"If you work in martech, marketing operations or related roles, you've surely heard colleagues and leadership complaining about data quality and their lack of trust in data. We often place the blame for data quality on the system, because we're not willing to fully say the quiet part out loud: The No. 1 factor in data quality is the people, the processes and the level of rigor in those processes."
"Through 2025, I explored the impact of unstructured data on marketing. I also went back to look at the leading trends that started the year. As 2025 went on, we saw more AI-powered capabilities appearing in leading martech platforms, many of which were turned on by default. Now is the time to consider the adjustments needed for our "trust mindset." Our historic data governance processes, which apply to both structured and unstructured data, are no longer relevant."
Data quality hinges more on people, processes, and the rigor of those processes than on systems alone. AI capabilities are rapidly being infused into traditional martech platforms and AI-native challengers are emerging. Many platforms now ship AI-powered features enabled by default, requiring adjustments to organizational trust mindsets and governance. Historic governance practices that treated structured and unstructured data the same are becoming irrelevant as systems shift toward probabilistic, context-based LLM inferences instead of deterministic exact-match rules. Unstructured data such as CRM-captured email offers new insights and risks, prompting reevaluation of CRM roles and trust measurement across the stack.
Read at MarTech
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]