The marketing strategies of companies across all types of industries are often focused on front-end priorities, such as implementing campaigns, shaping brand awareness through public relations, pushing demand generation, improving customer interactions with websites and more. However, today’s most successful front-end marketing campaigns pivot and improve based on back-end data management and large amounts of collected information that measure success.

The modern age of digital transformation is changing how marketers successfully generate and manage leads, with back-end integration being a key component of campaigns that fully embrace transformation.

What is back-end integration? It is the process in which the front end of marketing strategies is fully connected to the technological infrastructure that stores a company’s information used by marketing, such as customer data management technology, campaign performance analytics, and interdepartmental data transfer. This allows for a flow of information between both sides of marketing that helps to continually strengthen campaigns by honing in on what works and eliminating what does not. While it may seem like keeping these two entities connected to one another is a natural part of modern marketing, countless companies are affected by massive shortcomings in the ways front-end and back-end marketing are integrated.

It may be that shortages on time, resources, and awareness have led your company to not fully embrace integration through digital transformation, but those who are integrating front-end and back-end systems have seen its true potential in evolving their marketing strategies.

The Marketing Benefits of Back-End Integration

So what does digital transformation mean for marketers? Successful back-end integration has numerous benefits, including:

1. Usable Data - Back-end integration means much more data on customer interactions to collect and analyze when determining the effectiveness of an online digital marketing strategy, as each front-end interaction will be tracked.

2. Seamless Improvements for Users - In connecting front-end user experiences with back-end data collection, marketers can create a seamless system of evaluating online client interactions and turning them into measurable analytics that help empower a company's workforce. The process involves in-depth analysis and a constant commitment to improvement, but front-end interactions will seem effortless and organic to customers.

3. Focused Marketing Improvements - By improving back-end processes, businesses can find key takeaways on how potential clients are interacting with marketing material. Marketing teams that solely focus on front-end marketing and design or rely on outdated methods of client data analysis can lead to static websites that gain little valuable data from visitors, no matter how many may come to the site. In doing so, refocusing marketing efforts can be like trying to hit a target blindfolded. As discussed by Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, connecting a marketing organization's front-end with back-end data, technology and processes is integral in driving predictable demand generation and strategic customer acquisition.

4. Greater Marketing ROI - Through the use of back-end integration, marketing departments can create detailed cause-and-effect data concerning their interactions with potential clients. In doing so, companies can decrease their cost per opportunity while also increasing lead-to-customer velocity, according to reports by Integrate. Combined, these two forms of digital transformation have a substantial total impact on return on investment (ROI), as well as on optimizing a marketing department’s usage of client data.

Equally Improving Front-End and Back-End Marketing

In today's world of fast-paced online marketing and the need to keep pace with competitors, some businesses may see marketing as a matter of front-end versus back-end when it comes to matters of where to invest both time and money. But prioritizing one over the other means that neither front-end nor back-end can truly function to their greatest degree possible, as these systems truly rely on one another in order to make the most of their functions.

It is crucial for teams to understand that while not every individual marketer needs to work in both front-end and back-end integration, these two sides must be highly interconnected, as discussed by SorryforMarketing.com. While having both a front-end and back-end team means that they can tackle different goals in the day to day, the use of integrated systems and a cohesive team view means both sides of marketing can adapt to changing trends and make better use of the data they receive through customer insight.

When evaluating how to better integrate your company’s marketing efforts, take the time to see where your shortcomings lie. Integration is only successful when your back-end systems are collecting accurate data and front-end strategies properly understand what that data means for their marketing efforts. A skilled back-end integration manager will help to balance these two sides and oversee proper and consistent integration that creates dynamic digital marketing strategies, which adapt to new client data for more effective campaigns.

The road from first interaction with a visitor online to closing a sale with a lead can be a long and winding one. If a marketing team is unable to see what that road actually involves, then all manner of incorrect assumptions can be made. Take the guesswork out of your digital marketing. Know your customer. Know your campaign. Embrace back-end integration and begin seeing the full picture of your company’s audience.

Learn more by reading “Why Your Marketing Technology Isn’t Impacting the Bottom Line.”