In some cases, inaccurate data causes no harm or foul. But not usually. 

Fortune 500, Healthcare, Finance, and Enterprise corporations actioning—perhaps also monetizing—data must be analyzing accurate, timely, and consistent information. Otherwise, it’s completely unreliable.

For the average enterprise that leverages a number of marketing, advertising and BI tools, however, data inaccuracy is far more common. To understand the problem (and how to fix it), let’s turn to a recent technical difficulty facing the U.S. government. 

The Feds have a data accuracy problem

Recently, a glitch in a U.S. Government system caused many small businesses to receive loans twice OR MORE under a Federal Aid program to help businesses hurt by the Covid-19 pandemic. The error was caused by a blind spot in the SBA’s loan processing system which failed to see that some borrowers submitted applications multiple times with different lenders.

How could the SBA prevent the problem of the same borrower receiving multiple checks through multiple lenders? 

Simple.

Control data quality from collection

By integrating the submissions into one trustworthy system, the SBA could accept applications from multiple institutions and yet remove any risk of duplication, inaccuracies, and potential of outdated data. 

It’s the same when collecting customer data for multiple analytics tools.

Each tool requires a tracking pixel or browser tag on your website, which is a little like how every lender meant adding a new submission to the SBA. Browser tags are critical to the mission but can also be a liability because each tool makes its own call for data, thus risking duplication, inaccuracies, and delay. When multiple third parties track the same data, there’s no easy way to ensure consistency. 

A better option is for one party to control the data ingestion and send the necessary information to each third party they choose. By re-integrating the data server-side with the secure deployment option of managed private cloud or self-hosted private cloud, you can control your data from collection and completely remove all chances of duplication or inaccuracy. 

In the new age of data control, eComm, Fortune 50, Healthcare, FinTech, and other companies who deal with sensitive data are all looking for flexible and proven solutions in real time. Many are also searching for partners to address and solve their data accuracy needs and concerns.

Most businesses can’t afford to send multiple checks to one applicant

Building a flexible, consistent, and accurate data architecture isn’t easy. And not every Fortune 50 company, SMB, FinTech, AdTech, LATAM business has Federal Funding like SBA. Improved consistency requires a first-party tracking partner that is proven and ready to address their specific data accuracy concerns.

Via a server-side infrastructure, the concept of consistent and accurate data is achievable with a MetaRouter tag, as a central tracking system, which is significantly more performant. Specifically, in the case of a Fortune 50 company, 24 hours after implementation they realized strong inconsistency with purchase events and capture events and were able—through customer data integration—to decrease max variability from ~30% to ~1% and track an additional 2280 purchase conversions per day.

Get data accuracy right the first time

Marketing and data teams need quality data for meaningful analytics and insights. When every new tool uses its own pixel and makes individual data calls, there’s a snowball opportunity for errors and redundancy. Data regulations, ad-blockers, browser limitations, and the like, greatly limit the ability to gather data through traditional 3rd-party pixels. By removing reliance on 3rd-party pixels and ingesting data 1st-party, clients not only see a notable improvement in data accuracy, but also an increase in the amount of data they’re able to collect.

For companies that have a dedicated resource to research and develop their data architecture building to this use case is critical. After all, what happens when legislation and third-party cookie regulations change … again? 

Our solution is proven, live, and evolving with legislation in real time, making data consistency and accuracy easily accessible. Contact us anytime to set up a free consultation and see if our customer data integration solution is the right fit for you.

Photo by Ricardo Arce on Unsplash