Three data and reporting trends for 2022

2022 brings new opportunities to optimize how your organization collects, uses and reports on data. As we close out the year and look ahead to the next, we’re sharing three data and reporting trends that we have our eyes on.

Data democratization

Gone are the days that your IT department is the sole owner of your company’s data. Data democratization simply means that everyone in your organization has access to your data. It requires that there be no gatekeepers or barriers to the information and that it be available in a way that anyone can understand.

Providing access to digestible data allows not just your IT team, but leadership, sales, marketing and other key departments to expedite their decision-making and make informed business decisions. Data_led academy shares three principles that organizations can implement to truly embrace data democratization:

• Empower employees to feel comfortable asking data-related questions
• Provide the right tools to enable everybody to work with data
• See democratization of data as an ongoing process which might even require an organization-wide cultural shift

Reliance on first-party data

In 2023, Google, who holds the world’s largest share of web browser users at 68%, will be removing third-party tracking from Google Chrome. Once the policy goes into effect, third-party cookies will no longer be allowed to track users’ activity across websites. This will eventually remove audience profiles from online advertising for many platforms that rely upon third-party cookies.

To combat this, companies will need to rely on their first-party data to create audience profiles. First-party data is the information you collect directly from your customers. So, if you have a customer base, great! You can rely upon that to build an audience that is tailor-made to you. Your customer base can come in many forms, from an email subscriber list to website data or even advertising data you have collected (and these are only a few of the ways). If you don’t have an audience profile for your business, look to the channels that you currently manage. Identify some characteristics of the audiences you have on those channels and work to build a full profile from there.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in reporting

While AI isn’t new to the data realm, it’s an ever-changing technology (we’ve all seen those dancing robot videos). The smarter machine learning gets, the better AI responds to the data it receives. This, in turn, provides better insights, greater understanding and easier molding of the data to accomplish business goals. This future of AI creates better data democratization (it all comes full circle), allowing everyone to understand and work with the data that is being provided to them.

Interested in learning more or need support optimizing your digital channels and campaigns? Contact our Digital team at digital@akhia.com.