Digital marketing has undergone significant changes over the past two decades, and I have been lucky enough to have a front row seat. I was able to work with some of the first ad servers and at one of the earliest programmatic paid media companies, Right Media, spending several million dollars per month acquiring paid media. It’s been really exciting to see the vast growth and development in technology supporting paid media acquisition.
Two developments that have really grown are the increased usage of 1st party data (data you already have collected on people) and predictive marketing solutions (technology that analyzes big data sets to provide predictive recommendations). This blog will explore how paid media acquisition benefits from predictive marketing solutions and 1st party data, through the perspectives of leaders at predictive marketing technology companies.
Predictive: Not new, but very hot
At Marketo, not only do we provide leading tools for marketers to be better marketers, we also use a lot of great technology ourselves. I recall a webinar in 2013 with David Gerster, former head of data science at Groupon, where we dove into how Marketo used data science and predictive marketing technology from Gainsight to help turn big data on our customers into insights to drive increased customer success.
Fast forward to today, the use of predictive marketing is exploding (in a good way)! Companies offering predictive marketing technology are getting noticed! What about predictive should you marketers take note of?
How 1st party data and predictive marketing solutions can improve your advertising
Predictive marketing technology has the ability to drive huge improvements in marketing—by utilizing data to drive more efficiency and allowing for uniquely personal engagement. Within your marketing automation system and/or CRM, you have a wealth of data collected on the people that you market to. This is a very valuable asset for any company—so make sure you use the information your audiences have provided to help inform future engagement.
Predictive marketing solutions help organizations prevent attrition costs of customer acquisitions (such as what I mentioned with my early work with Gainsight), but more importantly, they help improve digital marketing campaigns offered to specific targeted groups for better lead scoring and understanding of customer propensity to buy a specific product.
Insight from the experts: How predictive marketing technology drives results
A recent report by Forbes Insights entitled “The Predictive Journey” surveyed 308 CMOs and business unit directors, and found that nearly half of the organizations deeming their usage of predictive analytics to be “highly advanced” credit the technology with increasing their ROI by more than 25%. I sat down with some leaders in this space, and they revealed some insights into how predictive marketing technology can help marketers reach their customers.
Nipul Chokshi, Head of Product Marketing at Lattice Engines, explained that marketers are using Lattice’s predictive technology combined with first party data from Marketo to drive better media buys:
“Companies use predictive marketing platforms to drive account-based marketing at scale; 1. They identify who their best targets are, companies or people that look most similar to your customers, and which ones are most likely to convert, along with the products they will buy and how close they are to making a decision. 2. Companies use predictive analytics to drive advanced segmentation and personalization–so you can customize your messaging and content for maximum relevance.”
In another interview with Everstring, their VP of Marketing Jim Walker explored how predictive marketing technology can help companies be more efficient with their media buys. Jim said that a primary result of tying predictive technologies to paid media is an understanding of which accounts to target:
“If you are going to be efficient, tackle the right accounts. The market is moving rapidly towards account based marketing (ABM). Companies buy products, not just individuals, so while targeting individuals can be a good strategy, marketers also need to target the the broader companies identified as the best targets. While buyer personas are interesting, the value of predictive in the context of media spend is an ability to create account personas.”
As one of the leaders in the paid media ecosystem, MediaMath has also seen the usage of predictive technologies drive strong results for marketers. Chris Victory, MediaMath’s VP of Strategic Partnerships and Business Development, shared:
“Predictive marketing has come a long way, from a concept to a value-creating practice for advertisers. Implemented correctly, predictive marketing will become one of the next big areas of investment in audience targeting. Advertisers are now not only targeting on demographic attributes and in-market signals, but are buying with confidence on individuals that will actually engage with ads and perform specific actions.”
How does this work as one seamless, integrated experience that boosts your paid advertising? Let’s look at a real-world example in which a marketer at a tech company used a partner predictive technology within Marketo to segment a list of high-value contacts in their marking automation system. Then through Marketo’s Ad Bridge product, the marketer was able to send anonymized data from Marketo to LinkedIn Lead Accelerator to deliver ads and content to those contacts on LinkedIn and across the web.
According to Pete Schott, Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn:
“By using predictive analytics and other data sets across multiple systems like this, marketers not only increase the ROI of each system, but they create a better experience for the prospects and customers that are impacted by it. This is what separates the great marketers from the good.”
Predictive marketing technology gives marketers the ability to achieve full potential from their data. Start gaining more value from the 1st data within your CRM and/or marketing automation platform and consider using predictive marketing technologies to make your paid media campaigns more efficient.
Do you have experience implementing predictive technology in your marketing campaigns? Or do you plan to? Share your story in the comments below.