‘Big Data’ is a term often referenced in marketing and advertising circles. But what is the best way for marketers to use data effectively to get the best possible insights? This question is particularly important to the retail industry, which has a wealth of valuable customer insights if they can be harnessed correctly.
Firstly, it is essential to have the right data collection tools in order to gain useable insights from “Big Data”. However, to secure the best insight there must be an interplay between man and machine. Having the right tools will help you to collect and analyse data, but without the basic human understanding and awareness of what you’re trying to achieve through this analysis, the tools alone won’t provide you with the information you need.
To use the data effectively, you must first shape it by understanding what you hope to achieve. It is important to have a clear objective in mind which will help focus the analysis and give meaningful insights into the data you have collected. When Yahoo analyses retailer data for products such as Consumer Connect, we know what we are looking for and look at the data with this in mind. Using this approach Yahoo is able to provide carefully collected data back to advertisers and marketers to give insight on how shoppers are interacting with their products.
Yahoo invests in Big Data heavily and has been dealing with it for over 10 years. What we have learnt from our experience it is in the human analysis of data collected where we gain the real insights.
By Piers North, Strategy Director at Yahoo UK.
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