What Is Big Data in Marketing? 27 Examples.

These companies leverage data insights for marketing and advertising purposes.

Written by Alyssa Schroer

tangled strings of data being organized into groups by color

Image: Shutterstock UPDATED BY Brennan Whitfield | Aug 21, 2024

At first glance, marketing and big data might seem like an odd pair, but they’re actually very complementary. Marketing is all about effectively reaching different audiences, and data tells us what’s working and what’s not.

These days, there’s more available data than most businesses and marketing teams know what to do with, which can lead to new opportunities if that data is accurately interpreted and effectively deployed.

Why is Big Data Important in Marketing?

Big data is becoming a fundamental tool in marketing. Data constantly informs marketing teams of customer behaviors and industry trends, and is used to optimize future efforts, create innovative campaigns and build lasting relationships with customers.

How Is Big Data Used in Marketing?

Big data offers a snapshot of a business’ user base, as trends, preferences and behavior patterns can be revealed through data analysis. Companies use these data insights to drive marketing strategies and product decisions.

Customer Engagement and Retention

Big data regarding customers provides marketers details about user demographics, locations, and interests, which can be used to personalize the product experience and increase customer loyalty over time.

Marketing Optimization and Performance

Big data solutions can help organize data and pinpoint which marketing campaigns, strategies or social channels are getting the most traction. This lets marketers allocate marketing resources and reduce costs for projects that aren’t yielding as much revenue or meeting desired audience goals.

Competitor Tracking and Operation Adjustment

Big data can also compare prices and marketing trends among competitors to see what consumers prefer. Based on average industry standards, marketers can then adjust product prices, logistics and other operations to appeal to customers and remain competitive.

26 Big Data in Marketing Examples

The following companies offer unified views of data, entire customer databases, campaign optimization, strategy services and other crucial data services to make marketing as effective as possible.

System1

Focus: Marketing optimization

How it’s using big data: System1 operates a marketing technology platform specializing in consumer acquisition across multiple channels and verticals. Its responsive acquisition marketing platform leverages data science, AI and machine learning to match consumer demand with the most suitable verticals for conversion. System1’s platform integrates with major digital ad networks, using proprietary algorithms to deliver scalable success for its customers.

Attain

Focus: Customer engagement

How it’s using big data: Attain offers marketers a software platform that harnesses commerce data to provide real-time insights for targeted ad campaigns. Additionally, the company operates Klover and Frisbee, mobile apps that provide consumers with financial tools and rewards in exchange for permission to use their data for strategic research. Through this exchange, Attain empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions while offering users valuable financial services and rewards.

Focus: Customer engagement

How it’s using big data: Enigma takes big data — meaning huge data sets accumulated from diverse sources —and uses AI to analyze it. Its focus is financial health and behavior in private small and medium sized businesses. The insights it gathers from this analysis are used in its sales and marketing platform, which uses dynamic data to increase spend efficiency and drive growth throughout the B2B customer lifecycle.