SD Times Industry Marketing Guide

COOKIEPOCALYPSE

While browsers move to end third-party tracking, marketers look for

BY CARYN EVE MURRAY

The arrival of the so-called “Cookiepocalypse,” as it has come to be known, has predictably placed marketing teams on the front lines. There has been upheaval in the multi-layered environment surrounding erosion of third-party data and that has set off a rallying cry to all teams involved in delivering the customer through CRM.

As such, the front-line development troops are not alone as the landscape continues to change beneath them and around them. The IT, marketing, product and digital commerce teams stand together, more than ever, on this shifting ground.

Industry analysts are calling for a broader look at how technology is being deployed in this new universe and whether marketers’ current investments remain wise going forward. A number of analysts are calling for them to be re-evaluated in different ways.

Caryn Eve Murray is a freelance writer and editor based in Suffolk County, New York. She was a business writer, business columnist and general assignment reporter during her more than 40 years in daily newspapers.

Troubleshooting resembles ‘Whac-A-Mole’ “Marketing technology became a victim of its own success,” said Benjamin Bloom, Gartner VP analyst. “Now it is so complex and fragmented it is working against us sometimes. There is always so much change happening. You fix one problem and another comes up. It is like Whac-AMole.”

While touch points across channels are expected to stand firm as core marketing tools, they too can be expected to evolve. The same can be

COOKIEPOCALYPSE other ways to measure campaign effectivness

said for the teams involved from beginning to end, starting with those who work in the most significant area of all: data collection.

“The ambition to bring all your customer data together is one we have been tracking for many years,” said Bloom. Gartner estimated in 2021 that more than $80 billion was spent in CRM marketing applications. Bloom said that is expected to rise to $100 billion in 2023.

However, a look at the results harvested by these applications reveal an investment that has become counterproductive. Only 14 percent of respondents to a cross-functional customer survey by Gartner in 2021 said they had achieved a 360-degree view of the customer.

“We spend all this money on CRM and there are supposed to be applications that are bringing together all digital and nondigital interactions with your customer and that data is increasingly challenging to integrate,” said Bloom. He said, however, that some of the collection methods may no longer be as compatible or useful as they once were. There could be data silos in which an application that was built in-house 15 years earlier has outlived its usefulness.

In other words, the application was built long ago and may never have been intended to last in a world where

business users eventually would seek to integrate new data using clicks instead of code.

Putting customer value over tech Respondents to a Gartner survey reported that their desires to unify customer data are driven by gaining insights, reach, improved customer experiences and retention. Citing those findings, Bloom and co-authors Lizzy Foo Kune and Mike McGuire wrote in a November 2021 Gartner research paper that they recommended “setting appropriate objectives and aligning solutions to what customers actually value, rather than exploring any specific technology.”

There is also the burgeoning issue of privacy concerns. Whether it is evolving regulations or consumer wariness about data and security, the impact is the same: As the tech giants position themselves and their browsers to respond to these issues, marketers can no longer expect third-party cookies and other capabilities to deliver the goods.

For these and other reasons, the pursuit of a 360-degree view of the customer becomes “an increasingly risky proposition,” Bloom said in an interview.

“It remains critically important for how buyers are going to use technology, not just relying on their own promises from vendors but how they will build true internal marketing capabilities around their own technology,” he said.

According to a 2022 Gartner survey, brands spent 25 percent of their expense budget on technology owned by that business and paid for it out of their business budget. That, said Bloom, is a sizable investment for marketers in general, especially since a number of Gartner’s periodic surveys have found that these organizations often fail to utilize all of the benefits of features they have bought and paid for.

Respondents to a 2020 market tech survey by Gartner reported that they used only 58 percent of those capabilities. “If you are the CFO, you might say ‘What about the other 42 percent? Can we get that money back?’ “

A better view of the customer journey

As companies reassess how they are using technology, the best practice here, said Bloom, would be for both the marketer and the CFO to look more intensely at these kinds of investments and where they lead. Perhaps it means adopting a new business model. Perhaps it means adding new digital touch points.

For the developer, the focus must now include the ability to create an integrated set of linkages along the customer journey. With third-party cookie support becoming less durable, teams need alternate ways to measure the effectiveness of their advertising.

It may be time to assess the methods of data collection and rebalance them, Bloom said. He said there are a number of areas that could benefit when marketers rethink the approach.

Incremental prompts for consumer consent — whether it is to reveal a reader’s location or invite that reader to accept a daily email newsletter —– can provide greater linkages to that consumer and potentially higher advertising revenue later. Setting limits, however, is crucial. An excess of these prompts becomes a barrier between the reader and the kind of consumer activity the marketer is seeking. Bloom said the marketer needs to make the big decision: “Where are we getting maximum value and where can we

deliver more value to our customers?” In short, it might benefit everyone if a visitor, for instance, only has to click on four prompts instead of eight.

