“One thing I can say is a true trend when we look across clients who are doing really well versus [those that are] struggling right now, is how well organized they were beforehand,” said Brad Geddes, co-founder of AdAlysis, during our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land, adding, “Companies who had good CRM systems that talked to their stuff [and] their data flowed well, are managing this much better than people who are cobbling together systems with everyone now distributed.”
The opposite is also true for businesses that have worse data governance, Geddes told Search Engine Land: those companies may have witnessed changes to their bottom lines or the number of lead forms being submitted, but are struggling to determine what they need to change to turn those figures around because they lack insight into customer behavior. Additionally, businesses with poor data management and organizational practices often focus on more basic metrics, so when conversion rates decline, they’re more likely to reduce or halt marketing spend than companies with better insights, Geddes said.
“The biggest difference is those that had great data could easily see the trends in how users were buying, changing shopping (or lead) habits, changes to the products being sold, and so forth,” he said, explaining that businesses that had this information readily available were able to dig into the trends and could make more efficient strategic decisions.
“Those with good insights were more likely to change their marketing messages, cut brand spend, increase spend in other areas, and looked at it more as a marketing challenge that needed to be solved than something to run away from and just stop spending,” he added, caveating that there are exceptions, such as businesses in highly impacted sectors like travel and leisure.
Why we care. “As an overall trend, we noticed that people who had focused on great data, which means systems integration, and often well-defined processes, have navigated these strange times much better than those who weren’t data, system, and process-focused companies,” said Geddes.
Prioritizing organization, data and processes can provide organizations with the information they need to interpret unexpected shifts in customer behavior, which will help them identify new opportunities and allocate their resources more efficiently.
Want more Live with Search Engine Land? Get it here:
- Click here for the full session.
- Why updating your messaging is the best strategy right now [Video]
- How working from home has thrown a wrench in campaign targeting [Video]
- From the bottom to the top of the funnel, COVID-19 is flipping B2B strategies [Video]
- COVID-19 upheaval is actually speeding up some PPC campaigns [Video]
- You can also find a full list of all our Live with Search Engine Land sessions on YouTube.
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Source: IAB