7 Ways Data is Killing Your Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your audience but is there such a thing as too much data? Campaigns need to be suited to your key personas, which you can only understand through data, but is there a point when this insight actually harms your campaign?

Here are seven ways data is killing your email marketing.

Bogging you down in the nitty gritty

Data-driven marketing is important, there's no denying that but if you're spending nearly all your time looking over KPIs and metrics then it's jeopardizing your success. Your data should be collected at certain intervals, such as at the start of each quarter, and reviewed then.

Making everything too complicated

Talking about figures, KPIs, metrics, percentages and everything else involved in marketing data can end up feeling like a mathematical equation rather than campaign insight. Getting vast amounts of data too often can be incredibly overwhelming and will limit the amount of useful information you can get from it. Instead, decide which KPIs are most closely linked to your campaign goals and focus on them.

It can sometimes be misleading

The best thing about data is that it can allow you to understand your personas better, but sometimes it can get it wrong. There can be other explanations to a particularly high or low-performing bit of content, which is why removing the most and least-successful results can lead to better insight. 

Making you nervous

If data has shown that you've enjoyed a large amount of success doing X, it can make you fearful of moving away from it. This is something that often plagues brands, with the old adage 'don't fix what isn't broken' ringing in their ears. But innovation and creativity are at the core of marketing - don't let data take that away.

Removing collaboration

Another drawback of data insight is that you often spend most of your time talking about what it means and how these figures can be improved, rather than collaborating with the other professionals in your team. This limits the amount of influence creativity can have. Instead use the data as the foundation of your discussion but ensure you encourage collaboration and fresh new ideas.

Downplaying your skills

The heart of marketing is skilled professionals who can drive and develop creative ideas based on a brand that they know inside out. Data can't do this and neither should you try to make it. Teams can get blinkered by figures and percentages from their KPIs that they forget it won't do the work for them. You need to use this information to help guide your email marketing campaign but it shouldn't be used as the foundation of it.

Removing personality

If you are sending out a large number of messages for your email marketing campaign, it can be easy to forget about the people who will be receiving it. While you're probably using an automated service to send out your emails, this doesn't mean you can't make each correspondence seem personal for the recipient. You should also remember elements like the subject line and image-text balance are just as important as the data-driven aspects.