The marketing industry is more data intensive than it’s ever been, and, as a result, many CMOs are honing their data science skills. Data informs every stage of marketing today – it builds a roadmap for who, what, where and how we build campaigns. So how can marketers know that the data they are using is trustworthy, verifiable and actionable?

In our fast-growing digital marketing world, our access to and use of data is expanding so rapidly, we barely have time to think about data quality before campaigns are launched. And yet in a recent study, 37 percent of marketers revealed that they believe that bad data contributed to their wasted marketing spend. Only nine percent of marketers surveyed were confident in their data quality. In another study, 41 percent of marketers didn’t believe fraud would affect their mobile campaigns – and that might be indicative of an even bigger problem than fraud itself. Overburdened marketers sometimes blindly trust agencies and partners to deliver reliable audiences and information, but not all data is reliable. And when you’re using data to target new customers, devices, and locations, that data has to be clean, reliable and accurate, or your campaigns will not perform to their potential.

So how can marketers feel confident about the data they’re using?

While we can’t speak for all data, Blis takes data quality extremely seriously – made possible by the below:

SmartPin: Better data yields better results, so Blis has always been committed to delivering the cleanest, most accurate and precise data available. Our SmartPin technology is our first line of defense against poor quality and fraudulent data.

There are several red flags we look for to ensure our data is reliable, and these include:

• Centroids
• Lack of precision in lat/long data
• No country code/Wrong country code
• Repetition of uniques
• Not enough data
• The Equator Test/ Greenwich Test
• Bad publisher name

SmartPin ensures that our intelligence and insights are pulled exclusively from the highest quality, most accurate location data. Ultimately, our stringent filtering processes discard about 80 percent of the raw data we take in, ensuring that only the cleanest, most trustworthy data is passed on to our clients.

Independent verification from Location Sciences: Recently Blis became the first global location intelligence company to embrace independent verification of data quality from​ Location Sciences, an independent location​ data verification and analytics company. This means that Blis is the only global location data provider whose data has been verified by a third party, receiving near-perfect scores in independent testing. As our CEO, Greg Isbister said, “Transparency and data accuracy are at the core of our business, underpinning everything we do… Our clients turn to us for high-quality ​data to better understand their customers and drive engagement and sales. Being independently recognised by Location Sciences, both for location data and signal quality accuracy, adds a valuable layer of impartial authentication for our customers. We’re proud to be the first in our industry to offer independently verified data on a global scale.”

Blis Blockchain: Our commitment to transparency and quality has led us to an industry-first achievement. Blis Blockchain, powered by IBM, offers our clients accurate and detailed insights into the sources of the data that fuels their campaigns. Using advanced blockchain technology, Blis is able to audit how the data has been collected, as well as the audience segment make-up, in a way that leaves a clear audit trail, but still protects PII. This delivers a new level of transparency and trust, since there’s full visibility into exactly where the data came from.

We know we set higher standards for our data than most players in the industry, but as we’ve said, better quality data yields better results. Marketing decision makers need to ask questions about the data they use, and demand proof of its quality. Know what you’re buying and how you’re fueling your campaigns. With high-quality, verified data, you’ll see better results, and you’ll also see your budget go a lot further.