Dealing with Data Overload? 3 Tips to Avoid Data Fatigue

June 1, 2016

Are you dealing with data overload? Nowadays marketers are faced with a mountain of data to analyse. Granted, there are more and more sophisticated tools to help marketers understand this data, such as dashboarding tools and automated reports. However the sheer amount of data available makes it difficult for marketers to prioritize the helpful data from the noise sending them spiraling into a life of data overload and fatigue. This article explores the ways in which marketers can avoid data overload and target the most important and valuable information.

Understanding your Business Goals

Ultimately, the way to overcome data overload is to truly hone in on your business goals and align the data you review to these goals. By filtering out the noise, marketers can focus on what data is actually important and what data is actionable. The reason marketers spend so much time on data analysis is to find those precious nuggets of information that drive significant change that helps the business grow - by filtering out the useless data to find these intelligent pointers, marketers can avoid data overload and feel comfortable that they are hitting their business goals.

How to Manipulate Data to your Advantage

There are several ways marketers can identify actionable data and avoid feeling overloaded with data information. Here are some ways:

Start from the Beginning

Whether you work at an agency with several clients, or whether you are on an in-house team, it is important to hit the reset button every 6 months to a year and map out your business goals and KPIs alongside the data you are measuring. This helps you to visualize how the data you are reviewing is making an impact on your overarching business goals.Start with your business goals at the top of a page and work down to the metrics you will use to measure this success. For example, if your business goal is to 'Build Brand Awareness' you might have an action item that includes a display campaign, and the specific measurement may be impression share. This makes sense for a brand awareness campaign and can give you some actionable insights such as, how can we improve our ad copy to capture a more-qualified audience, are there opportunities to A/B test the ads to see which one drives more success and so on.

Don't work in Silos

Nothing spells 'Waste of time' like four different departments doing the same job, oblivious of each other's existence. Avoid data overload by working together across departments to find actionable insights. Close working relationships across departments will help marketers find and apply new strategies much more efficiently and with equal buy in from all parties. This is how most processes should work within marketing teams now - SEO, SEM, Social, Display - they all leak into one another anyway. Remove the extra data overload by working together towards your business goals.

Use Intuitive Tools

As mentioned above, there are dozens of tools coming out that claim to be able to manipulate your data into automated, beautiful graphs in a 'Set it and forget it' format. These tools are only going to become more integrated and sophisticated, so enjoy what the have to offer with an intuitive mind. Ideally, you will find one that is customizable - doesn't just offer the same old charts seen everywhere. It is unlikely that they will offer everything you need to know right now, but they will do some of the leg work.

What ways do you avoid data fatigue? Tell us over on  Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Written by
Alexander Rauser
Alexander Rauser

CEO

Alexander Rauser is the author of Boardroom Guide to Digital Accountability and Digital Strategy: A Guide to Digital Business Transformation, and creator of the DSX Program, a digital strategy and transformation program for Enterprises.

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