{"id":22746,"date":"2022-12-12T14:26:57","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T14:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/12\/4-easy-ways-to-optimize-marketing-automation-platform-data-intake\/"},"modified":"2022-12-12T14:26:57","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T14:26:57","slug":"4-easy-ways-to-optimize-marketing-automation-platform-data-intake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/12\/4-easy-ways-to-optimize-marketing-automation-platform-data-intake\/","title":{"rendered":"4 easy ways to optimize marketing automation platform data intake"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nearly every marketing organization uses marketing automation platforms<\/a> these days. However, just having a MAP isn\u2019t enough. You have to understand how to use and extract value from it. That starts with optimizing the data intake process. Justin Sharaf, vice president of marketing operations at data intelligence company Collibra, shares four easy ways to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing that I always tell people in optimizing the intake process is that garbage in is garbage out,\u201d Sharaf said, speaking at The MarTech Conference. \u201cThe quality of information coming out\u2026is only as good as the quality of information that went in. So if you have a really bad process for getting data into your marketing automation platform, then it\u2019s probably going to be garbage coming out to your sales team, to your marketing partners and anyone else that utilizes that data.\u201d<\/p>\n

So here are four things you can do to fix that.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Consolidating web forms<\/h2>\n

The best practice is to create two or three web form templates you can reuse across all of the forms on your website. You can use these for resource downloads, for contact sales requests, for starter trial requests, registering for a webinar, or any other type of content that someone would access from your website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith two or three templates using the same information across all of those forms, you can have consistent data in the same format across all of your sources, getting into your marketing automation system,\u201d said Sharaf. \u201cThe other thing this allows you to do is to ensure that when others outside of your team are creating web forms they know exactly how to set those things up and there\u2019s no manual intervention from your team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: <\/em><\/strong>Spreadsheets remain critical for marketers<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

He also suggests using hidden field values. \u201cCreate one template and then use hidden fields within that form to tell your marketing team where that person came from, what content they downloaded, what form they filled out, etcetera,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

2. Normalization of fields<\/h2>\n

When asking for personal information, you want to make it as easy as possible for the visitor to answer. This can mean limiting the options so you get the data you really need.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of asking somebody for a free form job title where they could enter in one of a million different job titles, try asking for job level and role,\u201d said Sharaf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That way you don\u2019t get different responses from people who all essentially have the same position, like \u201cdirector of marketing,\u201d \u201cdirector, marketing,\u201d \u201cDAR, marketing\u201d and \u201cmarketing director.\u201d Instead you get, \u201cI am a director and my role is in marketing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: <\/em><\/strong>Study: Marketing automation teams mired in execution, neglecting strategic priorities<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that can make your data very clean and also allows you to do better segmentation in lead scoring based on these normalized fields,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

3. Dropdown selection<\/h2>\n

This is a classic irritant that everyone has encountered: You\u2019re asked what nation you\u2019re from and are confronted with a dropdown that lists every country on the planet in alphabetical order. It may seem inclusive, but it\u2019s really one more way to discourage a visitor. Unless you\u2019re getting customers from all over the world, don\u2019t do this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are doing a form for U.S. based prospects or customers, put the United States at the top of the form,\u201d said Sharaf. \u201cIf you know that it\u2019s a North America program, put Canada at the top of the form. If you know it\u2019s a European program, put the top ten European countries at the top.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This will give you a much higher conversion rate on your form and also get people to select the correct value.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI know when I\u2019m filling out a form very quickly, oftentimes if I don\u2019t want people to have my information, I\u2019m just trying to get through it quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll just select the very first value in the pick list, even if it\u2019s not the correct value. By putting the most popular values at the top, you eliminate people doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Offline list uploads\u00a0<\/h2>\n

\u201cEveryone does them,\u201d said Sharaf. \u201cYou use them for your offline events, sometimes use them for your webinars, etcetera. There are a bunch of different use cases. Sometimes third party vendors will send you a list. The thing that will streamline your intake process best as possible is to create an Excel or Google Sheets template for marketers to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

In that spreadsheet, set the field names to ones you want them to use. Set validation rules to prevent putting a number into the country field or a letter in the phone field. Another thing you can take advantage of is using X lookups or V lookups to turn things like country names into country codes if that\u2019s what works with your system.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSo you can ask the marketers to put very minimal information into the list upload template and then you, as a marketing automation expert or data analyst or whoever you are, can then utilize that information for a simple upload into your marketing automation platform,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

These steps will let you take advantage of clean and enriched data, providing cross-functional value for teams beyond just sales. Also, they are system agnostic and can be used with any MAP.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I\u2019ve used Marketo, I\u2019ve used IBM, Acoustic and others,\u201d Sharaf said, \u201cbut this obviously can apply to anything, whether it\u2019s HubSpot or Eloqua or any of the other marketing automation platforms<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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