Using Data As Growth Driver For Online Marketplaces

We’ve been told that data is the holy grail of growth for a long time. Everything must be data-driven and no decision should be taken without being supported by data. There’s just one problem. As data collection has become easier, the amount of data to dig into has grown radically. That sounds like a luxury problem (and it is), but really, it makes it very time-consuming to approach data-driven actions in a meaningful way.

In the past we had to mine for data. Getting any insight into user behavior was hard work; all data that could be gathered was treasured. Now data gathering is more often than not automated and much of it happens without us even making a conscious decision on what to gather and why.

This results in a ton of data and much of it is just sitting there untapped. In fact, according to Splunk, half of all data collected by companies is unused, also known as dark data.

The solution isn’t to stop collecting data of course. It’s always good to build your databank, one day you might need the insight.

But to stop data apathy and to actually work in a data-driven manner, it’s a good idea to stop trying to find meaning in your unsorted piles of data and instead turn the process on its head.

Start by setting growth goals, pick a couple of data points that could support you in investigating potentially untapped avenues of growth and decide on the KPI’s that will help you measure success. Once that’s done, you’ll have a pretty good picture of what data you should track.

This will limit the scope of data you have to dig through and help you get a much better overview of the success of your actions.

Want some tangible examples of how data can be used to grow online marketplaces? Watch as Natalia Cieslak, Director of AppJobs Institute, and Sigrid Zeuthen, Global Marketing Manager at Besedo, discuss real-life applications of data.

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