What is a Marketing Data Platform?
Marketing Data Platforms can centralise your data and simplify reporting. A simple guide to marketing analytics key features, uses, and benefits.
Marketing Data Platform: A single source of truth
What is the definition of a marketing data platform?
A Marketing Data Platform (MDP) is a tool that consolidates all of your marketing data from many sources into a single place. It removes the need to spend time gathering information from different platforms by automating data collection, cleansing and management.
Key Features of a Marketing Data Platform
- Data Integration
MDPs connect with marketing tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, email platforms, and CRM systems. They import data from these sources and combine it for easy access. - Data Cleaning
MDPs clean and standardise raw data. It ensures that the data is correct and usable by fixing problems like duplicate entries or incompatible formats. - Centralised Storage
All of the integrated data is kept in a single system, which eliminates the need to pull data manually from multiple tools. - Data Export
MDPs allow you to export data to reporting or analytics platforms like Tableau, Looker, or Power BI, to create visualisations and dashboards.
Benefits of a Marketing Data Platform
Why Marketers Use Marketing Data Platforms
Regular platforms like Google Analytics or Facebook Ads focus on their own data. They don’t show how one channel affects another. For example, Google Ads can’t tell you if an email campaign helped someone decide to click your ad. An MDP combines data from all platforms, making it easier to see the whole customer journey.
Avoid Mistakes
Handling data manually increases the likelihood of mistakes. MDPs make the process reliable by automating it.
You Can Save Time
MDPs instantly aggregate all of the data. You don’t need to copy and paste from different sources anymore.
Access Unified Reporting
You can get a better picture of how your campaigns are doing when you see all your channels, like ads and social media, work together.
Helps Teams Collaborate
Teams can work together better when data is centralised and well organised. Stakeholders, marketing teams, and researchers can all see the same data, which makes it easier to communicate.
Simplifies Reporting
MDPs make it easier to report. You can create dashboards in tools like Tableau or Google Data Studio using data pulled directly from the platform. This saves time and makes the process of making regular reports more efficient.
Improve Marketing ROI
With a full view of marketing performance, you’ll know which campaigns are succeeding. This helps cut down on spending on projects that are not working.
Common Use Cases
- Campaign Performance Tracking: Combine data from multiple channels to measure how well your campaigns are doing.
- Customer Journey Analysis: Understand how customers interact with your brand at different stages.
- Improve Attribution: Figure out which channels bring in the most revenue or leads.
Marketing Data Platform vs. Marketing Analytics Platform
The terms Marketing Data Platform and Marketing Analytics Platform are often used interchangeably because modern tools typically combine features of both. The distinction between them has become less relevant as platforms evolve to meet a variety of data needs.
A Marketing Data Platform (MDP) focuses on consolidating data from multiple sources, making it accessible for analysis and visualization. A Marketing Analytics Platform (MAP), on the other hand, traditionally focused on analysing data and providing insights directly, often for specific campaigns or touchpoints.
However, most modern platforms offer both data integration and analytics capabilities. For example:
- Google Analytics: While primarily focused on analysing web traffic and user behaviour, it also displays its own data directly, meaning you don’t need to integrate it with another system to access insights.
- HubSpot: Integrates data collection, analytics, and visualisation into a single ecosystem, making it difficult to categorise as just an MDP or MAP—it is both.
- Tableau: Often viewed as visualisation platforms, these tools integrate with data and analytics systems, enabling users to view and explore insights.
It is easier to keep track of performance and make choices based on data when you use marketing data platforms. If you are just starting out, use a free or cheap platform. As you get better, look into more advanced choices.
