How lucky are marketers today, what with all that wonderful data generated by, especially, their digital marketing efforts? It’s a veritable feast of numbers: impressions, CPC, CPL, CTR, etc., etc. So, what’s not to love about it? According to some companies, plenty.

eMarketer is out with a new study that shows that the biggest challenge facing companies, in terms of “Bid Data”, is “the time and manpower required to collect and analyze it.” The full chart of answers is below and it is almost a graphical representation of the throwing up of ones hands in a surrender to the issue at hand.

Now, we all understand the importance of data and we can all understand the frustration that comes when there is too much data to consider, but consider it we must. The key to success is how one goes about the task. For my purposes, I like to start at the most granular level possible – the DNA level, if you will – and build my understanding from there.

If you’re trying to make sense of, not to mention decisions based on, your entire digital marketing data set without first understanding the individual channels, you are setting yourself up for suboptimal performance. Put another way, it’s easier to take on the forest after you understand the individual trees.

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