As we know, data is crucial to any successful marketing agency and ensures the best return on investment for clients. However, marketing data is notoriously difficult to manage, as manually integrating data that is scattered across multiple sources is time-consuming and causes unnecessary headaches.
Traditional data collection systems often lead to low data accuracy, data silos, poor data accessibility and poor communication between teams.
Increasingly, marketing agencies are turning to data warehouses to solve their data management issues. Data warehouses are automated systems that fully take care of those boring, menial tasks, allowing you to focus on the important stuff.
In this guide, you will learn about the wealth of benefits a data warehouse can have for a marketing agency and how to go about implementing one within your company.
What is a Marketing Data Warehouse?
A marketing data warehouse is a centralised repository that organises and manages your agency’s data from multiple sources into a consistent, accessible system, so your data can be analysed as a whole.
This efficient data system uses business intelligence tools to analyse both current and historical data so that businesses can draw meaningful insights from raw information.
With advanced analytics and access to data in real time, marketers can efficiently identify patterns in their data, facilitating informed decision-making and a stronger marketing game.
Overall, a data warehouse will streamline the operations of any company, bringing along better quality data, cross-channel reporting and faster insights—giving you more time to focus on cutting edge strategy!
Why Do Marketing Agencies Need a Data Warehouse?
Many marketing agencies struggle to get the best out of their data, spending valuable hours pulling and cleaning dispersed and incomplete data from multiple sources before it can even be analysed. If this is a problem you face, a data warehouse can take care of all those menial tasks with the click of a button.
Instead of relying on other platforms’ data retention policies (such as Facebook, Google or Hubspot), a marketing data warehouse will securely integrate all your data in one place, translating it all into a single accessible system that you get to own.
As a marketer, you no longer need to worry about data silos or inaccurate data because data warehouses automatically clean and prepare data for analysis. This eliminates miscommunication across departments and makes the data far easier to analyse and make sense of.
Data warehouses are tailored to marketing agencies’ needs because they give you a 360-degree view of your agency, real-time data extraction, and generate cross-channel reports to enhance your operations and unlock valuable insights for your marketing strategy.
With more time on your hands, enhanced reporting and advanced digital advertising analytics, your team will be able to focus on creativity and innovation.
7+ Benefits of Using a Marketing Data Warehouse
Data warehouses provide a wealth of benefits to marketing agencies: by centralising data from various platforms all in one place, you will be able to unlock new insights, identify patterns and efficiencies to streamline both internal operations and client strategies. This will improve decision-making overall and save your company time and money in the long run.
Let’s run through some of the key advantages of marketing data warehouses:
#1. Obtain a Single Source of Truth (SSOT)
The main advantage of having a marketing data warehouse is that it consolidates all your data into a Single Source of Truth (SSoT). This means everyone in your business will be able to make decisions based on the same data and metrics, avoiding possible miscommunication between departments.
The cross-channel reporting gives you a consistent overview of your agency’s data and eliminates confusion between teams and functions, allowing for enhanced reporting and insights.
#2. Own Historical Data
Essentially, historical data refers to the collection and analysis of both current and old data, giving you a broader picture of how your data has changed over time.
By owning historical data, you will have full access to all client data from your marketing data warehouse, and will be able to pull the exact datasets, spot patterns, gain valuable insights on your customer’s behaviour, and use this information to implement effective strategies. This provides a more tailored approach to analysing your data, allowing you to draw unique insights from your clients’ data.
#3. Perform Big Data & Machine Learning Analysis
It’s no secret that big data is becoming a key player in marketing. This can pose a problem for agencies because traditional data management systems are simply not equipped to manage the complexity and size of big data.
Think about it this way: if you do not have a sufficient system with automated analytics and reporting software, a lot of the information hiding behind your raw data will go to waste. You will be constantly trying to keep up with the growing market and acting on business intelligence reactively, wasting time that could be spent on innovative strategies.
Marketing data warehouses are designed to support big data and implement machine-learning and AI-based systems to accommodate the growth of big data in different industries.
#4. Unlock New Insights
It’s a no-brainer to implement a marketing data warehouse, really, if you no longer have to spend tedious hours sourcing and extracting data from outdated systems. You will have more time to develop data-driven strategies from your advanced analytics.
Advanced analytics, enhanced reporting and historical data enable you to identify patterns that are easily looked over in traditional data systems, allowing you to unlock new insights—paving the way for improved data-driven campaigns.
#5. Visualise Data & Enable Business Intelligence (BI)
Data warehouses use business intelligence tools to assemble and visualise your data, transforming unstructured data into accessible, easy-to-read dashboards.
A dashboard visualises your data in clear and accessible charts, graphs and tables, so your team can make regular queries, generate reports and run predictive analysis efficiently and with ease. Visualising your data in a marketing data warehouse makes it far more accessible to your team, helping you make informed decisions.
#6. Become a Market Innovator
With enhanced reporting and analysis of data in real time, you will be ready to adapt to any changes in the marketplace while continuously launching innovative and successful marketing strategies.
All thanks to your marketing data warehouse, you can use your advanced analytics and enhanced reporting to spot, predict and capitalise on trends, therefore improving forecasting decisions and setting you apart from your competitors.
#7. Enhance Client Experience
Marketing data warehouses are a great way to enhance the client experience, which, as you will know, is key to any successful marketing agency. Consolidating your data and metrics into a central hub gives you a 360 view of your clients and customers, and a unique understanding of behavioural patterns.
