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How to Get a Single Source of Truth in Marketing
Marketing data is getting more and more abundant. So how do you make sense of it to find your single source of truth? We look at what it is and how to find it.
Did you know that marketers use as many as 13 channels to share their marketing content? That’s an awful lot of data to analyse and report back on.
And more and more, we’re seeing marketers struggling to understand what KPIs to track and how to critically assess their performance. In fact, only 23% of marketers are confident they’re tracking the right KPIs. That’s an awful lot of marketing teams throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks…
But, there is a solution. In this blog, we’re going to talk you through the single source of truth, You’ll learn:
So, let’s get stuck in.
A single source of truth is a concept used to help businesses align their strategies and budgets to one universal truth. Generally, you need your data to flow into one system where you can critically assess it without bias or restrictions.
We’ve all heard of data-driven marketing. This is just taking that to the next level in order to support teams to make the right decisions that will help grow their business.
Instead of fighting over priorities and budget allocation, teams can look at their single source of truth and build business strategies without bias or inaccurate data skewing results. For example, some teams might look at social media metrics and paint one picture with them, while another team might consider them vanity metrics.
Related: Vanity metrics vs actionable metrics
The trick to getting a single source of truth is to find one data provider that all teams agree is a trusted and reliable source.
Pro Tip
Ruler Analytics is a marketing attribution tool that supports marketing teams and businesses get a single source of truth by assessing marketing results by the metric that matters most; revenue. Book a demo to find out more about how Ruler works here.
You might be wondering why a single source of truth is even necessary, particularly for your marketing data.
But the truth is, a lot of the reporting tools you’re currently using are biased. They’re also not communicating with each other which leaves data siloed and so you’re left scratching your head.
Facebook tells you one thing, while Google Analytics tells you another.
Related: The discrepancy issue between Facebook and GA: explained and solved
Think about it like this.
Anonymous users visit your website.
While Google Analytics can track them, the data you receive is pretty limited.
Related: The limitations of Google Analytics
When users convert into leads on your site, it gets even more complicated.
Your website and CRM talk, but only just. You can set up processes so that new form fills get sent to your CRM so you can see your new lead and their information. But you can’t link that lead to their anonymous session. And even more importantly, you can’t link them back to previous marketing touchpoints either.
So, when that user converts into revenue, how are you attributing it?
📈 Pro Tip
Learn how to track your customer journeys, including every touchpoint, with our handy guide. You can see how to track calls, form fills and live chat sessions plus individual web sessions and their source.
This connection issue affects businesses around the world. And it leads to teams reporting on metrics that really don’t matter.
You end up tracking new leads as a success and optimising campaigns based on clicks. And what does that lead to? Wasted budget and zero improvements.
We touched on it before, but let’s break down exactly what happens when you can’t critically assess your campaigns and channels based on more substantial metrics.
Example one:
You set live two campaigns.
The first generates 100 new leads. A success, right? The second one only generates 50, so you turn that one off and carry on with campaign A.
Well, because you’re only tracking lead volume, you miss that only 10 of these leads converted into a sale.
Meanwhile, campaign B converted 30 leads meaning it’s much more successful.
But, without that insight, how can you ever know how to optimise your marketing?
Example two:
Let’s say you manage to pull through the lead source of your form fills and you find that they’re all coming from organic searches.
You’re disappointed because you recently set live a PPC campaign but you’re not seeing any substantial results.
Well, with inaccurate data, you’re missing visibility of how your PPC campaigns are impacting the start of your customer journeys. While it’s not causing them to directly convert, a lot of those organic-led forms actually start their journey via your ad.
So, now we know why a single source of truth is important, how do we get it?
It doesn’t have to be unattainable, even for small businesses. By investing in the right tools and processes, you can easily align your teams.
Achieving a single source of truth in marketing, in particular, is easily achievable with the following steps:
Historically, sales and marketing sit separately. Marketing generates leads and throws them over the wall to sales. Marketing never learns how those leads progress. Meanwhile, sales miss out on key marketing contexts that could help them improve their pitch.
Aligning these two teams is key and easy to achieve.
Related: How to align your sales and marketing teams
The main way to do it is by centralising their tools. Ideally, integrate a marketing attribution tool so that both teams can see how marketing is impacting lead generation and whether those leads are high-quality or not.
📈 Pro Tip
Read our guide to marketing attribution software here. And remember, Ruler offers attribution as one of its core features. It supports marketers to link sales back to marketing touchpoints and better optimise their outputs.
The next thing to do is to create a list of priority metrics for your teams. While marketing might have been looking at vanity metrics like social followers and clicks, they need to be working towards the same goals as your sales team.
The most important metric for both teams is revenue.
By assessing your impact on revenue, you can see a direct impact on your bottom line. And don’t get us wrong. You need to still be monitoring metrics like impressions, cost per lead etc, but if you don’t have oversight of revenue metrics, how can you ever know if your work is making a tangible difference?
With revenue as your north star, you can create a single source of truth for your teams and your business.
With it, you can understand what is driving revenue, what isn’t and make adjustments to optimise both.
Related: How Ruler attributes revenue to your marketing
Waiting to find your single source of truth for marketing? What are you waiting for? Ruler Analytics is the perfect solution. Read how Ruler has supported other businesses to improve their ROI by optimising their strategy and budget.
Related: How Ruler can help you optimise your marketing strategy
Ready to see the data in action? Book a demo with our specialists to see how Ruler can support you to achieve a single source of truth from your own data.
