Matching an individual to an action is inevitably where data marketing leads. This may be a purchase, a renewal or increased engagement with your brand. What is critical to success is that the action is defined with a clear objective. Without this objective in place, success cannot be measured.

Once your have defined the objective, the next step is to develop your hypothesis for change. This should always be in the context of past performance data whenever it is available, as this reflects the reality of the experience. It may be you've spotted a correlation between two data points through predictive analytics

Dependent on the channel to be used, audience management platforms will either hold personal information (e.g. Customer Data Platforms or Customer Relationship Management Platforms) for use in communication or use alternative identifiers for use across the web (Data Management Platforms), which will allow you to target "look-a-like" audiences to your existing audience.

Analytics tags enable you to track behaviours to a required level of detail. If you are to conduct Testing & Optimisation on a regular basis, it is highly recommended that you consider employing a tag management platform to make your experiments consistent and understandable

The key to relevance is context - it's now even a key component of Google's search algorithm. If an advert or piece of content for your business appears unexpectedly and out of context to your customers, it's not only a waste of your resources, it could also have an adverse effect on your brand.

Perfecting the message and creative on an advert, on your website or within a piece of direct marketing takes time. That's where A/B or Multi-variate testing can enable you to try alternative versions, time of send and audience sub-segments in advance of a full roll-out to optimise your results.