Big data investment up, but marketers still struggle with analysis

For three years running, the DMA have surveyed marketers on their data-related marketing budgets and found they have been increasing throughout that time. A survey of attendees of DMA2013 found that 39% of marketers were seeing a return on Big Data investments.

At this year's conference, DMA2014, a survey of 584 attendees by Infogroup found the number reaping rewards has risen significantly, now standing at almost half (49%).

Furthermore, with more starting to see ROI on their investment, two-thirds (64%) of the survey respondents said they expect data-related budgets to rise again next year, with just 4% expecting a decrease.

According to Gretchen Littlefield, president of Infogroup Media Solutions, "data-driven marketing is no longer an emerging field. It's standard practice".

However, the survey also highlighted that marketers continue to struggle with analysis of the huge amounts of data now available to them. For 21%, analysis is their biggest concern moving forward into 2015, followed by data implementation (16%) and collecting data (15%). More than half of marketers surveyed said they do not collect enough data while 10% said they collect too much. Of those who collect too much data 25% believe collecting data remains their biggest challenge.

"Data analysis will be the next frontier and the next challenge that marketers will grapple with," said Littlefield. "Marketing is equal parts art and science, and positive ROI indicates that the industry has started to master the science portion of data collection and analysis. We anticipate that data-driven investment and returns will steadily rise in the next few years."

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Tags: big data, data capture, data trends 2014