What Is Marketing Analytics?

Marketing analytics involves evaluating data to determine how marketing activities performed and where opportunities exist. According to an Aroscop blog, chief marketing officers “are pouring money into marketing analytics to plan a great brand strategy. They are expected to spend over 11% of their total budget on analytics. Companies that don’t put data at the center of their marketing and sales decisions could miss out on a 15-20% increase in their marketing” return on investment.

What Is Marketing Analytics?

Marketing analytics involves evaluating data to determine how marketing activities performed and where opportunities exist. According to an Aroscop blog, chief marketing officers “are pouring money into marketing analytics to plan a great brand strategy. They are expected to spend over 11% of their total budget on analytics. Companies that don’t put data at the center of their marketing and sales decisions could miss out on a 15-20% increase in their marketing” return on investment.

Digital marketing opens more channels to engage with customers and glean insights for revenue opportunities, new product development, and consumer base expansion. Companies can leverage analytics within a few categories of marketing analytics, according to Kumar Singh, Research Director for SAPinsider. Those include:

Descriptive analysis. This type of analysis is used when a quantitative summarization of data is required. For example, when analyzing the purchase history of a national hardware store’s inventory, a descriptive analysis can identify which products are best-selling nationally.

Diagnostic analysis. A diagnostic analysis can help explain why certain trends occur. For example, if a product that usually sells well during a seasonal promotion has lackluster sales, diagnostic analysis can help explain why.

Predictive analysis. With predictive analysis, there’s a need to understand what can occur in the future based on current and historical data. Machine learning algorithms are an integral part of predictive analysis. For example, a retailer can analyze how best to replenish their inventory based on consumer buying habits.

Marketing Analytics Within SAP Marketing Cloud

Within SAP Marketing Cloud, users can perform marketing analytics — yielding real-time marketing data for campaigns. Two key capabilities for marketing analysis are analytics stories and operational reporting.

• Analytics Stories. According to SAP, use analytics stories for agile and exploratory marketing data analyses. “The analytics stories come from SAP Analytics Cloud but are fully embedded inside SAP Marketing Cloud. Analytics stories can use charts, visualizations, texts, and pictograms to describe data.”
• Operational Reporting. According to SAP, “Use operational reporting for daily reporting to answer specific analytical questions areas and slicing and dicing on the available dimensions and measures.”

Vendors in the marketing analytics space include: AllSight, Focused Impressions Technology, Nvizion Solutions, and Knack Systems.