Data is the foundation of successful marketing, empowering you to truly understand and engage with your target audience to accommodate their needs, preferences, and behaviors.
Today’s advertising landscape is crowded, noisy, and fiercely competitive. Between information overload and an array of options to choose from, capturing customer attention requires a strategic, personalized approach – one that is built on diverse, quality data.
Porch Group Media partnered with Ascend2 to survey 353 B2C marketing professionals about the data strategies they are currently using to build their marketing audiences. Read on for the latest insights from the 2024 B2C Marketing Audience Building Report to discover how marketers use data to build audiences and refine their targeting in 2024.
23 Data-Driven Marketing Statistics on How B2Cs Build Audiences in 2024
1. 46% of B2Cs rate their marketing data strategy as very effective at improving overall marketing performance.
2. 42% of B2Cs feel very confident in determining which data types and sources to use to build effective audiences.
3. 53% of B2Cs say they have a strategy in place to reduce their reliance on third-party cookies as they identify and target audiences.
4. 56% of B2Cs have data quality/software tools in place to improve their data hygiene and processes.
5. 35% of B2Cs say they can segment their audience to deliver personalized messaging to a great extent.
6. Marketers who report being very confident in their ability to build effective marketing audiences are 5.5x more likely to describe their overall data strategy as very effective (89% vs 16%).
7. Marketers list the following top benefits of building effective marketing audiences:
- 54% – Improved marketing retention
- 46% – Improved marketing acquisition
- 44% – Improved ability to build brand awareness/loyalty
- 37% – More effective marketing spend
- 37% – Increased marketing/channel targeting
- 30% – Increased ability to up-sell/cross-sell
- 29% – Increased conversions
8. Marketers who report more effective marketing spend as a top benefit of building effective marketing audiences are very confident in audience building compared to all others (46% vs 31%).
9. B2C marketers list the following as the most essential elements to build effective marketing audiences:
- 59% – Having the correct data to personalize communications
- 45% – Having the correct contact info to reach across channels
- 41% – Combining data types and sources
- 41% – Being able to build the right segments
- 27% – Accessing intent data
- 18% – Using data not reliant on third-party cookies
10. Marketers most confident in their ability to determine which data types and sources to use to build effective marketing audiences are significantly more likely than others to consider accessing intent data as a critical element to success (33% vs 23%).
11. B2C marketers list the following obstacles as their greatest challenges to building effective marketing audiences:
- 57% – Having the correct data to personalize communications
- 43% – Having the correct contact info to reach across channels
- 39% – Combining data types and sources
- 35% – Being able to build the right segments
- 27% – Accessing intent data
- 25% – Accessing first-party data insights
- 23% – Using data not reliant on third-party cookies
12. Over 9 out of ten marketers report using first-party data in their strategy
13. 84% of marketers use second-party data to some extent.
14. About two-thirds of B2Cs use third-party (67%) and zero-party (65%) data to build marketing audiences.
15. How marketers are using first, second, third-, and zero-party data to build marketing audiences:
16. While nearly all (98%) of those surveyed consider first-party data important to their strategy, over nine in ten marketers report that second-party and intent data are important in building effective customer audiences.
17. Four out of five marketers consider third-party and zero-party data important to their strategy.
18. B2C’s with very effective data strategies rate the following types of data for building effective marketing audiences as very important compared to all others:
- 84% vs 72% – First-party data
- 59% vs 21% – Second-party data
- 55% vs 20% – Third-party data
- 51% vs 27% – Zero-party data
- 58% vs 30% – Intent data
19. When targeting audiences, nearly two-thirds of marketers rely on website data. Social media data (58%), survey data (57%), email data (56%), and point of sales data (50%) are also among the top most commonly used data sources to build target audiences.
20. Marketers with the most effective data strategies are significantly more likely to use eight or more data sources to build target audiences than those with less effective strategies (24% vs 15%).
21. Nearly half (48%) use data from 3 – 5 sources. Over one quarter (28%) are using 7 or more data sources and this group sees better outcomes than those using fewer sources.
22. 99% of marketers using 7 or more types of data can segment their audience to deliver tailored/personalized messaging somewhat or to a great extent, compared to 88% of those who are using fewer than 7
23. 63% of marketers are not fully satisfied with their data quality, but those who are see significantly more success from their data strategies.
Want more insights on how marketers leverage data to build effective audiences and drive better campaign outcomes? Check out the 2024 B2C Marketing Audience Building Report.
