In discussions with various stakeholders across the data-driven marketing ‘industry’ I often find myself talking to people with job titles such as head of campaign management and head of customer analytics in the same organisation. That is not a bad thing, of course, but I’m alarmed if I then find that those people’s roles are not completely aligned and they don’t appear to be talking to each other very much, and working as closely together, as I believe is essential.

I also see a lot of companies running their predictive customer analytics models once a month or once every quarter. This is how infrequently they re-score their customers on such measures as: what offers are they likely to respond to; and, how likely are they to terminate their relationship with the company?

That analytical integration just won’t cut it in 2014. Those companies need to feed their campaign management engine with up to date analytical fuel used to empower campaigns and refine customer communication programs as they happen. Putting it simply, updating analytical insights once a month is just missing out on significant business opportunities.

Customer analytics and campaign management are naturally related and should be treated as deeply integrated disciplines within the data-driven marketing ecosystem. Advanced analytics needs to be deeply embedded in your outbound and inbound customer communication processes. This will sharpen your perception of customer value and maximising the value your organisation can drive from its marketing campaigns.

Essentially, analytics is the fuel on which your campaign management engine will run for best performance outcomes. Let me offer a few examples:

1. Retention campaigns need to pick up on the most recent customer behaviour and track it in the customer base as it happens, not anything up to a month later. The data should be refreshed and the scoring updated while the campaign is being executed.

2. When running multichannel and multilevel campaigns it is very important to choose the right channel and most appropriate treatment or offer based on history as well as on whatever is the current interaction in the communication program.

3. When the customer approaches you in the contact centre or via any of your digital interfaces, real-time decisioning will ensure that you base your ‘next best action’ on updated data and insights.

So my call out to the data-driven marketing community is this. First generation campaign management practices were acceptable. However, the second generation needs customer intelligence injected into the heart of it to deliver optimum ROI. And for this – make sure the customer analytics people and the campaign managers works as one, with predictive customer analytics running in synch with customer interaction.