It’s no secret that data is focal to business today, and hence, it’s key for marketers to understand the evolving data landscape, winning data strategies to drive better business outcomes and customer experiences. That’s the leading thought behind the “Leveraging Consumer Data For Marketing” study, a result of a collaboration between the India chapter of marketing trade association, MMA global, and EY. To know more, we are talking to Moneka Khurana, Country Head and Board Member, MMA India; Amiya Swarup, Patner, EY India, Sujit Ganguly, Chief Marketing Officer, ICICI Bank and Saloni Shah – GM, Media, Digital & Data Transformation at L’Oreal India. How can marketers use consumer data and build data capabilities? Get Ready To Melt, and listen in.

Download the report here: https://www.mmaglobal.com/documents/india-leveraging-consumer-data-marketing-2022

Consumer data helps 54% of Indian marketers drive better marketing decisions: MMA-EY consumer data survey 

• 78% of marketers saw a lift in marketing efficiency due to leveraging consumer data 
• 73% of Indian organizations rely on a blend of first party (1P) and third party (3P) data for marketing activities. 
• Organizations are moving toward enriching their 1P data through communities, advocacy, and contextual targeting 
• 35% of the organizations have extensively used attribution data 
• Cross channel retargeting and personalisation could be the next use cases to be leveraged by marketers. Currently, only 3-4 out of 17 potential use cases are explored by 50% of the marketers. 

There is a rise of Indian marketers leveraging consumer data for marketing activities according to the second edition of the MMA-EY consumer data survey 2022 titled “Leveraging consumer data for marketing”. In 2022,54% of marketers leveraged consumer data for marketing activities compared to 42% in 2021. 

Amiya Swarup, Partner, Marketing Advisory Services, EY said, “Marketers need to focus on developing solid decision-making processes. While data consumption and collecting have significantly risen across industries, there is still a gap in the chain that connects data to decision-making. The MMA-EY Consumer Data Survey found that 50% of marketers only look at three to four of the 17 possible uses for customer data. Although most marketers recognized the value of using consumer data for marketing purposes, there is still a critical need for a robust attribution model.” 

Moneka Khurana, Country Head and Board Member, MMA India stated, “The evolving consumer habits, omnichannel and personalization as a focus has led to a data explosion. A key competitive advantage for organizations. MMA’s constant endeavor is to equip marketers with the right knowledge backed by credible research and insights to help them successfully achieve desired business outcomes. With our partner, EY, we surveyed more than 170 CEOs and CMOs across various sectors to understand the trends amongst the CXO community on consumer data strategy and critical success factors. This report offers a deep dive into the world of data maturity and best practices to guide marketers and provide them with toolkits to ace their data marketing journey’’ 

Key highlights:

Data types and uses:  

• 73% of Indian organizations relied on a blend of first party (1P) and third party (3P) data for marketing activities.  
• Most marketers believe that data breadth, depth, and quality gaps need addressing to enable optimal use of data for decision-making.  
• Only 1 of 3 marketers use personal data for cross sell and competitor analysis 
• 57% of organizations used and activated personal-level consumer data more optimally. However, 56% of Indian marketers had gaps in consumer data leading to difficulties in data-driven decision-making.  
• Comparing industries reveals that the automotive industry, at 80%, was the most active in using consumer data, followed by retail and e-commerce at 75% and media and entertainment (M&E) at 64%. 

ROI measurement and attribution:  

• Organizations are moving toward enriching their 1P data through communities, advocacy, and contextual targeting.  
• 38% of Indian marketers saw performance and growth, and 36% saw brand building as the key focus areas for organizations.  
• 52% of marketers have adequate strategies and policies on contextual and publisher targeting and 1P data collection.  
• While Consumer packaged goods (CPG) organizations spent 48% of their marketing expenditures on brand building, followed by healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations (46%). Automobile, education, technology, and travel & hospitality industries spent nearly half of their marketing budgets on performance and growth. 

Capabilities and skills:  

• 79% of respondents had established or outsourced best-in-class martech capabilities.  
• 100% of retail and e-commerce, Telecom and Automobile companies said they had either industry leading or developed martech capabilities.  
• Analytics and data science are two competencies that marketers have prioritised to stay ahead of the competition while Automation and AI and identity management were the least developed martech capabilities.  
• Access to advanced analytics and data science resources was adequate for only 40% of Indian marketers. 

Data ownership, governance, and integration:  

• Although Indian marketers outlined ownership and management strategies for 1P consumer data, there was little / no integration of 1P and 3P data, limited staff access to data, and no cross-fishing regulations.  
• With limited employee access, 55% of Indian marketers have little to no integration of their 1P and 3P data.  
• 84% of respondents agreed they had suitable rules and practices to protect consumer data.  
• 38% of Indian organizations had cross-fishing rules for sharing consumer data between brands, a rise from last year. 

MMA-EY consumer data survey conducted among 170 CEOs and CMOs across sectors revealed insights on the current state of the required data capability, gaps, and challenges in India.