DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING: Strategies, metrics and infrastructures to optimize the marketing performances

The thesis “DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING: Strategies, metrics and infrastructures to optimize the marketing performances” is the result of one year of studies and analysis in a performance marketing company based in Dubai called BESA Digital. It is composed by a theoretical part where all the main aspects of the subjects are covered, and a case study where it is possible to see how these tools are applied in a real situation. The part I starts with the basics information to understand where does this new approach to the advertising comes from and also what are the main differences with the traditional one. The possibility to handle a huge amount of data has been fundamental in the marketing where all the results couldn’t be measured and analyzed in the proper way: the traditional marketing lacked the instruments to store “the perception of the user in a database”. Nowadays, with the rise of the Internet marketing and the social networks, it is possible to track every stage of the marketing funnel, from the first impression to the conversion. This revolution has not been seen as a strategic improvement in the traditional world, in fact many different firms missed this opportunity and lost customers and credibility in a world where everything is based on digital contents. When a company approaches to this method, many obstacles must be overcome in order to properly set up all the campaigns. First of all, proper infrastructure must be built to manage the data. Then, the marketing managers have to be ready to adopt the “Agile Marketing” approach, where skills, budget and a proper mindset is needed to adjust in real-time the performances. In the early 2000’, Internet marketing was only at the beginning of the growth and only few marketers had the idea to take advantage of these techniques. The more the companies understood the incredible quality of this advertising, the more some metrics become standard in order to properly compare and evaluate the performances. A key role in this evolution has been played by the social networks, owners of the biggest amount of data thanks to the fact that the people spend always more time on these platforms. The R&D of these Internet giants has been fundamental to give always more sophisticated instruments to the marketers in order to optimize all the ads performances. An interesting machine learning tool that has been developed is the pixel, deeply described in this thesis. The result of this revolution lies in the fact that the customer has become the center of gravity of all the company efforts thanks to the fact that through the proper data infrastructure it is possible to create products that satisfy much more the final consumer. In the second part of the thesis, a case study from BESA Digital has been discussed. For internal policy purposes, it hasn’t been possible to share the details of the company analyzed but there are enough information to understand how this approach gave a boost to the overall performances. It is an overview that starts from a detailed description of the initial business model and market positioning, then all the strategies adopted are exploited. It continues with the analysis of all the results with adequate conclusions.