Why businesses that prioritized martech, data and organization are faring better during COVID [Video]

The struggles of companies without solid data practices are now exacerbated, said Brad Geddes in this clip from Live with Search Engine Land.

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“One thing I can say is a true trend when we look across clients who are doing really well versus [those that are] struggling right now, is how well organized they were beforehand,” said Brad Geddes, co-founder of AdAlysis, during our PPC for B2B session of Live with Search Engine Land, adding, “Companies who had good CRM systems that talked to their stuff [and] their data flowed well, are managing this much better than people who are cobbling together systems with everyone now distributed.”

The opposite is also true for businesses that have worse data governance, Geddes told Search Engine Land: those companies may have witnessed changes to their bottom lines or the number of lead forms being submitted, but are struggling to determine what they need to change to turn those figures around because they lack insight into customer behavior. Additionally, businesses with poor data management and organizational practices often focus on more basic metrics, so when conversion rates decline, they’re more likely to reduce or halt marketing spend than companies with better insights, Geddes said.

“The biggest difference is those that had great data could easily see the trends in how users were buying, changing shopping (or lead) habits, changes to the products being sold, and so forth,” he said, explaining that businesses that had this information readily available were able to dig into the trends and could make more efficient strategic decisions.

“Those with good insights were more likely to change their marketing messages, cut brand spend, increase spend in other areas, and looked at it more as a marketing challenge that needed to be solved than something to run away from and just stop spending,” he added, caveating that there are exceptions, such as businesses in highly impacted sectors like travel and leisure.

Why we care. “As an overall trend, we noticed that people who had focused on great data, which means systems integration, and often well-defined processes, have navigated these strange times much better than those who weren’t data, system, and process-focused companies,” said Geddes.

Prioritizing organization, data and processes can provide organizations with the information they need to interpret unexpected shifts in customer behavior, which will help them identify new opportunities and allocate their resources more efficiently.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

George Nguyen
Contributor
George Nguyen is the Director of SEO Editorial at Wix, where he manages the Wix SEO Learning Hub. His career is focused on disseminating best practices and reducing misinformation in search. George formerly served as an editor for Search Engine Land, covering organic and paid search.

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