How much are data quality trust issues costing you?

It can be difficult to quantify the exact ROI of marketing data quality, a recent article by Direct Marketing News points out. When companies launch campaigns, they may not know how many sales they lose out on because customers' addresses were stored incorrectly in their computer systems.

However, it becomes more obvious when considering that there is no return on money spent to send messages that never reach customers; marketers are simply letting cash flow out. Yet, it remains a significant problem for most companies, as 94 percent of companies believe their data contain some inaccuracies, yet 42 percent expect to use this information for customer profiling to take advantage of market opportunities, Experian QAS found.

Many companies have trust issues with their data because they lack one - or all - of the four primary building blocks of data quality, which include change control, verification, accountability and transparency, according to peer-to-peer community blog GovernYourData.

To hold 100 percent trust in their data, companies must have a searchable glossary in which all business terms are defined, metadata for a system of records, accountability through ownership and stewardship, data quality scorecards, methods for monitoring data and alerting owners of the data, as well as end-to-end lineage for impact analysis and control, the source adds.