Eloqua's Tip Tuesday: Tackling Dirty Data

JodyMooney-Oracle

Each week we post interesting tips and tricks for Eloqua users, on Tuesdays. To see more Tip Tuesday posts, head here.

Are you the victim of dirty data?

This week's special post comes to us from @ShilpiBhatt-Oracle, Senior Technical Account Manager (TAM) at Oracle. As we're winding down 2022, there's no better time to talk about a very, very important topic that will set you up for better marketing in 2023: Data Hygiene!

Data hygiene is vital for all marketing automation. Customers often dedicate resources for campaign execution, reporting, integration, however, they may not pay as much attention to data strategy, data maintenance, or data management best practices.

Creating and maintaining clean data is an ongoing challenge for each organization, but it is vitally important for all marketing efforts. Be it segmentation, personalization, lead scoring, lead routing, campaigns - all rely on structured data in key fields thus it's essential all data used by Eloqua is 4C compliant:

• Consistent
• Complete
• Credible
• Current

Can you say that your data is 4C complaint?

If your answer is “NO”, then let us take you on a journey into data cleansing to kick off 2023!

1.  Normalizing Contact Fields like Country, State, and Job Title:

Let’s take an example of Country Field. Below are the steps to normalize country field:

(a)  Export just the country fields from your entire database using segment or API and use the pivot table to check the different variations of the country fields you have. Now, create a csv file with exported country fields and correct/normalized country field, see below table for reference. You might need to do a little manual task here.

(b)  Next step is to go to Audience > Tools > Data Tools -> Click the Data Tools menu, and then click New Lookup Table->fill in the details (see below screenshot)->Save

You can upload the table via -> Manage Entries > Upload above Lookup Table Entries->Save

(c)   Third step is to go to Audience > Data Tools-> New Update Rule Set->add update rule -> fill in the details (see below snapshot) ->select lookup table you created->Apply->Save

(d)  Fourth step is to create a segment of all the database, see below screenshot for reference.

(e)  Final step, create a program canvas. Add segment you just created and update rule you created and then activate the program. See below screenshot of the final program.

Please Note: Always test and check the final values of the contact field for your sanity.

 

2.    Standardize the Contact Fields using Contact Washing Machine: The Contact Washing Machine can help you to select various actions and conditions to perform on the source field. Example: Trim, Uppercase, Lowercase, Propercase, Compose, Set to Blank, replace etc. Here is the link to product documentation for additional details.

Let’s take an example of First Name propercase. Below are the steps:

(a)  Create a segment with all the first name not equal to blank, see below screenshot.

 (b)  Create a program -> select the segment created in step (a)-> select Contact Washing Machine element from the left side panel (you can free download the Contact Washing Machine app from the cloud market place.)->click the pencil icon to configure the app.

(c)   Configure the app -> fill in the details like source field (the field you would like to update), action (in this example, we have selected propercase) and destination (the field you would like to have the updated value). In this example source and destination field will be First Name. Save the configuration.

(d)  Activate the final program, see below screenshot for reference.

3.  Contact Field Completeness: Eloqua has come up with Contact Field Analysis out of box standard insight report in 22D release that provides a breakdown on field usage. This report is very useful to understand what percentage of contact field completeness you have in your database. Below are the steps to access the report.

(a)  Insight->shared folder->contacts-> Contact Field Analysis-> edit -> results

(b)  Reviewing these missing percentage, you know where to concentrate your efforts to clean up. You can use “Progressive Profile” form element to fill in the important missing values.

4.  It is important to track the source of data to keep the data clean. For example - you can use picklists in forms to maintain the normalize and standardize data. Let’s take an example of country, below are the steps:

(a)  Create a Picklist: Settings->Manage Picklists->New Picklist->Save.

(b)  Open the new picklist you just created -> type the Option Value and Option Name -> Save.

The option name is the display name that users see. The option value is the actual value that the option represents.

(c)   Create a new form->add necessary contact fields to the form->add single picklist element from left panel of the design form.

(d)  Select the picklist you previously created.

(e)  Eloqua form will look like below where country is the picklist which will let the prospect select the appropriate country from the drop-down.

(f)   Final landing page will display the country picklist like below.

Note: This set up will allow a form submitter to enter the country filed using the pre-defined drop-down list that will only enter the normalize county field to enter the database via forms.

And with that you're on the path to cleaner data, which means better personalization, higher conversions, and an optimized marketing strategy! Thanks @ShilpiBhatt-Oracle 😁

Curious to learn more? Be sure to also check out Data Hygiene session called: Spring Cleaning Your Eloqua House.

Have an Eloqua tip you would like to share for a future “Tip Tuesday” post? Drop me (@JodyMooney-Oracle) a message via Topliners with your tip including any relevant screenshots/links to help share your favorite tips with fellow Eloqua users? If your tip is selected, we’ll tag you in the post too!