Many marketers couldn’t imagine running a campaign without first creating their analytic strategy. Analytics are incredibly valuable for optimizing campaign performance and driving profit.

However, the field of analytics remains dynamic. New products and platforms require shifts to the analytic environment, opening new opportunities for forecasting and analysis. Here are the top trends facing analytics you should know about.

Data Quality Management

Trusting platforms to report quality metrics will soon become a thing of the past. Marketers unsatisfied with platform metrics will be able to drive the change towards better data quality management. Self-service analytics can replace platform-specific data, giving marketers more control and quality assurance.

Novel Platform Analytics

Digital devices and home speakers have been making waves in the technology sector. An astonishing number of households are adopting these new technologies and using them in novel ways. Voice searches on home speakers and streaming platforms will be responsible for 50% of all searches by year-end. More than 50% of smart speaker owners have made a purchase with their device. The opportunities to market to this novel platform require the development of new analytics and metrics for marketers to track.

Immersive Advertising

Virtual reality and augmented reality are forcing a reimagining of tags. Tags will need to develop beyond the traditional link click to encompass interactions experienced in these rich virtual experiences. As more sectors realize the benefits of creating AR content for their products, new analytic tools will be developed to support the testing of these tools.

Customer Experience Optimization

Those seeking to extend the customer life cycle have been focusing on customer experience. This proven driver of enduring relationships is expected to gain more attention. Integrating IT into customer reactions is a great way to improve customer interactions and expected to grow 32% in the next three years. As more AI is introduced, customer expectations can be exceeded with improved decision speed, fewer errors, and an unprecedented ability to predict outcomes.

Deep Learning

Number crunching no longer needs to be done by employees. Deep learning can examine large data sets to gain insights that were previously hidden. This will allow more time to be devoted to action rather than data analysis. Deep learning will also allow companies to combine large data sets, creating a global vision of analytical data from all sources.

Marketing analytics continue to be a moving target. Understanding how human behavior is changing will allow for forecasting the most important areas for analytic focus.