To make marketing data work, you need to be able to measure and understand performance against a standard set of metrics. The challenge lies in marrying data from web analytics with search and social signals, and then being able to tie that to business value (for example, the correlation of search rankings with visits and conversions).
Did you know the average smartphone today is more powerful than the most powerful computer in 1985? Have you heard a human in this day and age processes more data in one day than he or she did in an entire lifetime 500 or so years ago?
The ability to process more data begets more data. More data means more to analyze, more to understand. If you’re in the search marketing industry, chances are you’ve heard the term “big data” countless times. And even though you know “big data” is out there, you may not know the first step in what to do with it.
And you aren’t alone.
Marketers didn’t invent the concept of big data. Figuring out what to do with the mounds of data that exist isn’t only the plight of marketers, but also nearly every sector in the world. In fact, humans have been striving to harness data that computers have been creating for decades and decades.
