Sales and marketing are often viewed as two sides of the same coin, but that doesn't mean they're automatically aligned.  Often, sales and marketing are separate functions within an organization and if they become too siloed, conflicts and tension between the two departments can arise. When this happens, it’s not unrealistic to believe that company performance will ultimately suffer.



How can businesses bring everyone onto the same page? Data is the tool for bridging the divide. Data-centered sales and marketing teams are able to speak the same language and supercharge performance. Here’s how.

Analyze the Current Situation

For some of us, 2003 doesn’t seem all that long ago. But the year B2E Data Marketing first hung its shingle, the marketing world hadn’t yet moved to a web-centered model. Consumers were still transitioning to using the internet to get information, and digital data was just being recognized as a unique and valuable new source of information.    

Every day, your customers are leaving clues about what they might do in the future. Now with help from modern data analytics, there’s no mind reading required to develop savvy marketing strategies built around successful predictions.

As much as businesses wish the buyer’s journey was a straight line from intention to their product, the path today covers varied terrain. The modern, omni-channel buyer’s journey is a blend of interactions that span digital and in-person environments, increasing the need for marketers to have a wider view into customer behaviors and mindset. 

More than 85% of Americans now own smartphones, and it’s becoming a primary way to access the internet. In today’s marketing landscape, with its fragmented array of channels, mobile marketing has become a gateway to reach a wide audience, but with targeted precision.

Particularly as Millennials and Gen Z grow in buying power, mobile digital experiences are key to reaching highly-connected customers. Here's what's shaping the mobile marketing landscape in 2023.

Two years ago, a new data term was coined and it’s being called the new secret weapon for businesses. 

It’s a big world out there, and the reality is, only a small percentage of people are the right fit for your product or service. That percentage shrinks further when you consider who is actually ready to make a purchase. 

Your last digital ad campaign didn’t perform well. Time to scrap the whole thing and start over?

According to a survey by Epsilon, 80% of marketers rely on third-party cookies – the small pieces of data stored in internet browsers to track a user’s online behaviors – in their digital advertising efforts. But as Google’s cookie-less future draws near, it’s important to take action to prepare for the changes. 

You may have heard that third-party cookies, which have been marketers’ prime way of tracking online behaviors, are on their way out. 

Though the future may not have cookies, it will have Topics. 

Google Topics is the proposed privacy-friendly alternative to third-party cookies. Though it’s still early and there are many questions to be answered, wise marketers can begin to familiarize themselves with how the cookie alternative will work. Here’s what we know now. 

What is Google Topics and How is it Different than Third-Party Cookies?

To put it (very) simply, Google Topics will change ad targeting from specific to something more broad. It’s an attempt to achieve compromise between competing interests for user privacy and ad personalization.

Topics proposes to create a system that assigns a user a handful of interests according to the websites they have visited recently. These interests determine the content of the ads they are shown. 

This is far less granular than the third-party cookie system, which can track the specific websites a user visited. Advertisers had been able to use third-party cookies for highly targeted ad strategies such as retargeting. Retargeting enables marketers to show consumers ads for products they searched for on completely different sites – or, as some describe, when a Google search “follows you around the internet.” 

How Will Topics Work?

With Topics, Google will label each website with a high-level topic (for example: sports, autos and vehicles, women’s clothing). The current proposed list has 350 topics to prevent user information from getting too detailed, but Google has said the list could expand to into the thousands. Google has said the list won’t include sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and potential others.

At any given time, a user’s browser will associate itself with up to five topics that reflect browsing behavior within the last three weeks – plus one random topic. Evidently, the random topic is meant to throw off companies that may try to attempt to discern a user’s identity from their topics list. 

The topics are shared with advertisers to help them target ads without knowing the specific sites a consumer has visited. But, there will be more control on the user’s end. They will be able to see the topics associated with their browsing behavior and remove any they don’t like, or completely disable them in Chrome’s settings. 

How Can Marketers Prepare?

Change has become the norm in the fast-paced world of digital marketing, and the phase-out of third-party cookies is yet another example. Making a successful pivot first will involve moving to a first-party data strategy. 

First-party data is the information about your customers you directly collect and own. It can be acquired through a variety of channels, both online and offline, including first-party cookies on your website, an app, social media, your customer service department, or surveys. 

So, how much first-party data do you have? If there are gaps, it’s time to amp up your data collection. Remember, this is a long-term strategy – so start now! 

Increase direct access to customers by building traffic to your digital channels. Over time, you’ll be able to decipher trends in behavior, engagement, preferences, and topics of interest. You can layer in online forms and surveys to continue expanding your universe of useful data. 

As website traffic increases, you might notice that a large percentage of visitors are anonymous – that is, you haven’t yet captured information about them. But, with increased web traffic, it’s possible to leverage additional techniques to profile anonymous web visitors and glean more detailed data that’s incredibly valuable in your marketing efforts. 

At the end of the day, Google is the market leader in online advertising, and it is in marketers’ best interest to adapt to its changing model. There’s still much to learn, but being open and flexible to change in the world of digital marketing is always a solid strategy. If you’re considering a refresh for your digital advertising plans, schedule a complementary conversation to learn how we can help.