Why a Solid Data Foundation is Crucial for Effective B2B Personalisation

A bedrock of unified customer data is essential for effective B2B engagement and AI-driven personalisation, according to new research from Adobe in partnership with London Research.

A business survey carried out for The Case for B2B Personalisation has found that B2B marketing leaders are significantly more likely than laggards to be prioritising a range of data-related capabilities that underpin successful marketing and sales programmes.

Key to effective data-driven marketing is a complete view of your customer which means integration between different software platforms including marketing automation, customer data platforms (CDPs) and customer relationship management.

The deprecation of third-party cookies has increased the importance of first-party data as a treasure trove of information about your prospects and customers. And without unified customer data it becomes very difficult to determine the next-best communication or sales motion as part of the customer journey, or to identify and target the right stakeholders within buying groups with the right information at the right time.

A ‘single source of truth’ is also necessary for effective revenue team convergence and attribution to help you understand which type of campaigns and activities are working most effectively. Marketing and sales must strive for a common set of data so they can make the right investment decisions and target their resources as effectively as possible.

The survey of more than 350 B2B organisations across Europe also found that leaders are more than five times as likely as laggards to rate their first-party data capabilities as ‘advanced’ (69% vs. 13%), and they are also much better at translating data insights into better experiences (71% vs. 11%).

Leaders are also far more likely than laggards to have an advanced approach to propensity scoring as a tactic to narrow their focus (62% vs. 8%), and to benefit from effective account-journey insights and revenue team convergence (both 66% vs. 9%).

The report spells out that a united revenue team approach is essential to higher ROI because it wastes less resources on dead-end leads and uninterested customers, and helps ensure collaboration on key accounts and buying groups in real time.

Courtny Edwards-Jones, Senior Marketing Operations Manager at enterprise software company Zuora, explains why a solid data foundation is essential for more sophisticated personalisation activities: “From a marketing operations and martech perspective, data quality is critical. Before we even get into using AI in our processes, while curating automated journeys, if you have incorrect data or data inconsistencies, you will not be able to implement personalisation in a way that’s going to have impact and drive growth.”

The ability to harness AI

A centralised data infrastructure as a requirement for effective AI deployment was a recurrent theme emerging from the brands interviewed for the research.

According to Pauliina Panaite, Global Senior Digital Strategist at Siemens: “To leverage AI, the data must be good, because otherwise the conclusions coming from AI or targeted from AI are not right. Sorting out the data, the data quality, and how to analyse the data, and how to analyse the conversations [is essential].”

Companies are increasingly using AI for a range of marketing and sales-related activities, including content creation, conversational chatbots and customer journey optimisation.

The research found that marketing leaders are more than three times as likely as laggards to say that AI has been operationalised into their day-to-day marketing activities.

Without this foundation, AI-based services can’t perform in the most optimal way, and without AI companies will struggle to get the most value from their data.

The importance of technology

It is of course difficult for organisations to integrate data effectively when they are sometimes relying on antiquated sales and marketing platforms that don’t lend themselves well to providing a single customer view.

The report finds that legacy software platforms and fragmented data & insights are among the most significant barriers to more seamless and personalised customer experiences.

This research shows that companies leading the way in B2B marketing are more committed to investment in marketing technology, with leaders 40% more likely than laggards to be significantly increasing their investment in this area over the next 12 months.

The full report – The Case for B2B Personalisation – is now available for download.

https://business.adobe.com/fragments/resources/cards/thank-you-collections/ajo