New CMO Council Research Reveals High-Velocity Data Marketing Shortcomings in Data Access, Adaptability, Agility and AI Pervasiveness

To spot sudden, disruptive changes in customer and market behavior, modern marketers need high-velocity data marketing, according to a new report by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and GfK. These data systems need to be agile and adaptable with the ability to acquire real-time, relevant data signals and close the gap between data, insights and action.

This new research examines the high-velocity data marketing maturity curve, including critical capabilities today, plans for the next 12 months, and gaps between top performers (i.e., marketing leaders who are most confident in their data/analytics/insights systems to win and retain customers) and bottom performers.

Key findings from a survey of over 300 marketing leaders globally uncover:

• 62% of marketers are only moderately confident (or worse) in their data, analytics and insights systems
• 46% say access to relevant customer data is hit or miss or worse
• 39% of top performers say the journey from data gathering to actionable insights is fast or immediate compared to only 7% of bottom performers
• 60% of top performers say their data/analytics/insights systems are very agile and adaptable compared to 9% of bottom performers
• 30% of top performers use AI pervasively in multiple systems compared to 4% of bottom performers

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“CMOs around the world have entered a new era of high-velocity data marketing,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. “Many need to get better at extracting relevant data signals across channels, generating actionable insights, making insights available in real time, and going deeper and more granular with customer insights.”

There is a significant opportunity for CMOs to climb the high-velocity data marketing maturity curve. Our report looks at emerging, relevant data signals (e.g., buyer intent data), identifies challenges and regional differences, and recommends actions for achieving high-velocity data marketing.

“CMOs today need to manage hyper-targeted brands and messaging across thousands of potential touchpoints,” said Gonzalo Garcia Villanueva, CMO of GfK. “Mastering this new landscape requires the best dashboards and data – yet our research shows that relatively few CMOs actually have the sophisticated insights and tools they need. Marketing Leaders need to partner with CTOs, Commercial leads, and other key stakeholders to be sure that organizations have the high-velocity data and platforms they need to meet aggressive growth targets. And CMOs are uniquely positioned to curate those insights, informing essential decisions through just the right combination of learnings.”

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