Data Integrity - Part Two: Looking Further into WinnowPro’s Data Tools

That’s right, 19x more profitable! Yet when 2,190 global senior executives were surveyed on Data Integrity, only 35% said they have a high level of trust in how their organization uses data and analytics.

Maintaining accurate data leads to confident business decisions based on sound evidence, but it goes further than that. It plays a critical role in the trust that end-users have in a company’s products and services. With our new Data Integrity Series, WinnowPro is searching for answers to uncover how businesses prioritize data integrity within their organizations and how customers are impacted by organizations who fail to implement today’s standards of data integrity.
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This is part two in our Data Integrity Series, in which we sat down with two of our business directors at WinnowPro to discuss the strategy side of maintaining Data Integrity in business.

Hussain Ali Mirza is Sr. Director of Operations at WinnowPro, where he leads Product and Client Operations. He brings a data-focused approach to product development that incorporates his years of experience supporting products and customers of diverse industries including technology, retail, and travel.

Shyam Krishnan is the Managing Director for India and has spent his entire career making data useful for businesses. His primary goal has always been to find the stories the data tells you and use that to define the path your product then takes. He is a passionate proponent of transparent and trusted data networks.

Interviewer: Do you see “Data Integrity” as a growing issue in the technology realm? Why or why not?

HAM: Data integrity is definitely a growing issue. In today’s environment where data is king and there is an increasing reliance on data for decision making, the quality of data and making sure the data you have is a true reflection of what you want to apply the inferences of your analysis to, is critical. This is especially important in building niche applications. 
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SK: Agreed. Data integrity has always been an issue across the board, financial data is audited, but most of the time other forms of data are not audited or corroborated on a regular basis. Since data is increasingly becoming a valuation tool and a barrier to entry for newer players, its integrity and usefulness is taking on a more prominent role in many of these conversations. We expect this to be a continuing problem.

Interviewer: Why might companies collect their own data instead of sourcing it from third-parties?

SK: A third party data set comes with a limited license to use, the data set might not contain all the information we need, it might not be scrubbed per our requirements, it might not be updated as frequently as we need it to be. The license might be revoked at any time. So while relying on third party data sets would be a necessity for some types of data, we should always try to collect our own datasets when possible.

Interviewer: Have the different methods of sourcing data changed at all since the announcement that different browsers are phasing out third-party cookies?

SK: Yes, collection of data has changed over the years, with the advent of privacy based browsers and privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA the landscape has changed drastically. While other browsers like Safari and Firefox have already phased out TP cookies, Chrome (which has over 67% market share) moving to do so is creating the most disruption. A lot of data collection now relies on first-party data as well as alternate options like Floc, Universal Ids and other options like fingerprinting or panels. Many ad networks without data management capabilities will lose business, eCPMs will lower by 2-3X and more budgets will move towards walled gardens.

Interviewer: Focusing on WinnowPro specifically, what were your objectives when building the company’s data-collection tools?

HAM: Winnow has a significant focus on data. The objective is improvement in three application areas:

The first is platform and product usability.

Given that Winnow is a SaaS platform that allows for client self service, we collect data that gives us insights on how the platform is being used by our clients to design tools and features that improves performance, usefulness & understandability of information presented. This may be direct feedback from clients, inferred data based on actions on the platform or a combination of both. 

The second is customer profiling based on client offerings.

This is accomplished by the Winnow platform collecting data from all sources such as client Website analytics, ad accounts, social pages and public sources to truly understand who is the ideal customer for that client. Deciding on the data points for a particular client in a particular vertical within a particular geography is what enables Winnow to perform in delivering value at scale. 

And finally, we are working towards attribution to get a 3600 view of what is working where. 

Customers use an omnichannel approach to engage with a business and Winnow may use multiple platforms to advertise to the target customer. Last click attribution usually misses the full user journey and does not account for channels that are not web related. Data from such diverse sources is seldom integrated. To achieve this objective, there is a strong focus of capturing all customer touch points to ensure accurate attribution. This is especially challenging for clients who have a brick & mortar presence and we work with them to improve processes to ensure capture and sharing of in-store data.

Interviewer: Of the data that WinnowPro collects, what is your vision for how it’s useful to users?

SK: Our simulated data for CIT helps us predict various metrics like keyword usage, CPM, CPC etc for a range of businesses. This in turn helps us present performance and competitive data to our clients. Clients can use this data to fine tune their campaigns, fill in gaps that exist in their coverage, identify top performing platforms for themselves and their competitors, and create better ROI campaigns. 

The PII data that we collect helps users use our services more seamlessly, auto logging into the platform, ability to connect to their other accounts via API etc and also helps them receive relevant and useful information that they are interested in. This helps us tailor offerings to them and give them better control of what they see. 

HAM: Emphasizing what Shyam said, the data that Winnow collects is used for the following: 

For more information on WinnowPro’s Data Integrity Series and to learn how WinnowPro is achieving its mission for the highest data integrity standards, sign up to receive email alerts when new announcements are released.