With the increasing use of AI, Data is set to become the most important marketing asset. Javeria from Data Ladder talks about poor data impacting marketing campaigns
When it comes to crafting marketing campaigns, data matching plays an integral part in supporting marketing managers with the process. Ever since data matching solutions were introduced, market research is becoming increasingly easier. Studying data received from millions of consumers to identify patterns takes an excessive amount of time as well as resources. Through data matching or data scrubbing (also known as data cleansing), this surmounting task can be taken care of in minutes.
However, there’s a catch. In case data matching is inaccurate, it can create a nightmare for marketing managers. To completely understand the impact that poor data matching can create on marketing campaigns, it’s important to first have a better comprehension of data matching itself.
What Is Data Matching and What Does It Entail?
Data matching, also termed as record linkage, is the process of corresponding entries within a database to identify and match across other database(s).
To put it simply, data matching is used for identifying and matching data across humongous databases. It can be utilized for finding all matching information and records related to any specified topic, query, or individual from significant storage of information in one or more databases.
In applications of a larger scale, such as warehouse management of major organizations, data matching plays an important role in increasing efficiency. Due to its unparalleled ability to locate information across large databases in a short and efficient manner, data matching is used in several other applications and industries as well, from managing and maintaining healthcare records to tracking and identifying criminals in national databases.
The Role Played by Data Matching in Marketing
Marketing is among the biggest industries of the corporate environment. Be it small or large, every business heavily relies on its marketing department to boost sales of its services and products. For this sole purpose, marketing agencies carry out extensive research of the target audiences unique to each product or service, in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing campaigns.
Conducting Market Research
In a world filled with millions of potential consumers, commissioning market research can be a mammoth of a task. This is where data matching plays an essential role thanks to its ability to match and identify records with corresponding characteristics in seconds.
Identifying Consumer Patterns
Like the way it assists business organizations in keeping track of their inventories, data matching enables marketing organizations to identify and study patterns from databases consisting of records collected from millions of consumers.
Saving Time and Increasing Efficiency
Conducting market research without a data matching tool can take several months. Going through every individual’s records to identify corresponding results can take ages, but with the help of data matching, market research becomes easier and faster.
The resulting market research is the backbone of any marketing campaign. It forms the basis of current consumer preferences and market trends, which are used to devise marketing strategies and campaigns. The information collected via market research is used to the specified product or service’s advantage. As such, it’s extremely important that data collected from market research is authentic and accurate – and that’s where the real problem is faced.
The Adverse Impact on Marketing Campaigns Due to Poor Data Matching
Poor or inaccurate data matching creates considerably adverse impacts regardless of the application it is used for, and same is the case for marketing campaigns.
Compromising the Success of Marketing Campaigns
If the data collected in market research turns out to be subpar in terms of quality, it can potentially damage the overall success and effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
For example, if the research was conducted to identify the average age of individuals from a large database and the subsequent data matching was inaccurate, it may represent false results.
Impacting the Brand’s Authenticity
Being misled due to poorly matched data, the marketing agency will be unable to create an appropriate marketing campaign. Ultimately, poor data matching impacts the brands and organizations the marketing campaigns are designed for.
Causing Sales to Plummet
Poor data matching creates significantly adverse impacts, even causing the sales of a product or service to plummet As such, it is imperative to make sure that data quality is impeccable.
While data matching tools prove considerably useful in improving efficiency in such applications, in case the data matching is full of errors, it can create drastically negative outcomes.
What Causes Poor Data Matching?
In terms of marketing campaigns, there are two causes of poor data matching: a lack of expertise and below-average data matching solutions. More so, data matching tools that are resultants of subpar development are considered as the real devil behind poor data matching for marketing applications. Hence, investing in reliable data matching and data cleansing tools is always recommended. Furthermore, it is also important for marketing professionals and researchers to understand the machinations of data matching solutions to utilize them more effectively and accurately.
To sum it up, poor data matching can have detrimental ramifications on marketing applications. It not only misleads and misguides marketing departments but also hinders their ability to plan effective marketing campaigns.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Javeria GK, Marketing Executive at Data Ladder
Javeria is a marketing executive at Data Ladder. She is a technical SEO & writer and also an outreach expert. Prior to this she was working at Smartmicros as SEO developer