Many CMOs are frustrated by the news that investing in their own data may no longer be profitable. According to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of marketing programs that use customer data will generate less revenue than the costs of acquiring, managing, and enabling the data. A recent survey found that most respondents completed the end-to-end journey within two years, making implementing orchestration a significant undertaking. As a result, CMOs must justify accelerating personalization investments, subverting the simple business cases they have relied on.
Marketing teams are searching for cost-effective solutions to customer data problems. They can do so in three ways: leveraging a data partnership’s identity resolution, narrowing the scope of customer data collection, and prioritizing innovations that deliver more customer value from data. However, there are specific costs driving up the price of first-party data collection for marketers. These include martech inefficiencies, increased regulatory oversight, data duplication, data security, talent shortages and costs, consumer reluctance to share data, and vendor pricing approaches.
Consumer reluctance to share data is particularly concerning, as most consumers are unwilling to have their data tracked in exchange for personalization. In addition, vendor prices are rising, putting marketers under pressure to reduce martech costs. The rush to collect first-party data is fueled by the phasing out of third-party cookies and the need to prioritize data to create immediate value for customers, although only 82% of respondents believe they can achieve this.
Gartner’s Maverick* research explores groundbreaking, disruptive, and sometimes contradictory ideas challenging conventional thinking to consider alternative risks and opportunities that may influence strategy. Media professionals can discuss these topics in more detail by contacting Matt.LoDolce@Gartner.com and referencing Gartner’s material.