How Data Will Save Brands In This Recession

By Trent Lloyd Co-Founder and Head of APAC at Eyeota

As the world teeters on the edge of a global recession, many companies are coming to terms with potential — if not actual — sales losses as consumers start to pull back on spending. From the marketer’s perspective, sales losses and broader economic turmoil often mean budget cuts on the marketing front.  

Now more than ever, marketers need to make every dollar count. But at any given moment, there are a number of initiatives vying for marketing dollars. Going into a recession, prioritising these initiatives is more important than ever. So where will the wisest dollars be spent?

Marketers looking for the surest win right now — the one that’s going to position them strongest on the other side of the downturn — need to be looking at data investments. Companies rely on data and metrics to make decisions, and data has never been more important when it comes to keeping pace with consumer needs and desires. Data is what powers the marketing funnel from awareness to consideration to sales.   

The Needed Fuel for Personalisation and Prospecting 

In the face of economic turmoil and reduced consumer spending, the importance of connecting more deeply with customers and prospects cannot be overstated. Marketers must lean into data to uncover insights about their existing and future customers — outside of their interactions with the brand itself — and gain a true 360-degree view of the consumer.

With the right insights on a brand’s customers, marketers can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their personalisation and prospecting efforts, thereby ensuring every marketing dollar goes further. But of course, as every marketer today knows, not all third-party data is created equal. So what should marketers be looking for when it comes to identifying data partners that are going to help them make the most of their constrained budgets?

Consider the following: 

Interoperability: It’s not just the economy that’s in a state of turmoil right now. The state of data-driven marketing itself is undergoing an unprecedented transformation right now, underpinned by the loss of many major once-relied-upon identifiers.

No one knows exactly what the future holds for audience targeting and identity in the coming years, and that’s why interoperability — data that plays within an ever-evolving landscape of identifiers — should be the top criteria for marketers looking to ensure their data investments have longevity.   

Platform compatibility: Similarly, data today needs to be flexible and able to play within a vastly fragmented technology landscape. For that reason, marketers need to seek out data sources that will be available to them across major platforms, including DSPs, DMPs, CDPs, social platforms and more.  

Global applications: From a privacy standpoint, the regulatory landscape worldwide is only becoming more complicated. Today’s brands, especially those with global footprints or global aspirations, need to seek out data vendors that understand and adapt to regional complexities.  

Cross-vertical applications: Similarly, marketers need to seek out versatility within their data investments, and that includes finding partners that operate across a wide variety of verticals, including both B2C and B2B sectors.

Increasingly, it’s going to be vital that data partners be able to translate consumer attributes to business audiences, and vice versa, now that the personal and professional lives of prospects have become inextricably intertwined.  

Proven quality and certified audience data: When it comes to data, price tags vary — and lower price tags can look awfully tempting during a recession.

But remember: Bad data ultimately costs a brand money in the long run due to campaign waste and lack of results. It’s important to invest in quality, and one way to do that is to look for certified audience data that’s been put to the test.  

Post-cookie resilience: Even though Google has kicked its third-party cookie deprecation date down the road again, now is the time for marketers to be getting ahead of the inevitable and future-proofing their data strategies. In that regard, marketers need to ensure their data partners have a good roadmap in place for a post-cookie reality. 

Based on past recessions, we know that the brands that invest during a downturn, versus pulling back across the board, are the ones that emerge stronger on the other side. That said, investment in the face of economic constraints is easier said than done.

What is clear going into this downturn is that, more than ever, marketers need to ensure they’re making efficient and effective use of whatever budget they have. In that regard, there’s only one sure win: high-quality, interoperable third-party data.