Only six per cent of marketers have a ‘single view of the customer’ despite 90 per cent agreeing this is top priority, according to a new report by Signal.
The global study of marketers showed that poor data quality and management was behind this shortcoming.
Sixty-two per cent of respondents blamed ‘fragmented data’ for this problem, saying that it led to incomplete marketing measurments which prevented them from personalising the customer experience. Thirty-five per cent also said they could not understand the customer journey because of incomplete data, and 25 per cent said poor data causes inefficent and wasteful media buying.
The struggle to create buyer personas continues after marketers have collected data, with 57 per cent unable to merge profile fragments when data becomes avaliable and 55 per cent lacking the ability to collect data across channels.
Unfortunately, data technologies and tools are not helping the situation. Only eight per cent of respondents said their tools are doing a good job in helping develop a unified view of the customer, while 70 per cent have gaps in their data capabilties or effectiveness.
Neil Joyce, managaing director at EMEA, commented on the findings: “Results confirmed that marketers need data first and foremost to understand cross-channel identity. However, they currently struggle to cover all channels and close the gaps in their solutions.”
