As data-driven marketing continues to have an exponentially increasing role in modern-day sales and marketing, many companies plan to increase their budgets for data-driven marketing. The challenge in the increasing importance of data-driven marketing lies with creating actionable information from a largely scattered customer data landscape. Most companies understand how identifying who their customers are – identifying them by name, address, contact details, job title, gender, age, etc. – by using CRM and ERP systems is optimal for creating a single view of their customers.

In order to fully utilize the ‘big data problem’ these companies begin to have when collecting new contacts and customers, a 360-degree view must be established; looking at what their customers are doing. With a 360-degree view of all customers, companies are able to gather information (from website activity, marketing campaign touches, sales activity) to create highly personalized customer experiences.