Marketing Automation and Big Data

From Lotus Marketplace to Acxiom’s Aboutthedata.com and Beyond

Peter O’KellyChief Data Officer, ShopAdvisor

12/2/2014

Agenda

• Context setting

• A historical recap of big data in marketing automation

• Today’s state-of-the-art

• Some projections

• Discussion

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Context Setting

• Marketing automation

– “The term ‘marketing automation’ has grown from referring to simple workflow tools to help companies and their partners manage campaigns to being used to cover a much broader and more amorphous set of capabilities.”

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Context Setting

• Big data– Weirdly, there is no industry consensus on a detailed

“big data” definition

– The overall significance of big data market dynamics• Many data management technologies that used to be

complex, expensive, and scarce are now almost absurdlyaccessible, affordable, and abundant

– Unfortunately, “big data” as a meme has also probably been over-hyped into meaninglessness

– For marketing automation concerns, just think of data– default big – and legacy data

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Agenda

• Context setting

• A historical recap of big data in marketing automation

• Today’s state-of-the-art

• Some projections

• Discussion

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Snapshot: c1970

• Marketing– Channels: print, radio, TV, out-of-home ads– Targeting: geographic, demographic…– Cycle times: often seasonal and campaign-based– Automation: not so much…

• Data– Mainstream information technology: mainframes– Data sources: limited and expensive– Data scope and analytics: limited

• Consumer perspectives: marketing seen as a mix of mostly mass market advertising and in-person sales engagements– With a high degree of information asymmetry

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Tech Snapshot: Nielsen

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Snapshot: c1990

• Marketing– Channels: business as usual, for the most part– Targeting: still often geographic, demographic…– Cycle times: also mostly business as usual– Automation: expanding use of workflow tools

• Data– Mainstream IT: mainframes, minicomputers, database machines, PCs– Data sources: expanding, and becoming more accessible and

affordable– Data scope and analytics: PC-based tools augmenting traditional

techniques

• Consumer perspectives: some privacy concerns and growing awareness of data aggregators and brokers

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Tech Snapshot: Lotus Marketplace

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Snapshot: c2010

• Marketing– Channels: major emphasis on Web and email– Targeting: geographic, demographic, psychographic, content profile-

based, Web cookies…– Cycle times: more interactive and dynamic, extensive A/B tests– Automation: increasingly Web-centric and programmatic

• Data– Mainstream IT: Web-centric, with the SaaS shift gaining momentum– Data sources: on the fast track to “big data”; also rapid expansion of

data aggregators and brokers, and explosive social media growth– Data scope and analytics: rapidly expanding scope; powerful and

predictive Web analytics

• Consumer perspectives: many people annoyed by spam and ubiquitous ads; growing concerns about privacy and security

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Agenda

• Context setting

• A historical recap of big data in marketing automation

• Today’s state-of-the-art

• Some projections

• Discussion

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Today’s State of the Art

• As if things weren’t already moving fast enough… recent enablers/drivers include– Commodity hardware

– Cloud platforms and services

– Smartphones and other mobile devices

– Social media

– Open source

– Open data

– Data services

– Beacon and other proximity-related technologies

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Today’s State of the Art

• Some trends with significant momentum– Programmatic marketing

• With ad markets now resembling high-frequency trading modus operandi

– Native advertising• In content, apps, social media streams, …

– Combining on-line and off-line profiles and activity data

– Proximity-based mobile marketing• Back to the future trend: major focus on driving consumer traffic

to physical stores

– “Internet of Things”

– “Digital anthropology”

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Another Big Data Twist

• Google, Facebook, and other service providers are strongly rewarding quality and relevant content– As rated by their criteria, based on their analysis of

user and content activity patterns• Within ad marketplaces they increasingly dominate

• Examples– Google organic search results and stringent quality

criteria for ad placement bids– Facebook’s policy (starting 1/2015) for “reducing

overly promotional page posts in news feed”

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Consumer-Related Reactions

• Many consumers likely annoyed by retargeting

• Calls for expanded privacy and security regulation

• Some vendors making consumer privacy a top priority and competitive differentiator

– Especially Apple

• And yet some paradoxical dimensions, e.g., a recent Pew Research Center survey summarized in the New York Times as “Americans say they want privacy, but act as if they don’t”

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Consumer-Related Reactions

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Recap: Today’s State of the Art

• Marketing– Channels: everything… with a major focus on mobile and social– Targeting: a cumulative build, adding retargeting, social graph models,

proximity, and much more…– Cycle times: ad auctions measured in milliseconds; proximity-based

offers made in real-time– Automation: full-spectrum and mission-critical

• Data– Mainstream IT: real-time, omni-channel, and cloud-centric– Data sources: aggregators/brokers and on-line leaders partnering for

“onboarding”– Data scope and analytics: in some respects perhaps leading the NSA…

• Consumer perspectives: – Likely to dread “Minority Report” scenarios on mobile devices– Consumer privacy control is now a competitive differentiator

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Agenda

• Context setting

• A historical recap of big data in marketing automation

• Today’s state-of-the-art

• Some projections

• Discussion

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Projections

• New opportunities and imperatives

• Incredible innovation in related products and services

• Consumer information symmetry and personal information control

• Back to data basics

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New Opportunities and Imperatives

• William Gibson: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed”

• Opportunities– Incredible precision in targeting and customer journey/funnel

phase tracking– Database technology and services making it possible to maintain

360-degree perspectives

• But also new critical success factors – competitive imperatives – New perspectives and skills required– Unprecedented degrees of integration and coordination– Privacy and security done wrong can be job (or company) killers

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New Opportunities and Imperatives

• Also key to add value with content, products, and services – relevant, timely, focused, competitive…

• And to clearly and purposefully communicate core value propositions

• Google and Facebook modus operandi are important leading indicators

– Qualified/filtered presentation – based on what they determine is most likely to be relevant and useful

• Assessed by a huge number of metrics

– Many of which you don’t directly control

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Product/Service Innovation

• Reduced barriers to entry, in combination with cloud, open data, and other market dynamics, have led to incredible product/service innovation

• But this can be a mixed blessing, with significant disruption and churn, along with new opportunities

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Innovation in Products and Services

Today’s State of the Art

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Today’s State of the Art

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But Wait, There’s More…

Consumer Info Symmetry and Control

• Consumers have unprecedented access to high quality and timely information resources

– Making it simpler to find the best offerings and deals

• In almost any context

• New and increasingly elaborate privacy and security expectations

– With personal information management now a mainstream competitive differentiator

• And new advertising id models potentially supplanting Web cookies and other identity schemes, over time

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Back to Data Basics

• Fundamental price/performance improvements and new capabilities– And lots of room for continued innovation ahead

• Making it more important than ever before to develop skills in– Data modeling– Query formulation– Data analytics – increasingly “democratized”

• Overall: a paradox of abundance in related products and services, but only helpful if used effectively

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Agenda

• Context setting

• A historical recap of big data in marketing automation

• Today’s state-of-the-art

• Some projections

• Discussion

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Discussion

• This presentation can be downloaded from the conference Web site

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