For years, marketers have been told that “data-driven” is the gold standard for decision-making. Maybe it’s something you’ve heard from a manager, a coworker or even a self-proclaimed marketing expert on LinkedIn. It sounds convincing, right? After all, who wouldn’t want to rely on “real data” to make better decisions?
But here’s the catch: data, on its own, is often incomplete, unreliable or just plain overwhelming. And relying solely on raw numbers can lead to flawed strategies, missed opportunities and campaigns that don’t deliver. In fact, only 6% of marketing campaigns actually succeed in driving both short-term results and long-term growth.
So, what’s the alternative?
The answer lies in data-informed marketing — a smarter approach that blends the insights from your data with human experience, creativity and critical thinking. This method doesn’t just look at what the numbers say but also considers context, nuance, and the “why” behind customer actions.
Data-driven marketing isn’t the solution we were promised
Data-driven marketing is all about using “real data” rather than intuition and experience to make marketing decisions. While using data to inform our decision-making is better than relying on gut feeling alone, there are some caveats with using data.
Marketers collect and analyze data from conversions, drawing information from multiple sources. By looking at offline touchpoints, website visits, social media interactions, email opens and purchase history you can draw conclusions about what customers are interested in and what motivates them to take action.
The goal with data-driven marketing has been to use data to tailor your marketing messages to each customer based on their unique preferences and behaviors. This has been the promise of data-driven marketing — but the truth is somewhat different.
If you’re like most marketers, you’re struggling with the increasing number of data sources you need to wrangle. Trying to create a meaningful story from multiple data sources can feel like trying to open an umbrella in a tornado.
Managing endless data from a growing pile of sources can quickly turn into “data chaos.” It makes it tough to get clear, actionable data insights or truly understand what led to your conversions.
Data from different platforms can sometimes contradict each other. For example, Google Analytics might show you that Meta generated 39 conversions, while Facebook Ads data suggests that 75 conversions were generated from the Facebook and Instagram campaigns.
This makes getting a unified, or holistic, view of what your customers really want from your brand pretty complicated.
Then there are privacy regulations, like GDPR. These can limit the kinds of data you’re even allowed to collect and use, leaving gaps and blind spots in your understanding of the customer experience.
Having a range of sophisticated tools at your fingertips sounds great, right? But the reality is they don’t always play well together — so instead of streamlining things, you just end up stacking more silos.
Then there’s the numbers game. While metrics matter, focusing too much on them can mean you’re missing out on invaluable qualitative data, like understanding how customers actually feel. And that emotional connection? It’s often the missing piece for building real loyalty, but you won’t find it in your data dashboard.
What we’re trying to say is that, often, a purely data-driven approach just doesn’t cut it.
Skewed data and status quo thinking limit accurate KPIs
When your data contains holes or is stretched across silos, your metrics aren’t reliable. If you can’t trust your metrics, you can’t defend your performance or justify your ad spend when it comes time to negotiate next quarter’s budget. Here are some other limitations of relying on a solely data-driven approach:
1. There’s a heavy reliance on incomplete data
Not all data is reliable, and accuracy can vary widely — so taking a critical look is key. Outliers, for example, can seem like major performance shifts at first, but investigating those unusual spikes or drops often reveals if they’re genuine or just data glitches.
You also have to stay alert for issues like miscounted conversions or platform errors, such as a hiccup in Google Analytics, which can easily skew your results. Relying too heavily on data without questioning it can lead to strategies that miss the mark.
2. Relying on the past can cloud future-forward decisions
Data tells you what has happened in the past, not necessarily what will happen. For instance, your numbers might tell you your Facebook ads are providing the cheapest conversions, and simply doubling your marketing campaign budget might sound like a solid idea.
But, wait. What if it’s the week before Black Friday when ad saturation limits your exposure in a big way? Purely following the numbers can lead to bigger issues like target audience saturation or suddenly diminishing returns. Not only will you have blown out your budgets with low-performing campaigns, but what was already working is also broken.
Spending more on a maxed-out channel doesn’t guarantee extra conversions. That’s why a data-informed approach is key. It helps you catch these nuances and avoid wasting your budget or breaking campaigns that are performing. Plus, it even leaves room for smarter strategies, like predictive analytics, to guide your future moves.
3. Trusting the status quo exposes risk and limits opportunity
Hitting your targets doesn’t mean it’s time to coast; innovation is what keeps things fresh and exciting. A purely data-driven approach might suggest staying the course, but trying out new channels and creative ideas and testing them can open up unexpected growth opportunities.
And this kind of testing shouldn’t be a one-off thing. Continuous experimentation, ideally automated with little to no intervention, is key to staying ahead.
The best marketers know that consistent, hands-off testing is how you get reliable real-time data that paints vivid pictures for decision-makers. And then data storytelling — that’s the way forward. It turns those valuable insights into compelling narratives that drive action.
What is data-driven vs data-informed marketing?
Data-driven marketing relies solely on data to make decisions, often sticking rigidly to the numbers without room for nuance.
The way data influences decisions differs between data-driven and data-informed marketing.
Data-informed marketing, on the other hand, uses relevant data as a guide while leaving room for intuition, experience, creativity and other external factors that might not be measurable.
This approach strikes a balance between quantitative and qualitative inputs for smarter, more flexible decision-making that better reflects the present, rather than the past.
The value of a data-informed approach
Think of data as your trusted guide, not a controlling boss. Sure, the numbers might suggest doubling down on Instagram ads that are performing above benchmarks. But what if you know a major competitor is launching a huge campaign next week? Skyrocketing costs could ruin your results.
That’s the value of data-informed marketing: blending data with your intuition and industry experience. But what other benefits are there?
