Marketers continually find themselves in the precarious position of trying to prove marketing’s worth. But even if marketers have the data they need, reporting results is merely a necessary first step. Marketers must use the data to make decisions that have greater business impact. In other words, marketers must stop merely using data to prove marketing’s value and begin using it to improve results—to become data-savvy marketers.

In this Update, we establish the link between data-savvy marketing and business impact and outline in detail the five essential practices of data-savvy marketers, based on ITSMA survey research as well as interviews with ITSMA members.