You can track and measure almost everything you do in marketing, but that doesn’t mean all the data you collect is equally meaningful and relevant to your bottom line and future decisions. Some metrics are useful only at the campaign-level, some at the channel-level, and a few at the customer-level. Some are channel-centric and help with tactical marketing decisions and testing plans, while others are business-centric and contribute to changes in marketing and overall business strategy.

With the reams of data that today’s marketing technologies and platforms produce, it’s easy to become confused and arrive at inaccurate conclusions through well-intentioned but superficial unsegmented analyses—assuming you even attempt to find patterns and meaning in your data to make better decisions.

Measure what matters

Set your goals and then identify your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will show you how you are progressing towards achieving your goals. Not all metrics are KPIs—KPIs provide meaningful information to make better decisions.

Look for patterns and meaning

Improve your decision-making by not just conducting post-mortem analyses (i.e. “what happened”), but also seeking out the patterns and relationships across your data repositories to figure out “why it happened” and (very important) “what will happen.”

Use data early and often

Start every marketing project by looking at your past performance. Your programs will be much more effective when you keep learning from what you’ve done, instead of starting from a position of ignorance.

Want to put your data to work?