2019 Study Commissioned by Equifax Finds Companies with Highest Measurement Maturity Generate More Than $73 Million in Additional Annual Revenue, Among Other Business Benefits

Equifax Data-driven Marketing (DDM), the marketing data, analytics and technology solutions capability of Equifax Inc. (EFX), presented findings from a commissioned marketing measurement study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Equifax. The study found that marketers with high measurement maturity earn approximately $4 for every dollar they spend on marketing measurement.

In Leader Of The Pack: How Holistic Marketing Measurement Drives Business Success, Forrester explored the state of marketing measurement in a survey of 300 marketing, data and analytics decision-makers at US. enterprises across more than 10 industries that have active marketing performance strategies.

A small group of marketers, 51 companies (17%), have high measurement maturity, enabling them to produce accurate, unified and actionable insights applied strategically as well as tactically. These companies are considered leaders, and they stand apart from peers in critical performance metrics. Forrester found that on average, marketing leaders:

• Earn approximately $4 for every dollar they spend on marketing measurement
• Secure more than $73 million in additional revenue; about a 3 percent increase in revenue overall
• Generate nearly 3 percent more leads
• Decrease their marketing spend by over $2 million
• Increase their Net Promoter Score by more than 7 points
• Better match offline sales to their digital marketing efforts

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“This new data shows the incredible impact of successful marketing measurement, creating significantly higher business benefits that impact a company’s bottom line. While most companies still struggle with holistic measurement maturity, leaders pull ahead of the pack with their efficiency in managing data, better insights and less wasted spend, resulting in more targeted campaigns and better acquisition conversions. Their CMOs are focused on campaign improvement, they own their data, and they leverage it more effectively,” said Mykolas Rambus, General Manager, Equifax DDM. “Our OptimaHub marketing attribution solution is precisely designed as an end-to-end solution to bring marketers deeper intelligence around their campaigns and the value they bring to their business.”

Other study findings:

Leaders use more measurement techniques. While all marketing leaders use unified measurement, they also more heavily use tools such as mix modeling and advanced digital attribution. Still, less than half of companies surveyed (43%) use unified measurement, or what Forrester calls the “most mature approach to measurement,” leading to varied levels of accuracy for firms.

Leaders’ No. 1 goal is customer insights. Marketing measurement leaders do a better job focusing on optimizing and getting the most out of their campaigns. Leaders optimize the targeting of campaigns (65%), manage more contextual (54%) or personalized (48%) marketing and gain better customer insights (52%). Their peers focus on more tactical efforts such as customer targeting, forecasting and planning.

Leaders are better at data integration. Successful data integration provides a better understanding of the customer journey and is key to campaign success for leaders, who integrate online and offline data at a far higher rate. Around 63% of leaders have integrated their digital and offline channels, while 87% have integrated their digital channels alone.

Leaders leverage more data. A full 75% of leaders use both customer ID and regular data, vs. around 50% for their peers. Leaders use far more demographic data (58%) and leverage more types of data including CLV, digital media performance and direct response. These investments in marketing measurement drive across-the-board efficiency improvements as teams are more effective with proper insights.

Marketing measurement is ripe for investment. Firms are clearly seeing the benefit of increasing the percentage of their budget allocated to measurement. By 2020, marketers expect measurement will make up 10% of their overall marketing budget, up from 5% two years ago—doubling over four years.

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Equifax highlighted findings of the study at the Forrester Consumer Marketing 2019 conference in April in New York. Download the study for more detailed information on the research results.

The Equifax DDM capability provides unique Equifax data insights about economic capacity as well as functional solutions for marketers such as identity resolution, direct and digital engagement, and attribution and performance analytics to help brands market with precision, manage risk and drive superior returns. OptimaHub is the Equifax marketing measurement capability that uses a sophisticated measurement solution paired with unique household economic insights from Equifax to provide marketers with robust and actionable intelligence not available elsewhere.

Equifax DDM brings together data assets, analytics, technology, and integrated marketing capabilities to solve key challenges for marketing executives and helps more than 300 customers across the financial, insurance, telecommunications, travel and other industries.

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