Wiland Blog

Agencies and their clients bring different points of view to many aspects of their collaborations. In a recent article published with Digiday, I discussed a topic that involves such differing perspectives: how brands and agencies view their respective roles in customer data analysis. The idea for this article sprang from recent Wiland-sponsored Digiday research, which uncovered some interesting perspectives from brands and agencies on who typically performs customer data analysis in their working relationships. These findings seem to reflect another chapter in the oft-discussed swing between in-housing and reliance on agencies.

My Digiday article addressed the question of who’s performing data analysis tasks between brands and their agencies as well as how staffing plans and security issues enter into brands’ decisions. Most importantly, though, I discuss the role of agencies when it comes to helping their clients make the most effective use of their customer data, and where I think the role of the agency in this arena is headed in the future.

One of the key takeaways from my article is that communication is key. It’s absolutely crucial for agencies and brands to be on the same page when it comes to key elements of data analytics and enrichment, including:

• Strategic division of tasks
• Not duplicating efforts unless for verification purposes
• Sharing observations and confirming decisions
• Identifying gaps in customer knowledge
• Identifying the best sources of trusted third-party data to fill those gaps
• Developing methodologies for ingesting third-party data
• Testing and back-testing to identify incremental lift in models and in real campaigns

I encourage you to read the full Digiday article for a rundown of my thoughts on this topic. As a sneak peek, here is a quick excerpt:

Regardless of which stakeholders are performing the [data] analytics, the shared goal should always be focused on outcomes like acquiring new customers at better ROI, maximizing revenue and profit from existing customers and identifying new target markets for continued expansion. From any perspective, those results will always matter most to clients.

While there is a trend of in-housing, there’s more to the shift than at first glance. The Digiday-Wiland research suggests that most brands are analyzing their customer data while also seeking out agencies with superior capabilities. Having two distinct processes working in parallel like this frequently results in some overlap. As more teams understand the value of collaboration, these ad-hoc arrangements are quickly giving way to consciously created hybrid structures, especially after trust about maintaining privacy and security has been established.

As brands and agencies work together to analyze customer data, communication is crucial to ensure alignment, strategic task division and, ultimately, better campaign results.