Acquisition Analytics and the Art of Audience Building

Future-Proofing Marketing & Data Strategies in a Post-Cookie World

This was first published in INFORMS Analytics Magazine.

More and more marketers are embracing data scientists as part of their teams. They are also partnering with data consultants to help them with buyer journey mapping and customer acquisition strategies.

Marketers collaborating with data scientists is critical to success as the customer journey becomes more circuitous. From retail media networks and connected TV (CTV) to Threads, Mastodon, TikTok and Tumblr, media and communications platforms are being introduced and adopted at a rapid pace.

In some cases, the marketing and creative process have been somewhat stifled in favor of data crunching and analytics. While I advocate leaning into data analytics to assist with new customer prospecting, I’m also recommending we elevate the “art” of audience building. In a crowded marketplace, brands need to accentuate creativity to stand out.

Customer Journey & Acquisition Analytics

Customer journey analytics, including acquisition analytics, AI, predictive and prescriptive modeling, help to boost the customer experience. Leveraging acquisition analytics can also enhance creativity and improve business decisions.

Here are the benefits of customer journey and acquisition analytics:

• Improved Data Analysis Across Organizations By democratizing data to share information more easily across organizations, data preparation and analysis is streamlined. Data consultants can offer dashboards to review data and make timely decisions to adjust advertising programs and support business outcomes.
• Behavioral Segmentation Predictive and prescriptive modeling enable more targeted and effective marketing campaigns because they help marketers go beyond “look alike” buyers and past purchase behavior recorded in customer relationship management systems (CRMs).

Predictive modeling uses historical statistics combined with real-time or near real-time data to provide future scenarios.

Prescriptive modeling also forecasts future scenarios by using mathematical algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Using prescriptive analytics, organizations can review multiple options and potential outcomes.

Armed with insights for behavioral segmentation, marketers can develop ad campaigns to engage multiple buyer personas.

• Deeper Customer Insights Analysis of customer demographics, lifestyle and behavior deepens target audience strategies and media planning. Data across all communications touchpoints offers insights into which elements of the advertising and marketing campaigns are engaging consumers. By monitoring clicks, comments and purchases, marketers can determine which interactions are converting and which communications need adjustments to improve return on ad spend (ROAS).
• Refining Marketing Creative and Media Platform Using predictive and prescriptive modeling allows data scientists to find new audiences who are more likely to buy, join or support marketers’ causes. Understanding these new universes will elevate the art of audience building by guiding the development of marketing messages that will resonate with consumers. In addition, advertising campaigns gain strategic insights to invest in the right media, whether direct marketing, email, programmatic ads, broadcast and more.

Forward-thinking marketers are partnering with data scientists to support advertising and sales strategies. Through customer journey and audience analytics, marketers can amp up the art of audience building.

William Skelly is founder and CEO of Causeway Solutions, a leading provider of Acquisition Analytics and innovative data services. Bill serves as advisor with some of the nation’s most influential organizations—from grassroots public affairs efforts to U.S. Presidential campaign strategies. Causeway Solutions empowers clients to make smart, timely, data-driven decisions through real-time consumer insights to better reach target audiences. Learn more at Causeway Solutions.