Abstract:
Over the years, marketing analytics had surfaced as a third component of the marketing
research, considered on equal footing with quantitative and qualitative research. While the
process is not new, its implementation and uses today are always changing, in an
environment where consumers are evolving, hence the need for marketers to gather as much
relevant information on the customer as is practically and ethically possible. This study thus
investigated the nature of marketing analytics in multinational organisations in Ghana.
Utilising a qualitative research approach, the researcher adopted a case study strategy, semistructured
interview, and a purposive sampling technique to sample four multinational
organisations in Ghana. Three research questions were investigated. With the use of a
thematic analysis, key findings for the study were discovered. Objective one, which
explored the purpose and usage of analytics, it was revealed that marketing analytics was
used mainly for promotion by the organisations. Additionally, it was discovered that the use
of analytics was still developing in most organisations. The next objective was to identify
factors which influence the organisation’s use of analytics. Two major finding revealed here
were that the type of organisation and competition were key factors affecting the use of
analytics in marketing. Finally, the study’s objective three sought to investigate the success
and challenges associated with the use of marketing analytics and discovered that successes
included effective tracking of marketing performance and campaigns while some challenges
arose from dealing with third party organisation or lack of employee knowledge with the
use of various marketing analytics software/tools. The study recommends that organisations
develop a culture centred around the use of marketing analytics while there must be training
for employees in order to better utilise analytical software/tool