With advanced analytics, you can draw vital information from your clients’ current and historical data to develop meaningful insights and build a strategy that is specific to their needs.
#8. Scale Your Solutions
Scalable solutions are a top priority for marketing companies that want to expand without compromising on quality. Scaling solutions allow for expansion through increasing efficiency while ensuring growth is sustainable and will not impact current operations.
With access to data in real-time and the advanced analytics that a marketing data warehouse will provide, you will be able to identify areas for greater efficiency and ways to optimise your strategies.
Are There Drawbacks to Marketing Data Warehouses?
It’s understandable that implementing a marketing data warehouse might initially feel daunting as any major change to your company would.
At first, it can be difficult to get teams on board with a single source of data, and at first, this may present a challenge. However, this can easily be overcome with good planning and proper training and is overall an investment for your company, saving you money in the long run.
You may worry that the cost of building a data warehouse may outweigh the benefits, but with the rapid growth of big data in the marketing industry, it is an investment that will pay off big time.
Luckily, these days, building a data warehouse doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Acuto specialises in building data warehouses tailored to your agency’s unique needs, at a much lower cost than many other companies on the market. If you are interested in how we can build you a data warehouse that fits your unique needs, you can book a consultation here.
What is the Difference Between a Data Warehouse and a Database?
You might think that a marketing data warehouse sounds similar to a database. While they are both data collection systems, there are a few key differences between them.
A database is a data collection system that stores only the most recent data as a record, whereas a data warehouse combines structured, historical data from many data sources, preparing it for analytical use. This gives marketing agencies the edge as their data is immediately analysed to extract meaningful insights to make informed predictions.
Another key difference is that data warehouses have elastic storage capacity, handling both small and large amounts of data, therefore costing less to run than databases in the long run. With a data warehouse, you will never run out of capacity as it will scale as your business does.
How to Implement a Marketing Data Warehouse
So, you want to implement a data warehouse at your company. Now what? Here is a quick breakdown of the four main phases of implementation:
#1. Planning and Designing
Planning and design are central to the success of any marketing data warehouse project because they set the foundation for the overall implementation.
During this phase, you will need to define what the purpose of your data warehouse is, what data needs to be included, how your data warehouse will be structured and what tools and technologies will be used. A detailed plan will give you a framework to follow during all stages of the implementation.
#2. Component Selection
Once you have a clear plan for the overall project, you can begin selecting the components of the marketing data warehouse.
You need to decide which software, hardware and other tools you will use to construct the data warehouse. It’s important to think about data sources, metadata, the data staging area, ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) tools, database, data marts and reporting and analysis tools.
#3. Implementation
After you have selected your components, you can begin to build and configure your marketing data warehouse following the plan you created in earlier stages.
You can do this in the following steps:
- Install and configure the data warehouse platform
- Create a data storage environment.
- Build the ETL process.
- Configure the analysis and reporting tools.
#4. Testing and Launching
You are now ready to test if your data warehouse is ready for launch!
This involves testing the performance of data accuracy, user acceptance and measuring the overall performance of the system to ensure there are no major issues before you launch.
At this stage, it is important to train your employees and involve all stakeholders so everyone is on the same page in this exciting new chapter of your company. Make sure you document everything as you go, as it can help troubleshoot any issues that could crop up later on.
When is the Right Time to Get a Marketing Data Warehouse?
So, is a marketing data warehouse right for your company? If you are still unsure whether you need a data warehouse, ask yourself a few questions:
- Does manually integrating data from multiple sources take up a significant amount of your team’s time?
- Have data silos and inaccurate data set you back in working efficiently?
- Would it make your life easier if your data collection system used business intelligence to visualise and assemble client reports?
- Would cross-channel reporting and real-time data access improve optimisation and lead to more informed decision-making?
- Do you want a more efficient data storage system that will help you capitalise on trends, identify key insights and get the most out of hidden patterns in your data?
If your answer to these questions is yes, you should definitely look into a marketing data warehousing solution, as it can solve all of the above pain-points.
Get Started with a Marketing Data Warehouse by Acuto
A marketing data warehouse is a great tool if you want to save time, optimise your data and overall level up your marketing strategy.
At Acuto, we believe that every marketing agency deserves to get the best out of their data, which is why we can build a data warehouse at a lower cost than pre-built data warehouse solutions on the market.
We are a team of specialists with expertise in PPC automation solutions, and we design purpose-built infrastructure for agencies. Our managed advertising data warehouse service takes care of the complicated bits so that you don’t have to, and we will be there to guide you through all stages of implementation and get you started in this exciting new part of your journey.
Acuto can develop data warehouse solutions designed to cater to your agency’s needs and maximise your marketing data’s potential. Get in touch today if you would like to learn more about our services!
Key Takeaways
Data warehouses are marketing agencies’ secret weapons, and their benefits are endless. Let’s go over the main points we covered:
- A Data Warehouse is a centralised repository of all your agency’s data.
- Data warehouses are an excellent way to manage and sort your data, combining multiple sources from across platforms.
- Data warehouses enhance reporting capabilities, giving you a 360 view of your company and allow you to draw valuable insights.
- Databases are not as suited to marketing agencies because they only store their most recent data meaning you lose out on advanced analysis.