’More’ doesn’t mean better

There also needs to be more of an economy of data collection. “Brands have been laboring under the assumption that more data is better,” said Bloom. He said many JavaScript tracking tags on websites consume every possible detail about every page view or website or visitor session, then send it to a database without anyone having a plan for how that incremental data is going to be used.

Remember, said Bloom: “Greater levels of data doesn’t mean greater levels of insight.”

He said a lot of big organizations are rethinking these out-of-control marketing stacks and consolidating them so they can have more unified visibility and control of customer engagement. Having too many silos has become problematic. Having a separate system for email, push messages and digital ads, among other things, was useful once but now the move is away from fragments and toward a unified system.

Bloom said there also needs to be greater ability to create durable identifiers between the increasingly divergent worlds. “Much more care needs to be taken in getting the right tools,” Bloom said.

This is particularly evident now with Google, one of the most widely deployed tools to measure website traffic and analytics. Bloom said that even as Google Analytics prepares to retire its Universal Analytics in 2023, marketers are being advised to migrate now to Google Analytics 4, which is being described as a more powerful tool. It has the capability, among other things, of better capturing users’ actions across devices.

“We tell them ‘begin your Analytics 4 ASAP so you have a longer runway of side-by-side data,’” he said. While a swift response needn’t mean a scramble, parameters of a web analytics package do need to be redeployed.

He acknowledges it is a sizable effort and should be performed “with care and some urgency,” along with collaboration between IT, marketing and digital commerce. n

Marketers face challenges with data management

BY DAVID RUBINSTEIN

Marketingcompanies face a lot of pressure these days in delivering potential customers to their clients. With new laws restricting where data is stored and how it can be used, coupled with incomplete or inaccurate data being input into forms, the challenges are daunting.

Recent laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) instituted in Europe, and the California Consumer Privacy Act in the United States have put limits on collecting and sharing data without the person’s consent. And while enforcement at first was lax, more companies have been hit with fines for not following the regulation.

“The idea of GDPR is good, because the idea is to protect everybody’s personalized data, because you and me, you want to know where

your data is used and why it’s used, where it’s coming from and what is recorded about you,” explained Cagdas Gandar, the managing director at the Germany office of data company Melissa. “Before, people had the liberty to just take that data and do whatever they want with your information.”

That, he added, is why there is GDPR. “It became the normal way of life for marketing companies, and for some companies, it meant also that they are not in business anymore — especially companies who collected data without any permission, or consent, and were selling this data,” Gandar said.

He did acknowledge that these regulations have been burdensome on a lot of companies, “and it has hurt them.” But the need for rules about how to collect and work with data overrode the need for marketers.

There seems to be a cat-andmouse game between marketers and the public, in that marketers want to capture names, while most people just want to get the content without providing any information about themselves. One way to game the system is to input an incorrect name, such as “Mickey Mouse.” Another is to sign up for a disposable email address, which is only valid for 10 minutes or so — giving the person time to get the information they want without any way for the company to follow up with them.

Part of this is due to the huge volumes of emails people get each day. With these restrictions on data collection and use, one would expect a decrease in the amount of emails people receive from marketers. And Gandar said he is seeing that in Europe. ”Maybe you just want to read

news or a whitepaper because you’re interested in a topic, but you want to decide by yourself when you want to get in touch with that company to get more information, so that the ball is in your court and you don’t get triggered from everywhere… Everybody calls, but it’s certainly a lot less.”

One way around this is through the use of a data minimization strategy. The idea is to collect just enough personal information to satisfy a request, and to keep the data only as long as it takes to fulfill that request. Beyond that, using personalization marketers can ensure that the people in their database are only receiving emails that align with the person’s expressed areas of interest.

Unfortunately for many marketers, this will reduce the number of names they can put in their funnels — but the upside is that these are real people with real interests in the subject. Gandar said, “At the end of the day, if you ask for my perfect personal preference, I’d prefer 30 good leads to 270 that are not good. We have to just change our mindset a little bit, that it’s not about quantity anymore. It’s just about quality. It’s also more economical just working on 30, than working on 270 requests, prospects, or leads.”

The key to successful data utilization for marketing? Visibility and transparency, according to Gandar, who relayed this story. “There was this media house, where they also have different products, different magazines, where you can subscribe. And I thought, it’s really interesting, so I signed up for all of them. And I received a lot of emails, and then at one point, I couldn’t handle it anymore. And this is the problem of all the people, I think you’re getting just too many emails, you don’t have

Data quality can save money, improve customer satisfaction

The effects of rampant inflation are being felt by marketing professionals. But investments in data quality can deliver cost savings and more effectiveness to organizations.

