Susan Coghill: Waiting For Perfect Data “Like Waiting For the Perfect Time to Go On Holiday”

Despite what marketers may have been promised, there is no such thing as perfect data.

“Even the most cashed-up data company, their data is very, very imperfect,” according to Tourism Australia CMO Susan Coghill. "But don't let that stop you."

“What matters is how we use the information that we have to make better decisions, how we interpret it, how we apply the data, even if it isn't your own. Don't wait for perfect data. It's like waiting for the perfect time to go on a holiday – you will never get that tan, you'll miss your flight. Don't wait. Get started now.”

Speaking at the AANA’s Marketing Masterclass ‘Data to Decisions: Driving Profitable Growth with Marketing Effectiveness’ at Sydney’s WPP headquarters, Susan was joined by Tamara Howe, CMO of SunRice, and Naomi Gorringe, head of marketing at Southern Cross Austereo.

Whilst nobody can remember a time before ‘these uncertain times’, the instability of global markets has made attempting to futureproof marketing functions all the more critical. Data can help achieve that, but it’s always worth making sure you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

“I typically try to work with the rule of thumb: 80% of the investment goes on what's proven, and 20% is test and learn. It's in trying new methodologies to make sure that we are staying ahead,” said Tamara.

Tamara – who has worked in the food business for 25 years – also pointed out that her industry has “made a shift around not just looking at what's popular in the food culture now, but trying to predict what's going to be popular in food culture.”

Marketing is now as much predictive as it is reactive, with comparisons drawn to fortune tellers and time machines when it comes to locking down future trends. For those without a crystal ball, however, there’s data. And if new metrics become available, the CMOs warned: don’t fall into the trap of staying glued to what’s current.

Naomi argued, “in order to future proof, it's about not getting stuck on those KPIs and just continuing to measure them when there may be new metrics that are emerging. It's about going back to those old metrics, regularly discussing them cross functionally within the business, and asking ourselves ‘are they the right metrics?’”

Consumers are constantly evolving in response to the market, but Susan warned the room, “Don't confuse fast change with deep change.”

“Data can help you understand, actually, what are the meaningful changes that are going to stick over time, and what are the things that are just trends.”

Turning data into action depends on the category that you’re working in.In the travel industry, Susan spoke of rapid change in the post-COVID world as borders opened and new ways to book travel became popular. “But what people are looking for in terms of connection, discovery, and meaningful travel is as important as it ever was; people are still looking for that.”

Audio, meanwhile, is a very responsive medium with quick turnarounds and fast reactions.

“We use data partnerships to help us understand how consumer behavior is changing in response to certain events,” said Naomi.

Through those data partnerships, the SCA team looks at how much people are spending, what categories they’re spending money on, and then what they're listening to in order to work out what content they should be creating.

“So rather than saying ‘come and buy comedy podcasts’ or ‘come and buy this title’, we actually say, ‘what audience are you looking for? Who do you want to reach?’

“Often it might be a crime podcast that actually reaches that audience, but if you go to clients and say, ‘Hey, crime is really popular with young women’, they don't want to buy into that category. It's much more about your audience, and then we find them based on their listening behavior.”

Another way that SCA is turning data into action is through live-in-device sensors, plus time of day, interest, and demographic data to dynamically serve creative to people at the moment they're engaging in an activity.

“We can tell whether people are running, or at work, or commuting home, and then we can combine that with other data points,” said Naomi.

“We have 30 audio ads that have relevant and contextual messages for those people. It all sounds really complicated, but the actual actionable insight was, well, if we know when people are commuting, or running, or working and you want to be relevant in those moments, then let's actually talk to them at the time when they're doing those things with a really relevant, creative message.

“That helps the media dollar work harder, and you can demonstrate you're not wasting your spend because your objectives are being met by talking to the right people at the right time.”

For those in the CPG space, Tamara said whilst market mix modeling can “often get really short cut into ROIs,” it’s important to think critically about what the data is telling you.

“The example in our business was TV had a lower ROI than social, but TV was still driving the most volume. So you can't just simply interpret that data as ‘move money from TV to social’ – that has to be carefully managed through the business as well. Because, especially in the current environment where everyone's potentially over-investing in social, that's a careful conversation to navigate. It’s about making sure that you're looking at the data holistically, talking to your partners, and really challenging it as well.”