Advertising and marketing have always had a close relationship with the collection and analysis of data. From early surveys to focus groups and other forms of audience analysis, advertising and marketing companies use the data that they collect on both audiences and advertising campaigns in order to determine how effective they are at selling products and influencing consumer habits. Investment in data collection was not very sophisticated in the infancy of advertising, but as times change and new technology is created, the ability to learn more about markets and consumers also increases. The influence of big data, social media, and digital advertising has also given advertising and marketing professionals new ways to not only engage with consumers and target new market niches but to learn more about them.
As advertising and marketing become more data-driven and technologically focused, working in these industries also requires more technical and analytical skills. Offering the skills of data collection, analysis, and visualization, as well as the ability to forecast future trends, Data Scientists are able to bring these technical skills to the world of advertising and marketing. Read on to learn more about how data is currently used in the advertising and marketing industry, as well as the types of careers that can come from developing a background in data science and digital marketing.
The Data of Advertising and Marketing
There are several types of data that are popular within the world of advertising and marketing, which speak to the changes that have occurred over the years when it comes to the analysis of data overall. The bigger that data has gotten, the more places and spaces that advertising and marketing professionals are able to collect data from and about. For example, while it used to be common to just collect demographic data about consumers (i.e. age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc), data science professionals are now able to collect data from across the internet.
As individuals engage with social media platforms and digital advertisements, businesses and brands are able to use the information in order to tailor the content and campaigns that they produce for consumers. One of the major ways that we have seen data science change the world of advertising and marketing is through the utilization of digital campaigns and social media platforms.
Data Science Careers in Advertising and Marketing
With a background in data science and digital marketing, there are multiple careers that one can pursue, or pivot towards, in the advertising and marketing industry. According to Discover Data Scientist, in the future, we may see new titles within the advertising and marketing industry, such as the role of “Marketing Data Scientist”. This role focuses on using data science tools and programming languages, like R and Python, in order to analyze the marketing data from a company and its competitors, while visualizing new insights and collection strategies. However, the title or role of Marketing Data Scientist has not yet come into popular usage, so most data science professionals work within the realm of marketing analytics, consumer insights, and social media management.
Marketing Analytics
Marketing analytics focuses on the analysis of advertising campaigns in order to measure their effectiveness over a period of time. Developing a background in marketing and advertising analysis is especially useful when it comes to monitoring the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. For example, it is common when running an advertisement to include multiple versions of the same advertisement on different platforms and/or for different audiences. Through using data science tools and software, Marketing Analysts can collect data about what type of consumer commonly uses certain types of social media, engages with certain types of content, or even shops at certain stores. That information can then be used to not only visualize the data and generate ideas about the content of the advertisement, but also where it should be placed in order to find its intended audience or market niche.
In addition to using the skills of marketing and advertising analysis to create new advertising strategies or to streamline the strategy of a current marketing campaign, marketing analytics can also be used to make predictions about the success of future campaigns. If a Marketing Analyst at a popular clothing company discovers that sales go up every time the company runs an ad with a particular model or influencer, it would be useful to take that information and apply it to future campaign strategies, such as working exclusively with that model or developing a line around them. In this sense, Marketing Analysts can use the data that they collect from past campaigns to offer suggestions for future campaigns and marketing strategies for the company.
Consumer Insights
Consumer insights have even more of a focus on market niches and the analysis of trends. Consumer insights, or customer insights, refer to the collection of data on consumers in order to create products and services (or make other business decisions) that are in alignment with the wants and needs of the desired customer. While marketing analytics focus on collecting data about advertisements and campaigns, individualswho work within consumer insights focus on collecting data about the person who is consuming or engaging with advertisements and products.
Through this focus on the customer, data science professionals doing consumer insights works are able to offer keen observations about the market for a brand, business, or product/service. By constructing a better understanding of the market, businesses are then able to not only sell more products to the consumer but to also create products and services that are tailored to their market. Consumer insights data can also work in the reverse: if a company chooses to target a new market or rebrand in some way, consumer insights can also be used to collect and analyze data to gain share in a new market or to learn new things about a prior consumer base.
Digital & Social Media Marketing
Digital and social media marketing is another area where the rising importance of data science in advertising and marketing is clearly seen. Combining much of the work which is found in marketing analytics and consumer insights, digital and/or social media marketing is not only focused on the analysis of marketing campaigns and consumers but also the creation and consumption of those campaigns. As the future of advertising, digital and social media marketing focuses on the use of social media platforms and email campaigns for paid advertisements. In this career trajectory, data science can be used to analyze social media platforms and advertising through training in areas such as search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword search as well as learning Google Analytics and Advertising.
As a reflection of the somewhat cyclical nature of advertising and marketing, through clicks and user engagement, paid advertisements also serve as a method for marketing analysts and consumer insights specialists to learn more about the habits and behaviors of consumers, specifically generating data about how they respond to different types of advertisements. In addition, social media platforms operate on algorithms and recommendation systems. Individuals that are interested in pursuing a career in digital and social media marketing would also find training in machine learning useful when learning how to understand the way that content is recommended to consumers, as well as how digital platforms learn from consumers.
Ready to Combine Data Science with Advertising & Marketing?
As advertising and marketing become even more enmeshed with the world of data and digital marketing, it will be important for students and professionals alike to learn more data science skills to advance in their careers. Noble Desktop offers multiple data science courses that focus on learning skills that would be useful within the context of advertising and marketing, such as Python and machine learning. If you are interested in digital marketing, then you can also pair data science classes with the Digital Marketing Certificate or the Social Media Marketing Certificate.