According to Greg Brown, VP of global marketing at Melissa, "Data quality touches every aspect of business, making it one of the most successful areas to shave dollars off the cost of customer outreach. The deeper customer insight powered by smarter data not only helps marketers target their audience in more powerful ways, but also ensures that correct, standardized, and validated information provides the most cost-effective foundation to all outreach and campaigns.”

Melissa has created an ROI calculator that shows how data quality can save organizations money. An example is organizations mailing to 50,000 targets, but finding that 6,500 are undeliverable. In the physical world, using address verification to remove bad addresses can save a company $23,000 on postage and material costs. In the digital world, using an email provider such as Hubspot or MailChimp and email verification, companies can cut costs by reducing the number of mailings contracted for, and avoid getting a reputation as a spammer due to undeliverables and bounces.These steps can eliminate waste and lost opportunities from incorrect mailing.

Another example assumes an online shop sends 278 packages per day or nearly 100,000 parcels per year, with an average of 9% typically undeliverable. With address validation, mailers reduce undeliverable packages by 2/3. Return shipment costs are reduced by $40,000 annually, saving more than $570,000 in sales per year.

Further, Melissa said, matching and deduplication tools help establish a single, high-quality customer record linking all customer touchpoints for a 360-degree view of each customer.

“All these benefits and cost savings are a direct result of data quality investments,” added Brown.

For more information on how to improve marketing costs through proactive, seamless data quality, click here to download Melissa’s Solutions Catalog. To connect with members of Melissa’s global intelligence team, visit www.melissa.com or call 1-800-MELISSA.

— David Rubinstein

time to read it, and your mailbox gets too big. Then I went through to their website, logged in and clicked the opt-in option. And I could see all my subscriptions, which was really nice.

And then I could decide what I want to still receive, and which ones I can unsubscribe from. So more visibility and more transparency was a really nice solution presented there.” n

Three trends marketing teams need to be aware of in 2023

BY JENNA SARGENT BARRON

Marketing leaders will continue facing uncertain and volatile conditions in 2023, while still being under pressure to drive growth. These include things like changes to third-party tracking in browsers, the economy, marketing budget cuts, and more.

The tech industry in particular has been impacted by these volatile conditions in the market and in the workforce. Following The Great Resignation, which saw employees leaving their jobs at heightened rates, there were also a number of highly publicized large layoffs at companies like Amazon, Meta, and Stripe, not to mention half of Twitter being laid off upon being taken over by Elon Musk.

To help these marketing leaders plan ahead, the research firm Gartner has published three trends that it believes marketing leaders will need to face in 2023. Being aware of the challenges can help leaders understand the best ways to move forward and be successful in meeting their goals.

“As CMOs enter 2023, the current environment demands a relentless focus on customer value, purposeful evolution of the marketing function, and continual optimization of brand

value,” said Ewan McIntyre, chief of research in the Gartner Marketing practice. “In order to meet the enterprise mandate of driving growth amid continued disruption, CMOs must act decisively to prioritize their investments and their strategy for the year ahead.”

The first trend the analyst firm identified is that customer behaviors will shift and drive more uncertainty.

Inflation has contributed to a lot of changes in consumer behavior, such as 30% of consumers opting for the store brand and a fifth of consumers replacing more in-person shopping visits with online shopping. This was according to a survey Gartner had conducted in September 2022, in

ing teams to track demand or offer multichannel engagement. Incoming regulatory and technical changes, such as the removal of browser cookies and new privacy features in iOS and Android, have the potential

which it spoke to over 1,500 consumers. In order to overcome this challenge, companies will need to focus on maintaining brand preference, premiums, and loyalty.

Consumers and B2B will also withhold more of their personal data, which will make it harder for market-

to make the current marketing strategies obsolete.

“Marketing leaders should create a digital customer value exchange to provide mutual value on digital channels throughout the full cross-channel journey,” McIntyre said. “Enhance the effectiveness of digital marketing

“Enhance the effectiveness of digital marketing by seeking opportunities for personalized engagements that genuinely help customers throughout their end-to-end customer journeys.”

by seeking opportunities for personalized engagements that genuinely help customers throughout their end-to-end customer journeys.”

The second trend is that cross-functional collaboration will actually result in worse outcomes.

The company did a study in March 2022 and found that companies who describe their approach as “independent” outperform those who identify as “collaborators” by almost a quarter in annual revenue.

According to Gartner, marketing priorities have become enterprise-wide and now include complex cross-functional execution. One result of this is that having shared priorities across a company can draw funding away from marketing departments. Many of these departments still haven’t recovered to their

pre-pandemic budget numbers. Further restrictions will result in lower performance in reaching critical marketing goals.

