Chief Marketing Officers know the benefits of Big Data. Oftentimes what they don’t know is how to use it. David Rogers and Don Sexton at the Columbia Business School wanted to gain a better understanding of the changing practices among large corporate marketers. What they found was support for the use of new data to drive marketing decisions and measuring ROI and a widespread adoption of new digital tools.

Still, significant gaps exist between conception and execution when it comes to Big Data Marketing efforts and there remains a need to improve on the use of data, the measurement of digital marketing and the assessment of ROI.

Successful brands use customer data to drive marketing decisions, 91% of senior corporate marketers

Yet, 39% say their own company’s data is collected too infrequently or not in true real-time

A lack of sharing customer data within their own organization is a barrier to effectively measuring marketing ROI, according to 51% of respondents

Around 85% of large corporations maintain brand accounts on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Foursquare

Comparison of the effectiveness of marketing across different digital media is “a major challenge” for 65% of marketers

Financial outcomes where omitted by 37% of respondents when asked to define what “marketing ROI” meant for their own organization

57% of respondents are not basing their marketing budgets on any ROI analysis

Brand awareness is the sole measure to evaluate marketing spend for 22% of marketers

Source: Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data: The 2012 BRITE/NYAMA Marketing Transition Study