The Data & Analytics advisory council for ad:tech Sydney 2011 met to discuss the issues that are affecting the market and the content that should be on the ad:tech programme. Here is a summary of the key areas discussed:

Resource / Resourcing
• What is best practice on resourcing data and analytics management?
• Strategy and execution of data techniques / management should be separated so that there’s a better focus
• How to define data and where it sits with clients / agencies
• Data is a form of intellectual property so should it therefore leveraged / managed in house or is outsourcing ok? But the lack of skills, resource, innovation in house means that the data won’t get managed as well as possible.
• There aren’t agencies that can deliver a data service; there’s a lack of specialist agencies
• There is a huge knowledge gap in what people think they know about data (and everything to do with it) and what they actually know.
• Clients need to define what they want and they need to drive the program and the results

Investment
• Ideally clients would look at spending on data at the start of a campaign in order to target, then the middle of the campaign in order to change / adjust the direction of the campaign, then at the end of the campaign to understand the results.
• Agencies (or someone) need to tell clients what to spend on what and how much

Theft / Fraud
• Data theft is prevalent. Trade or theft of email addresses is prevalent; lots of value is attributed to these things
• There isn’t a lot of ‘policing’ of data theft / fraud / management
• Regulators are concerned with breaches and infringements of data management and this in turn leads to over zealousness in use of legal teams and how to service consumers
• Advertisers / brands / marketers need to know how to work with regulatory authorities and still be able to do their job

Data Visualisation
• Visualisation piece is interesting – how to make the data mean something
• How do marketing actually use data?
• What are the interesting ways of using data?
• What are the real new ways of using data?
• How is data processed by people?
• What different tools are used for visualisation?
• It’s really important to look past just the part about making data pretty and also consider what is the data based on, what was the field research? Visualisation tools are good but where does data come from?

Trust / Mistrust of Data
• Data isn’t trusted. Where did the mistrust come from?
• What data can you trust?
• Who do you trust to come up with the numbers? Can you trust what comes off / out of your own site?
• We’re collecting heaps of data – how do we clean the rubbish?

Use of Data
• What does the future look like? If marketers use data really well then people will be prepared to pay for it

Comparisons / Benchmarking
• IAB standard and certification will lead to comparison from one business to another as opposed to just doing the best you can, and this is possibly not the best approach for business. Measuring against each other can be irrelevant.
• Benchmarking is better than standards
• Marketers need to ‘watch out’ for data that is used in particular ways – comparisons, headline statistics that are not representative, drawing one set of conclusions compared to another
• Insights are lost because companies don’t standardise their metrics internally (they compare differently year on year for example)
• Benchmarking and knowledge transfer are gaps / poorly managed and so a lot of potential intel is lost in organisations
• There needs to be clarity on the different aspects of the campaign, what’s important about those aspects (ROI, revenue, other return or value)

‘Return’
• Time spent on site is misunderstood as a form of measurement
• Different forms of measurement mean different things to different businesses

Tools & Their Capabilities
• Reality check chart of data management platforms
• Understanding the technology, innovations and explanations (of them) in the market. What are the opportunities for marketers and how they affect consumers?
• Platforms, technologies, systems are seen as ‘rubbish’ but is that because nothing else exists?

Have your say

This is a summary of the points that were made in the meeting. We’ll be working on this and integrating these topics and themes into the ad:tech Sydney 2011 conference programme. If you have feedback on these points or want to make suggestions about additional topics or speakers for the programme then please leave comments or get in touch with me here.

Notes from the other advisory council meetings

Social Media Strategy
Digital Strategy
e-Commerce / Online Retail advisory
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Creative & Brand
Entertainment & Experience
Core Digital Media

Who’s on the other advisory councils:

Social Media Strategy
Unwired Media
Digital Strategy
e-Commerce / Online Retail advisory
Monetising Digital
Brand & Creative
Core Digital Media
Entertainment & Experience
ad:tech Sydney advisory council groups named