How Big Data Has Transformed Marketing Into A Science

Marketing has long been the black sheep of company branding: how much is it worth, and how far can it actually scale a business? According to the CTO of Florida-based digital marketing firm Catalina, the strides made in the big data space have launched marketing into a new stratosphere of hard analytics and measurable outcomes.

’This is the golden age of marketing,’ Catalina CTO Steve Rubinow said. He cited consultants’ research that the number of individuals and companies investing in data-driven marketing has increased exponentially in recent years.

Today, Rubinow said, companies can use big data to analyze customer outreach in ways that they once only dreamed about.

’Which is why all these people are coming to try to make marketing a science, as opposed to a softer art,’ he said.

There are data sources, both digital and analog, that can be plugged into analytical models. Once put together, digital marketing firms like Catalina can extract valuable information about where to reach people, how to promote to people, and how to influence purchase behavior.

However, big data-driven digital marketing is still only in its infancy, and Rubinow said no one has really figured it out yet.

’Putting all these [variables] together is not easy to do, but the good news is there is no 800-pound gorilla for us to unseat, because no one’s cracked it,’ he said.