The Discrepancy Between Marketing and Analytics

Why do so many companies still struggle to leverage their data for marketing purposes? The MarTech landscape offers a wide range of tools—from analytics solutions focused on website data to customer data platforms that provide a more customer-centric perspective. There’s so much potential for data-driven marketing strategies, yet we often see a disconnect between marketing departments and the data available to them. In this blog post, I want to explore the reasons why marketing and analytics often don’t work hand in hand and the role analytics enablement plays in bridging this gap.

The Main Reasons for the Separation

Before discussing solutions, I’d like to take a closer look at the reasons why some companies don’t use digital analytics as a tool. In my opinion, there are three main problems:

The first reason is the lack of data literacy in some teams. Data literacy can be defined as “the ability to read, write, and communicate data in context, with an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods, and AI techniques.” [Source]. Data literacy—especially in marketing teams—is essential for bridging the gap between marketing and analytics. To derive actionable insights and optimizations from the numbers they receive, marketers need to be empowered to evaluate the data they see.

The second reason is the lack of collaboration between analysts and marketers. They are organized in separate teams or departments and have different goals and topics they work on. In my experience, analytics and BI teams are often seen as internal service providers for marketing teams, consulted only for specific questions or requests. On the other hand, in some companies, analytics teams tend to have the authority over the data, which prevents marketing teams from acquiring the necessary knowledge to work with it.

And the third reason is the challenges of accessing and interpreting data. This is a consequence of the two reasons mentioned above. A lack of data literacy and insufficient collaboration between teams create obstacles to data accessibility for marketing teams. It’s crucial that analysts understand the marketers’ perspective: data must be presented in a way that allows non-analysts to work with it. To be clear, while data literacy is an important skill within marketing teams, working with data is not their primary focus. Therefore, it’s understandable that a lack of adequate data access prevents marketers from truly engaging with it.

I want to emphasize that marketing teams aren’t solely part of the problem, and therefore part of the solution. As mentioned in the sections above, analysts sometimes need to focus more on the usability of their data than on the technical aspects behind it. Similarly, when it comes to collaboration, both teams should be more responsive to each other’s needs. And that’s where I want to discuss how we can resolve this dilemma. The key concept here, in my opinion, is analytics enablement.

What is Analytics Enablement?

When I talk about analytics enablement, I don’t just mean training your marketing teams. Don’t get me wrong, training is an essential part of empowering employees to use digital analytics. But the definition I’m referring to here is broader: Analytics enablement encompasses data accessibility, data literacy, and collaboration.

To empower marketing teams to work with digital analytics, access to data is a crucial prerequisite. And by access, I don’t just mean physical access to tools. Making data accessible to marketing teams also means providing it in a format that non-analysts can work with. This could include user-friendly interfaces instead of providing raw data in Excel spreadsheets. Implementing a unified data source, such as a Customer Data Platform (CDP), can also be helpful. When your data is easily accessible and interpretable for marketing teams, the barriers to working with data decrease.

Let’s assume we can tick the box for data accessibility for your company. We have several pre-built dashboards available that include visualizations and a unified view of your customers. To be able to read these dashboards correctly, there’s a second requirement we need to meet: data literacy within our marketing teams. I’ve already explained the concept of data literacy and its importance in this text. But to reiterate (I believe the importance of data literacy cannot be overstated): you need to ensure your marketing staff are able to read and interpret data correctly. There are now numerous courses and training programs available to help you and your teams develop data literacy. Before investing in training, I recommend taking the Data Literacy Project‘s online assessment to find out how well you currently measure your own data literacy.

Once you have data-literate marketing teams with access to all the necessary data, there’s one final crucial element for successful analytics enablement: collaboration. A lack of collaboration can cost your company time and money and lead to less effective use of your data. In my experience, most ideas for interpreting and using data come from direct exchanges between marketers and data analysts. Both sides benefit from each other’s expertise. It’s also crucial to agree on shared business goals and KPIs. From a data analyst’s perspective, understanding the use cases for which the data is needed is invaluable in determining how to deliver and present it. I’ve seen many projects and can say that cross-functional teams, where marketers and analysts work directly together, are the most successful when it comes to implementing a data-driven way of working.

How to implement an effective strategy to promote analytics

Enabling your marketing teams to use digital analytics requires a strategy. In my view, the most important things to consider in your analytics enablement strategy are:

Define clear goals and KPIs: Make sure you have a shared understanding of what your most important KPIs are and how they are defined.
Create a central data hub: If you don’t already have one, you should provide a central tool for accessing your most important data. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a data processing center (DPC) (this only makes sense if you also plan to centrally activate your data). You can also consider building a data lake and enabling access via tools like Power BI or Tableau.
Offer training to build data literacy in your teams: As mentioned above, there are a variety of great courses available to train your marketing teams in data literacy. This could, for example, be part of each team member’s personal development.
Empower your team to work with your analytics tools: Depending on which tools you use, it may be beneficial to also offer training for your marketing teams so that they can work correctly with the respective tools.
Implement methods of collaboration: Consider how you can strengthen collaboration between your marketing and analytics teams that are a good fit for your business.

Before implementing your analytics enablement strategy, I also recommend considering various KPIs to measure the success of your new ways of working. This can be crucial to ensuring your strategy is having the expected impact or if you need to make adjustments at any given time. In my experience, finding the right KPIs to measure the success of such projects isn’t always easy. Here are some examples that might be suitable for your business:

Reduced time-to-insight
Increased data-driven decisions
Improved campaign performance

Why Analytics Enablement is a Game-Changer for Marketing Teams

If your company wants to pursue a data-driven marketing strategy, analytics enablement is a crucial step along the way. To get the most out of your data, your analytics teams shouldn’t be the only ones who can work with it. Make your data accessible and implement data literacy and maturity as part of your marketing specialists’ professional development. Also, strengthen collaboration between your marketing and analytics teams so they can benefit from each other.

While I’m sure the topics covered in this post aren’t new to most people, I feel that many decision-makers lack a clear plan for putting the concepts presented here into practice. I hope this post can help make analytics enablement more tangible and provide you with a starting point for bridging the gap between marketing and analytics in your organization.