, they provide the basic foundation:
- Net monthly database growth: Percentage of records gained minus percentage of records lost (opt-outs, bad data, etc.)
- Total percentage of usable records in the database
- Percentage of new contacts added each month
- Percentage of contacts lost each month, separated by opt-out/unsubscribe percentage vs. lost to data issues (bounce, bad address, etc.)
- Percentage of those who reach a form and complete it
If the organization described above was tracking these metrics, then the marketing ops team would identify the fact that specific web forms have low completion rates and need to be revised and tested for better results to improve database growth to take better advantage of good inbound traffic levels. They would also be able to see that specific inbound activities are attracting contacts from a different segment than the one intended. They might also sound the alarm on increasing opt-outs that appear to be tied to specific third-party data sources. This knowledge can save money and improve effectiveness, and that’s the definition of good reporting.
Your action item: Add data health metrics to your dashboard and let it be known the doctor is in.