Marketing platforms with proprietary user interfaces are a waste of resources

Every company is different. He has his own models of profit, goals and problems. Therefore, it should also have a way to report the results of the business tailored to its needs. Today, there are a plethora of options that offer just that. Datorama, Google Data Studio, and Microsoft Power BI are just some of the more sophisticated data visualization tools that offer almost endless customization.

As data badysts, we are very familiar with this type of platform and we have recently seen a trend. Despite all the options available, the adtech and martech companies are investing heavily in developing UIs and increasingly sophisticated proprietary dashboards to host their customers' data. While this may seem like a good thing, we do not think it's the best use of a company's scarce resources.

Typically, these user interfaces are limited to the display of their platform data and the views defined by the platform. In other words, customers can see their data, but only in the way that the platform wants to see. In our experience, this mode of operation is in contrast to the needs of most customers, who need to be able to customize the way they visualize their data and want to combine it with data from other sources.

The best dashboard tools are independent of data sources, which means they can import information from any source, in any format, and treat them as highly customizable way. The Adtech and Martech companies have not necessarily followed suit on the other side of the relationship. While almost all the tools we work with offer data exports, not all of them are easy to customize or automate, and we inevitably need to ask our representatives for personalized data sets. Platforms that offer APIs modify them frequently or sometimes make them very expensive to access. The worst offenders require data snippets to be delivered by customer service representatives, manually extracted from systems that customers can not access (this is true for a surprising number of otherwise exemplary platforms for custom data exports).

A better philosophy for data providers would be to follow the forefront of business intelligence platforms such as Google Data Studio or Microsoft Power BI and remain agnostic to the destinations to which data is routed. By prioritizing data availability, customization, and reliability over proprietary UI provisioning, the adtech and martech platforms would dramatically improve the bottom line for their customers.

Data from any source is much more powerful when combined with data from other sources. By prioritizing the availability of data and the ability of customers to use their data in combination with information from other sources, any company providing data to customers will maximize its power and utility. Conversely, by prioritizing a proprietary user interface over user-friendliness and data availability, data providers limit its utility and impact on customers. User interfaces, data visualizations, and the combination of data with other sources should be considered as another service to be outsourced. Greater openness and a less unintentional focus on maintaining customer data locking will improve results for everyone.

Will Burghes is Executive Director of Data Strategy and Analysis at Forsman & Bodenfors in New York.

Drew Orapello is senior strategist in data and badysis at Forsman & Bodenfors in New York.