Last year set a new pace of change in data transformation with the rise of CDPs, the planned sunset of Google’s Universal Analytics, the continued acceleration of data privacy and regulatory policy, and the escalating crumbling of cookies.
Companies continue to see the abundant opportunities that leveraging data can provide their business. In practically every industry—from Healthcare and Life Sciences to Technology—executives have put data-related initiatives at the top of their to-do lists. The imperative is to develop strategies and operating plans that harness and optimize all available data to drive improved business performance.
But these opportunities in 2023 also come with challenges. Aside from unknown macroeconomic forces, brands experience a lack of promised return or impact from analytics/data investments, a consistent stream of new tools, technology, and approaches, and a lack of data literacy inside their companies. With the rise of cloud and major platform players and an increasing mandate to embrace AI, leading brands across industries are turning to outside help for guidance. And with good reason: This data guessing game is unknown but exciting stuff!
I cannot wait to see what’s in store for our industry as data transformation evolves in new and unexpected directions in 2023. It’s certainly a great time to be in data.
Looking towards 2023, we polled some of our brightest thinkers within Search Discovery to discuss what they think will be exciting areas to watch this year. Here are their visions.
I hope you enjoy and that the vantage point of our thought leaders helps your business embrace all the opportunities within data transformation so that you can thrive in 2023.
1. Privacy by Design & Consumer Trust
Cory Underwood, Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT), Analytics Engineer
In 2023, privacy will be a central focus in the United States. Several states are implementing data privacy laws, granting consumers rights, promoting transparency, and increasing business obligations. Against this backdrop, privacy must take center stage in operational planning and development. Consumers will expect businesses to comply, and regulators will enforce compliance. Read Full Article >>
2. Addressing the Analytics Fraud Problem
Jim Gordon, Analytics Architect
Coming out of 2022, it’s clear that many marketers continue to struggle with the scope of traffic fraud. There’s a right way to address the problem and a wrong way. 2023 will see the beginning of a culture change as we begin to finally appropriately address the analytics fraud problem. Read Full Article >>
3. Getting Serious about Measuring Impact
Tim Wilson, Experienced Analytics Leader, Thinker, and Doer
Marketers, driven by demands to demonstrate true incremental impact, will increasingly look to more statistically rigorous techniques. These include media mix modeling and randomized controlled trials, which can help determine the channels truly delivering value and the channels simply coming into incidental contact with customers as they move along their customer journey. Read Full Article >>
4. Composable CDPs vs. Suites
Larry Tucker, Senior Data Solutions Architect
The CDP market is constantly transforming, with new vendors and approaches springing up as the market matures. The latest market buzz is around CDP Composability—basically deconstructing the various modules that make up an integrated CDP so that they can be purchased separately through different martech vendors. Read Full Article >>
5. AI-Assisted Content Generation & SEO Strategies
Jacob Stoops, SEO Director
With the rise in accessibility and popularity of advanced language processing models, even non-technical, regular SEOs are finding more ways to leverage AI as part of their mainstream activity. As a result, AI usage will increase across SEO strategies in 2023 (for better or worse). Read Full Article >>
6. Managing Media Brand Safety in 2023
Eric Ross, Senior Manager, Digital Marketing
As average daily internet consumption continues to increase in 2023, brands must proactively mitigate risks to their reputation across media buys. Social and programmatic ad buys will be especially challenging as the rise in content related to politics, war, and offensive or deceptive speech makes navigating brand-safe ad buys increasingly tricky. Read Full Article >>
7. Shift to Product Experimentation
Valerie Kroll, Optimization Director
2023 will be the year of product experimentation—a shift in focus away from marketing optimization. More companies will adopt a product mindset toward their digital properties to justify their resource investments and better calibrate to user expectations. Product experimentation will help brands guide roadmaps by balancing opportunity exploration with de-risking feature investments. Read Full Article >>
8. Bring Your Own Model Applications
Ben Woodard, Data Scientist, and Jamarius Taylor, Data Scientist & Minister of Leisure
In light of the economic uncertainty, companies want to integrate internal data science teams into their marketing data platforms to prove the value of their investment. While the platforms are due for an ROI performance report, we suggest a better solution: Bring Your Own Model. Read Full Article >>
