How Data Activation Works

Working towards data activation is transforming the way businesses gather, refine, harness, and display actionable insights. Gone are the days of relying solely on data analysts and complex operations to untangle the web of information hidden within your company’s data silos.

It used to require a deep understanding of algorithms and business processes and a steep time commitment to even maintain stable data flows.  This meant housing your data in a siloed warehouse where only tech-savvy data analysts could access the data and derive insights for use by the top management. But not anymore.

Enter the world of artificial intelligence (AI) – a true game changer that empowers businesses to focus on the bigger picture instead of getting bogged down in number crunching. All you need is to grant access to your data, sit back, and watch your business explode with unparalleled growth at a minimal cost. Intrigued? Let’s dive in.

The Data Activation Journey: A Three-Step Process

Data activation is a culmination of three critical steps: data collection, data analysis, and data monitoring.

i. Collection of data

To truly understand and tailor your decisions accordingly, you must first capture the right data. There are two primary types of data:

• First-party data – Data you’ve collected directly
• Third-party data – Data you’ve collected from other platforms indirectly

While first-party data is the most valuable and easy to find, third-party data gives you an unbiased view of your prospects. It’s derived from their subconscious actions rather than what they give out. For instance, it could be products they bought together with other products (such as in the “recommended products” in the Amazon cart). 

Some general examples of first-party is data that comes from social media accounts, Google Analytics, website traffic, email sign-ups, sales records, payment processing software, and more

ii. Cleaning, analyzing, and visualizing the data

Not every piece of information you collect will be immediately helpful but helps to build context.  Data refinement entails removing duplicates, fixing errors, and ensuring consistency and completeness across your entire data stack. But it also includes setting goals and key performance indicators (or KPIs) to measure against.  Setting these guidelines helps with discovering trends and patterns and a visually pleasing and intuitive data activation platform lets you draw conclusions effortlessly.

iii. Activating the data

After collecting and analyzing your data, it’s time to execute it. This involves taking action regarding the insights gained, creating marketing strategies to encourage desired outcomes such as a sense of urgency, creating recommendations based on the prospect’s preferences, and ultimately measuring and monitoring the results of the activation to determine if it’s yielding the desired outcomes.

The final step is turning insights into tangible action. This is what you have been training for; use your real-time findings to develop business strategies that tap into employee and customer motivations, tailor recommendations based on preferences, and ultimately measure and monitor the results of your data-driven efforts.  However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

Benefits of data activation