Into the Future

7. The future of Digital Analytics

Into the future…

As mentioned earlier in 2016 we saw a lot of descriptive analytics but according to the article on digital analytic trends, they state how things are shifting to prescriptive analytics. This is because marketers not only want to know what will happen next, but what the optimal action should be for it.  We are also going to see in 2017 more of an aligning customer journey perspective with the firm’s perspective conversion funnel. Picking which analytics methods to use for certain business objectives will lead to a better consumer purchase cycle. The future of analytics will be centered around consumer behavior and changing measurement methods. These methods are crucial in targeting why customers buy what they do and what to suggest to them in the future.

The future will also shift toward data revolving around customer transactions, and interactions cross devices and channels that can assess value and future strategies needed for full potential of data monetization. Successful digital revolution will be based on forming data streams and finding new ways to monetize them such as amazon does with their e- commerce industry. Multi-channel attribution is another major key to the future of analytics.  In 2012 67% of online shoppers had used multiple devices sequentially to shop online, so from there more and more devices will be added as time goes on.  In 2017 going forward figuring out all of the channels a customer is exposed to will be helpful in seeing where purchases are actually happening.  Decisions need to be based off of what is happening right now and that is why data is so important and needs to be accurate. To be successful, analytics will help build a foundation for a company that can help fix problems in the future rather than just doing past analyzations.  For example, analytics will help in the future keep the customers that have made a company profitable rather than just figuring out why some are exiting.

Examples:

•   Instead of using analytics to analyze why your customers are leaving, you implement business processes to detect potential churn and test ways to keep the customers you want.

•   Instead of providing reports of how many planes were stranded last time there was an Icelandic ash cloud, you give the airlines the systems they need to analyze and change their flight plans to avoid the cloud as it billows out.

• •       Instead of analyzing the effect of train breakdowns on customer satisfaction, you predict breakdowns in advance and automatically shift customers to different trains, thus minimizing costs and improving customer service.

Another shift in analytics will be a focus on customer-centricity. All of these changes complement the current consumer-centric era. The behavior of empowered customers, instead of brands, drives influence. Adobe and Google are responding to these trends. And these changes will influence the ways marketers organize, unraveling traditional marketing strategies.

http://timoelliott.com/blog/2016/06/why-the-future-of-analytics-is-about-more-than-self-service.html

http://digitaldefynd.com/7-digital-analytics-trends-that-will-dominate-in-2016/