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How brands can more effectively obtain and deploy consumer data

by | Dec 22, 2017 | Public Relations

New research from digital benchmarking firm L2 Inc offers key digital strategies and best practices for brands to effectively capture and leverage data as it relates to personalizing brand engagement across channels.

L2’s third annual Intelligence Report: Data and Targeting 2017 evaluates the use of consumer data in one-to-one marketing for 107 consumer brands across the Activewear, Beauty, Big Box, Department Stores, Fashion, Specialty Retail, and Travel sectors, classifying brands as Leaders, Streamliners, Data Miners, or Laggards.

“Digital media and advertising is increasingly riddled with irrelevant, if not flat out deceptive, content,” said Mike Froggatt, director of intelligence research at L2, in a news release. “This is taking a toll on consumer trust, and many of them are taking matters into their own hands by installing ad blockers as they attempt to avoid cluttered and unrelated advertising.”

Skipping the basics

Twelve percent of brands succeed at offering personalization without collecting much consumer data. However, failing to collect basic data points such as birthday (59 percent), gender (46 percent,) and age (34 percent) often leads to misgendered or age-inappropriate messaging.

Lack of informed consent

Only 8 percent of analyzed brands supply a prominent and succinct explanation of their use of cookies. While 78 percent of analyzed brands make some effort to explain the benefits of signing up for an account, only 50 percent clearly explain the benefits of signing up for an email newsletter (e.g. exclusive offers and promotions).

Email personalization

Once customers make the leap to register for a brand site account or newsletter, they are largely unable to customize the content and benefits they receive. Just 11 percent of analyzed brands prompt users for their content preferences and only 13 percent offer the ability to choose the frequency of email communications.

“Very few brands effectively deploy data on a consistent basis,” said Evan Neufeld, VP of Intelligence at L2, in the release. “The truth is that brands may never achieve the perfect system for storing and using consumer data, but they cannot let perfect be the enemy of good. Incremental data improvements pay major dividends in terms of personalized marketing and meeting the rising tide of consumer expectations.”

The report features case studies on brands including but not limited to: Adidas, Best Buy, Lululemon, Macys, Topshop, Urban Decay, and Warby Parker. Download a report excerpt here.

Richard Carufel
Richard Carufel is editor of Bulldog Reporter and the Daily ’Dog, one of the web’s leading sources of PR and marketing communications news and opinions. He has been reporting on the PR and communications industry for over 17 years, and has interviewed hundreds of journalists and PR industry leaders. Reach him at richard.carufel@bulldogreporter.com; @BulldogReporter

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