by johnt
8. April 2011 09:09
The norm is to carry out data cleansing prior to a campaign, part of this process will be the production of a data quality audit. Using the information supplied in the audit, clients can reduce costs of the campaign, by identifying goneaways and deceased. With online data cleansing this can be left later and later to ensure the freshest data.
However this campaign may be part of strategic plan that could have been decided upon months previously using data that is not up to date. If decisions have been made at that time without a data quality audit the whole of the campaign can be skewed, therefore we recommend conducting an audit prior to any major strategic decisions. The old saw ‘Garbage in garbage out’ still applies.
The data quality audit takes minutes to complete, is free and results can give important guidance on the quality of data before any marketing decisions are made.
In simplest terms, you can have the most wonderful geo-demographic tools, they are invariably based around postcode, yet your customer profile may be skewed if goneaways are not excluded. If the data is old and tired, so will be the results of any forecasts or target setting.
The first decision should always be to get a data quality audit, before any decisions are made on the available data.