When it comes to reporting it’s important that digital marketers are receiving the most accurate and granular level data available. Are the right channels being used, are the platforms reaching the right audience, how is the traffic behaving and is it converting? After an exhausting search and due diligence the last question that needs to be asked is; Is your data real time?

When managing marketing ROI it is of the utmost importance as a digital marketer to know exactly how much burn acceptable before it becomes an issue? How much money can a digital marketer spend on a campaign before realizing it’s not working?  If data is being reconciled and reported on a 24-hour basis and a digital marketer wants to maximize the sample size with the shortest period of time this means that potential days can pass before a decision can be made. This means a  decision needs to be made to determine what is an acceptable sample size to make an effective decision? When you’re data is reconciled on a 24-hour basis a digital marketer is facing time period of 24-, 48-, 72- and potentially 96-hours to accumulate data and make a decision. How do you prevent detrimental burn without analyzing a sample size too small?

This may not appear to be a long period of time but if a digital marketer is using a portfolio platform across multiple channels and the campaigns are under-performing this can become an expensive problem. Compound the time it will take to optimize and retest the campaign a digital marketer can quickly be into the second week before they have a true understanding of their performance marketing efforts. Can a digital marketer afford this situation and still effectively manage their marketing ROI?

Having access to real-time reporting can appear on the surface to be data overload. But having the flexibility to pool data in various time frames to measure how campaigns are performing provides digital marketers insight otherwise not available.  Having real-time data allows digital marketers the ability to measure, optimize and maximize their marketing ROI as they need.  Flexibility allows digital marketers to get more aggressive with their efforts by trying new channels, new creatives etc.. because they can see if these ideas are getting traction.

For a digital marketer it’s not all about getting right 100% – it’s avoiding getting it wrong. By having access to real-time data digital marketers can identify when campaigns aren’t performing as they should and make the necessary changes. As the famous saying goes “Time is Money!”

Related Reading:

• Maximize Your Marketing ROI
• The Importance of Measuring Online Efforts
• Multi-Channel Attribution: The Assist is Greater Than The Goal

This blog post is about:

• Real-time reporting
• Marketing reports
• Optimize marketing campaigns
• Marketing optimization

Originally published: June 24th, 2015.
Updated: January 23rd, 2019.