Provides flexibility to adapt based on context
Relying on numbers that you aren’t even 100% sure are accurate can lead you down the wrong path. What you need is a framework that allows for making decisions that factor in that which can’t be measured.
Think of it this way.
If the data you collect shows you that your email open rates are slowly declining, a data-driven approach might keep you focused on trying to improve email open rates.
That could mean testing new subject lines, trying new ways to segment your audience or sending your emails at different times to see if that lifts open rates. All of these approaches require gathering more data and reviewing the results in a vacuum, related solely to email.
But a data-informed approach would ask you to take things a step further and look at the problem in a broader business context. For example, if you take a look at the audiences you’re targeting, you might find you have much more success with them on other channels.
Perhaps they engage more with your social media or click through on your website. This could signal that your target audiences’ communication preferences have changed. Instead of just focusing on trying to improve email, a data-informed approach would have you reallocating some of your budget to other channels to see if they provide better conversions.
With this approach, your data is informing your decisions. At the same time, wider context and experience allow you to be flexible enough to respond to emerging trends.
Supports deeper understanding
By mixing hard numbers with your experience and judgment, you get a fuller picture. So instead of just increasing social ad spend because click-through rates (CTR) look good, a data-informed approach would dive into customer sentiment and feedback. You can then see what really matters to your target audience and fine-tune your messaging for even better results.
Recognizes the role of human judgment
When you’re interpreting anomalies, a data-informed approach digs deeper than you can with numbers alone. For example, if there’s a sudden spike in website traffic, data-informed decision-making means you don’t just celebrate the numbers and take them at face value.
Instead, you would investigate possible causes that aren’t accounted for in your data trail. For example, your competitor might have taken a reputation hit or your brand might have been mentioned on a popular podcast.
There are many reasons why people could be checking out your website that your data can’t account for. These other factors need to be considered when making decisions.
Encourages calculated risks and new ideas
Instead of only focusing on high-ROI channels, data-informed marketers might also test emerging platforms or experiment with different ad formats. What’s key here is using data as a baseline rather than a boundary.
When you make room for a data-informed approach, your marketing teams can also enjoy some creative freedom in trying to find the right mix of targeting and content to better grab the attention of your target audience.
Focuses on the why behind customer actions
Data-informed decision-making focuses on the why behind the what.
For example, if conversion rates dip suddenly, a data-driven strategy might look at UX metrics to see why conversions are dropping. But data-informed marketers would also look at things like changing market conditions (did a competitor change their pricing?) or take a brand pulse (what are people saying on social media?).
With a data-informed approach, you would consider the big picture, rather than just pulling back ad spend and then watching and waiting. This is the power of embracing data-informed decisions — you can stay agile.
Promotes alignment with larger business goals
Instead of just focusing on a narrow goal like “increase leads,” a data-informed approach ties these goals back to bigger brand objectives, making sure your strategies actually reflect the company’s mission and values.
Plus, it helps create more effective and authentic campaigns without letting data run the show —and dictate creative that might not resonate.
3 ways to make your data dance with data-informed marketing
With the fundamentals in mind, here are three ways you can get started with data-informed marketing right now:
1. Create a single source of truth so you can trust your data insights
Data-informed means that the role of data input is still critical. Which means being able to access the data you need so you can create a meaningful narrative — in real time.
Building a single source of truth requires a fully-integrated system for all of your marketing channels.
Your marketing intelligence platform should connect to all of your existing marketing channels with accurate field mapping for all your required data and no zaps required to connect the dots.
It should then be able to normalize your most common fields automatically, taking each platform's unique field names and data types into account. So clicks are clicks and cost is cost regardless of where the data came from. That means no developer is required to write custom Python code to normalize your fields.
It’s time to move past broken APIs and funky connections between ad platforms, spreadsheets and business intelligence tools that don’t speak to each other. You need a single source of truth that tells your data story with confidence.
2. Use marketing intelligence that makes sense
Now that all your existing data is flowing into a single, reliable source of truth, it’s time to rethink what you’re measuring.
The way we approach marketing measurement is shifting. Advertisers are realizing that tracking just last-touch attribution or multi-touch attribution (MTA) alone doesn’t give the complete picture.
Enter marketing measurement triangulation — the future of truly understanding what is driving your conversions.
Triangulation allows for better precision when measuring performance.
When you’re measuring the right things and your data hub is rock solid, creating data narratives actually becomes enjoyable.
And the best part? Reporting becomes simpler, more insightful and dare we say... fun.
3. Focus on data-inspired reporting that puts you ahead of the game
Gone are the days of comparing endless spreadsheets with the open tabs of every data source. No one wants to be spending an hour prepping the numbers for a 15-minute standup where you aren’t even confident your numbers have something to say.
If you want to avoid that soul-crushing feeling of not being prepared even though you know you’ve triple-checked everything, consider using better dashboards. Meaningful reporting dashboards are the difference between getting more sleep and having to make a Starbucks stop on the way to work.
Your data hub should give you customizable dashboards that not only let you access data but also make it easy to engage with it. This means swift and secure dashboards that make your data visualization-ready — and you get to walk into work with the slide deck of your dreams without lifting a finger (Well maybe one, to click ‘Export.’)
Ideally, you should be able to share your data with your exec team in their preferred tools too, like Power BI, Google Looker Studio and Tableau.
Remember, a data-inspired life means your measurement and reporting should move your marketing so you and your team can create campaigns that move your audience.
Staying data-informed in a rapidly changing market
Not everything can be measured, but with data-informed marketing, there’ll be no gaps in your game. Let your data hub handle the numbers while your years of experience and quantitative insights paint the real picture.
By leveraging data-informed marketing, you bridge the gap between raw numbers and valuable insights — faster.