The democratization of data goes beyond simply providing access to data. Learn how to enable marketers to go from questions to insights.

For many marketers, data democratization is another buzzword that is overused by vendors in the data and analytics space. Just like self-service BI or analytics. The democratization of data is not just about making data accessible, whether as raw data or as visually appealing dashboards in a BI tool. 

Data democratization empowers marketers to feel comfortable asking data-related questions, provides the right tools to enable marketers to work with data, and is an ongoing process affecting organization-wide culture and workflows. 

Before delving further into the data democratization framework, let's first understand why it matters.

Data democratization addresses the biggest data challenge

What is the point of collecting and storing large amounts of data if marketers are unable to use it effectively? Fundamentally, data democratization aims to address the challenges that marketers face daily. With the rapid pace of change in data and marketing, especially within enterprises, even top data teams are struggling to meet performance marketing standards.

I spend most of my time chatting with performance marketers and engaging with large-scale and enterprise teams operating in complex marketing landscapes. These teams run numerous campaigns for multiple products across different geographies and channels. The most common data challenges that marketers share can be summed up as follows:

If one or more of the above statements are deemed to be true by your marketers, it can be assumed that data democratization in your marketing organization is not yet achieved.

So how do you democratize data? Let's first define what that means.

What is data democratization?

The democratization of data is a continuous process of empowering marketers to access, understand, and explore data comfortably, regardless of their technical expertise. This process enables marketers to use data independently, speed up the data-driven decision-making process, and foster a data-driven culture. 

In the performance marketing space, the data democratization framework consists of:

• Empowering marketers to feel comfortable asking data-related questions

• Providing the right tools to enable marketers to work with data

• Seeing data democratization as an ongoing process affecting organization-wide culture and workflow

The state of data democratization in marketing

In reality, most marketing and data teams I speak to are not reaching the level of data democratization as they are faced with data challenges that look more like this: 

This raises the following question:

How do you ensure marketers have the right tools to work with data?

To answer this question, let's first examine how various marketing stakeholders typically utilize data:

• Marketing leaders work with data to understand overall performance and how to better allocate budgets

• Marketing mid-management works with data to diagnose performance changes, understand regional performance, and run deep dives to uncover optimization potential

• Performance marketers work with data to optimize campaign performance daily

• Creative teams work with data to understand which creative concepts work best and improve performance

  
  

This is a brief overview of the most common ways in which various marketing stakeholders utilize data. Each use case varies depending on data granularity, how often it is collected, and the iterations it needs to be processed to arrive at a quick answer. This overview doesn't cover the specific needs of data teams, which require additional tools to ensure that the correct data is accessible in the appropriate format within the right systems and at the right time.

A craftsperson is only as good as their tools

Today, data literacy is a prerequisite for successful performance marketing teams. It is crucial to invest in analytics tools that enable individuals to work with data efficiently to derive insights and make data-led decisions without relying on others. This boosts the productivity of all team members and maintains the team morale. 

The marketing team needs reliable and accurate data, clear metrics, and consistent sources to swiftly move from questions to insights. Utilizing a single analytics platform to facilitate collaboration and ensure consistency is crucial for marketers to iterate quickly and informed decisions. But what criteria must an analytics platform meet to truly democratize data?

What’s the impact of data democratization for marketers?

Marketers rely on data to excel in their roles and achieve their goals. Thus, they need to become data experts in handling data and deriving actionable insights. To do so, they need to be equipped with the tools that enable them to find answers independently, without relying on other teams.

Clarisights as the data democratization platform for enterprise marketing teams

Clarisights democratizes access to data for marketers to go from questions to insights in minutes.