Marketers are taking more direct control of data collection and data initiatives, according to a new study commissioned by tag management provider Tealium.
The survey of 142 U.S. digital marketing professionals in a variety of sectors found that 86% of firms with active customer data initiatives either rely on marketing teams to own and manage those initiatives, or will transfer ownership to marketing in the near future.
The study focused on data collection and distribution via tag management systems (TMS) like Tealium’s iQ. TMSs help publishers and advertisers manage the code tags that third-party technology vendors like comScore, Innovid and Criteo use to collect data for analytics, ad testing, interactivity and targeting.
TMSs are designed to provide an easy, business-friendly method of dealing with the often overwhelming number of tags that publishers have to juggle when they plug into the digital advertising ecosystem.
The study found that marketers operate the TMS at 56% of firms that use them, whereas IT operates the TMS only 46% of the time. Most marketers said they look for a TMS that’s easy to use and will help them improve the quality of their data. The biggest improvements that marketers who use TMSs see are in reliability of analytics, marketing agility, and website performance.
The report suggests that marketers have taken the reins on data collection and tag management because of a lack of IT resources, and 96% of marketers surveyed said they face significant difficulties integrating customer data into marketing strategies. More than half said those challenges are a result of a strained IT department. Other common challenges were low-quality data and the high cost of data integration.
The report recommends that marketers don’t cut IT out of the loop entirely; even with hands-on control of the TMS, they’ll still need IT to audit and consolidate tags, and deploy the many custom tags that vendors use.
The study was conducted for Tealium by Forrester Consulting, a division of Forrester Research. It included a double-blind online survey as well as 45-minute phone interviews with marketing decision-makers.
