In today’s digital age, the importance of utilising data to enhance your Marketing strategy has been heavily emphasised. With everything tracked and measured to improve customer experience, businesses that effectively use this abundance of data gain a significant competitive edge.

However, the real challenge is knowing how to leverage data to maximise value, many organisations find themselves overwhelmed by complexities and uncertain about where to start.

Common Challenges to a Test and Learn Approach

Whether you are familiar with 'test and learn', 'AB testing' or 'Activation' - they are all terms that refer to the method of testing out new ideas or hypotheses for Marketing use cases, in a controlled way, prior to scaling them for optimisation.

Whether you are a large global enterprise embarking on a transformation, with significant investment in new MarTech capability or a smaller business trying to make the most of your existing data, the challenges are similar.

Some of which may include:

• Challenging the status quo and seeking new ways to look at things
• Overcoming reluctance or nervousness to test new ideas
• Scaling tests across the business
• Achieving significant understanding and buy-in from teams
• Aligning data and tech with marketing and operations
• Proving value early on from data and tech investment

The Value Activation Can Bring

One of the biggest challenges is delivering and proving value through Data and Tech. Data and Tech alone make this difficult to achieve, which is why 'test and learn' or 'activation' can bridge the gap.

It achieves this in three ways:

• Immediate Value Opportunity - Activating priority use cases quickly demonstrates value to key stakeholders
• Continuous Value Growth - Iterating and optimising tests based on learnings enables long-term value growth
• Long-term Team Embedding - Understanding, adapting and embedding a data-driven and operational mindset change helps drive genuine buy-in and longevity

By breaking down complex tasks into smaller, more manageable ones and focussing on continuous improvement, businesses can demonstrate value quickly while embedding long-term success.

The Role of Activation

Activation applies agile methodologies to a test-and-learn cycle. It focusses first on priority use cases to demonstrate the immediate value of your data and tech, then builds upon the learnings, continually seeking ways to iterate and optimise.

At Loop Horizon we focus on 7 key principles that are applied to the Activation process:

• Data-driven decision-making - Make informed decisions based on real insights
• Iterative testing - Continuously optimise and iterate through test and learn
• Continuous improvement - Always apply learnings from previous results
• Agile Adoption - Be flexible and adapt to changes accordingly
• Team empowerment - Enable your team to take initiative and innovate
• Innovation & Experimentation - Always embrace new ideas
• Robust measurement and reporting - Ensure measurable KPIs are set upfront

Working in a Cross-functional team

Effective Activation requires a lot of collaboration across various teams, including Marketing, Data, Tech, Product and Operations, with Senior Leadership being advocates from the offset. The roles you may typically find in an Activation Team might include:

• Strategy Lead
• Data & Analytics
• Performance Measurement
• Digital Lead
• CRM Lead
• Web Lead
• Data Planner
• SCRUM/PM

Working in a cross-functional way offers several benefits:

• Breaking down silos and ensures better collaboration
• Championing innovation by leveraging diverse skill sets to develop new tests
• Building an empowered team by promoting autonomy
• Establishing clear communication and encourages feedback loops
• Encouraging a culture of quick test, learn and adaptation

How Loop Horizon can help

At Loop Horizon we combine first-hand client side and extensive consultancy experience to help businesses address the complexities of leveraging data to enhance their Marketing strategy.

We guide teams through a 7-stage Activation process to launch measurable, data-driven activations that deliver real value. Alongside, empowering and supporting teams to embed a test and learn culture to aid in long-term change.

Our support includes:

• Maximising existing data and capability to enhance your Marketing Campaigns
• Identifying new opportunities for new data integrations
• Creating activation strategies aligned with your strategic goals
• Training your team in Agile methodologies
• Continuous support in executing data-driven campaigns
• Robust value, measurement and reporting frameworks
• Project Management and delivery support

Activation is an essential process for translating data and tech investment into measurable value. By focussing on the immediate wins, continuous growth and long-term embedding, businesses can overcome common challenges and ensure success.