Best Practice - Data Cleansing Recommendations and Resources

Data is the key to everything: If your data is not clean, you can not score well, run great nurturing programs or have strong segmented lists. If fact, recent analyst reports cite poor data quality as the reason for lost revenue potential. Maybe that is why data cleansing is on the rise.

When do you do this: In the beginning is best, but if you have to circle back after you're already implemented marketing automation it's better late than never. Many marketers (or management) don't realize how important this is until later in their use of automation. Note that if get this right, other success planning elements will be much easier - and more successful.

Who owns the data: Yes, marketing owns marketing data and sales owns sales data. But more than likely, some of this data is shared. So the combined team needs to identify critical pieces of data that will be shared and document which system is the master holder and how each system will update that data. Also, you need to setup standardized data sets for those pieces of shared data so rules can be applied.

Reporting: Use reports such as the ‘Profile Completeness’ report in Eloqua to understand what percentage of each field is populated in your database. This will give you a good gage as to which fields need work to gain a higher percentage.

Results of clean data: Clients who are leveraging Data Cleansing have seen a substantial increase (upwards of 3x) in the number of leads who are considered qualified.

Recommended Resources

Data Quality and Phase I: Analyze your data
Data Quality and Phase 2: How to create a data cleansing program
Contact Washing Machine Setup: How to Use Eloqua’s Data Tools to clean up your data
Data Management Playbook: Best Practices for Increasing Data Quality and information on Standardized Data Sets
Data Dictionary Template: A great Excel template to use for creating data standards for your organization
The 4 C’s of Dirty Data: Finding and cleaning dirty data presentation from EE11
Six Keys to Effective Data Management: Power Hour Recording on Topliners
Cloud Connector - Name Analyzer - Installation Instructions and Guide: Use the power of cloud connectors to remove dirty data from your Eloqua database

Course 1: Eloqua Data Cleansing - Learn to build out an automated way to cleanse your data
Course 2: Eloqua10: Progressive Profiling - Learn to build out progressive profiling forms to gather those critical pieces of data you have identified are important to lead scoring, segmentation and nurturing program tracks.

* These courses require an Eloqua All Education pass