Marketers – like most people – like to see their accomplishments in some sort of visual representation. We are a profession who lives in PowerPoint, prezi or some other sort of tool that makes what you are working on look really, really good – sometimes – better than it really is. Data visualization solutions have become pervasive for this very reason. As we become more analytically capable and adaptable, we know that we need to back up our data with more than just a logo and a byline. SAS Visual Analytics allows those trying to surface their marketing analytics  in something that is flexible, digestible and actionable.

Why data visualization matters to marketers?

 Data visualization is a way of letting you visualize big data within a business context so you can consume it quickly. The right data visualization software helps you  spot previously hidden trends and identify opportunities for further analysis. Analytic visualization takes it a step further by performing sophisticated analyses very quickly – even instantaneously – and presenting results from which marketers at all organizational levels can draw insight for:

• Getting the right messages to the right customers.
• Driving revenue growth.
• Managing marketing performance to do more – better – with less.

Marketing analytics embraced

Google Adwords serves up reports that are clean with modest breadth and depth of analysis for free. Google has a vested interest to make the analysis beautiful so marketers can spend more money with them. They are really good at showing you where you need to spend money with them. They do this through data visualization.

Data visualization  needs to do this for your other marketing channel investments as well – website, events, ad partners, third party syndication partners and more. Data visualization also helps surface other valauable marketing analytics and performance indicators  that might be important to your business – customer lifetime value, demand generation, marketing mix efficiency and sentiment analysis.

Speaking about web data, SAS VP of Marketing, Adele Sweetwood said in a MarketingProfs article (republished on our Customer Intelligence Knowledge Exchange):

If marketing can see the digital dialogue, the opportunities are endless. The ability to analyze visitors’ behaviors, assign scores accordingly, predict which offers will be most attractive, and deliver the right message at the right time… translates into high conversion rates and happy customers.