“CMOs must adapt team structures and skills to advance new cross-functional operating models. Streamline operations, establish common key performance indicators (KPIs), and orchestrate messaging throughout the customer experience for greater effectiveness of marketing, sales, and other customer-facing teams,” McIntyre said.

The third trend is that traditional sources of brand value are being disrupted by things like new market entrants, heightened audience expectations, and the ease of being able to learn about unfamiliar brands online.

Over half of the employees and consumers that Gartner surveyed

over the summer said that it’s “less important to choose a well-known brand today than it was 3 years ago.”

The survey also found that 75% of audiences have searched online for information about a previously unknown brand, and only 15% of audiences report a strong brand commitment.

Established brands will need to reposition themselves in order to stay competitive in the market. All brands will need to explore emerging channels and innovative strategies in order to stay relevant.

“CMOs must redefine and quickly demonstrate the value of brand investments in a volatile environment,” McIntyre said. “The strongest driver of brand commitment is a single meaningful brand experience, even with unfamiliar brands.” n

How AI is being used to further marketing initiatives

BY KATIE DEE

Regardless of the industry, if an organization is failing to measure up, customers will not hesitate to find alternatives, resulting in a loss of revenue as well as damaging the company’s reputation and relationship with customers.

One of the most essential aspects of remaining competitive is adopting automation, and introducing artificial intelligence tooling into every area of the business.

According to Dr. Vinod Vasudevan, CEO of Flytxt, a company that offers AI-driven solutions, bringing AI into the marketing side of the business is becoming increasingly important as these tools become more and more powerful.

“Marketing tools are now offering capabilities with the promise that

marketers can optimize marketing mix decisions in weeks rather than months,” Vasudevan said. “With AI, it is possible to… optimize a marketing campaign… the moment it is launched — with accurate customer and product intelligence derived based on historical performance data of similar campaigns or products in the market.”

Vasudevan expanded on this saying that one of the biggest benefits of AI tools for marketing is its ability to ensure ROI. He said that AI can be used to discover the most optimal mix of customer, product, and pricing in order to drive value and guarantee ROI.

Jessie Johnson, principal analyst of demand marketing at Forrester, said that in addition to revenue increases, AI marketing tools help organizations to create an essential feedback

loop with their customers.

“And at the same time that we’re able to sense and respond to the needs of our audience, we’re also creating better marketers through the insights that they are capturing from their AI-based tools,” she said.

According to Johnson, having these feedback loops in place with the help of AI is a key factor in achieving continuous development and improvement.

On top of this, Vasudevan went on to explain that AI marketing tools can also work to ensure that compliance standards are met as well as offering heightened personalization.

He said that personalization spans across several different areas, whether it is simply personalizing the content, or going deeper and personalizing the semantics.

Johnson also touched on this. She

said, “Personalization is a really key use case, along with thinking about the orchestration of the journey. So figuring out what tactic comes next and what the next best action is for both buyer and the seller.”

Johnson continued, saying that another of the most prominent use cases for AI in marketing tools is simplifying the process of properly targeting content.

“That is certainly one of the top use cases. How are we really reaching our audience with the right content, the right time, the right person, all of those things,” she explained.

She went on to say that conversation automation is another essential element. Johnson explained that leveraging conversational AI allows businesses to communicate directly with both prospects and customers all across the customer lifecycle.

“Things like intent monitoring, conversion optimization… and where we see that the most is on the website,” she said. “So, how are we dynamically generating that content experience on the website, based on what we know about that audience?”

She went on to say that there has also been a fair amount of buzz around generative AI and what it can do for marketing organizations.

She explained the ability of artificial intelligence to manufacture images that can then be put into a content engine helps to deliver an even more customized experience for the user.

With all of these benefits, though, Vasudevan explained that it is essential to keep user security top of mind.

“I also think it is very essential to build that trust and that confidence in the AI,” he said. “Fundamentally, all AI is built with a lot of data… and therefore, privacy becomes another important aspect.”

He said that once organizations have a firm grasp on privacy, transparency, and explainability with AI tools, adoption will grow exponentially.

Additionally, Johnson stressed that all of these use cases are only the tip of the iceberg. She believes that as more organizations begin to pilot this technology, the adoption of AI into marketing organizations will only grow as the capabilities continuously expand.

Vasudevan also emphasized this, saying that marketers are now past the initial stage of recognizing the usefulness of AI and have moved into the phase of heightened adoption, to test out just how far this technology can go. n

www.sdtimes.com

Editor-in-Chief David Rubinstein drubinstein@d2emerge.com

Art Director Mara Leonardi mleonardi@d2emerge.com

Publisher David Lyman 978-465-2351 dlyman@d2emerge.com

Marketing and Digital Media Specialist Andrew Rockefeller arockefeller@d2emerge.com

List Services Jessica Carroll jcarroll@d2emerge.com