Using data and analytics become a critical priority for B2B sales and marketing executives to guide business decisions as 67% of B2B firms listed increasing their use of data and analytics as a critical priority over the next 12 months. But in fact, all surveyed firms face significant challenges in converting their data into actionable insight.

Simply “data activation” is the process of unlocking value from data through the development of insights that inform actions. Read the below points and find out more about B2B data activation priority in 2018:

• Only 52% of B2B marketers and sellers indicated that their organizations base marketing decisions on quantitative information and analysis versus 48% who depend on intuition, or personal/company experience.
• 49% claimed that they have trusted customer data to be complete and accurate, while 46% said that they are effective at using customer data to activate marketing and sales initiatives at scale.
• 82% indicated that managing data and insight sharing across business areas is one of their organizations’ top challenges in achieving marketing and sales objectives.
• 77% indicated that they have the ability to activate data accurately for identifying and attributing campaign success, while 82% indicated the same but for uncovering new business opportunities.

Three Key Actions for Data Activation Success:

• 68% of marketing leader surveyed indicated that they’ll build out predictive models.
• 65% will engage external providers for data and analytics services.
• 62% will establish an insights center of excellence.

A Graph Shows How Well B2B Organizations in the US, Canada, the UK & Ireland Are Executing in Areas of Data Activation

Methodology:

Data is based on an online survey of 500 professionals with responsibility for or influence over customer/prospect data strategy or management at organizations with 500-plus employees from the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland. The survey was conducted from February 2018 to March 2018.