Data activation: the discipline – and the people – behind the buzzword

Sep 03, 2026
  • sales, marketing and service

Every marketer already knows the punchline. Customers want authentic, personalized, effortless communications. The business wants it to convert: pipeline, revenue, and retention, not just likes and opens. To get there, marketing teams push harder: more sends, sharper copy, one more channel. And still, the numbers won’t cooperate. Somewhere along the line, they hit a ‘performance plateau’: teams are using the most powerful technology marketing has ever had to send more generic messages.

delaware experts Kevin De Beck and Maarten De Neve have spent years diagnosing exactly why it’s so hard to turn data into tangible business results. Kevin brings the data expertise, Maarten the marketing lens. "Our clients don't want to hear about opens and clicks anymore," Maarten says. "Their CFOs want to know the impact on revenue, on margin, on growth. Campaigning is just an intermediate layer for them." Kevin agrees: "Using data isn't the goal. Making more money, or moving the business forward, is." 

CFOs want to know the impact on revenue, margin and growth. Campaigning is just an intermediate layer for them.
Maarten De Neve, data activation expert at delaware

The most powerful tools ever. Yet, the same old messages

84%

The stats back up what they’re describing. Salesforce found that 84% of marketers are sending generic campaigns, while they know their customers expect a two-way conversation. 

98%

Add AI to the mix and the problem compounds: 98% of marketers using AI run into at least one data-related barrier: silos, volume, or poor quality. 

conclusion

The intent is there, marketers understand what’s needed and they put in the effort. Usually the data and the technology are all there too. What's missing is a way to turn that data into something that actually moves the business. Maarten calls this data activation: using data as a commercial competitive advantage. That’s what they help clients build.

The gap between people

Ask Kevin where marketing projects actually stall, and he doesn't point to technology, not even data. Which is a little ironic, because these are usually what gets him and Maarten in the room in the first place. Organizations call delaware because their marketing platform doesn't feel like it's cutting it anymore, or because they want to do more with data or AI.

“The biggest gap is caused by teams not working together, because they don’t really understand each other," Kevin says. “So, before anything else, we ask for an hour with the people actually involved: sales, marketing, and IT.”

Each and every time, they hear three different stories. “The starting question always sounds different depending on who’s asking," Maarten continues. "Marketing tells us they can't find the insights they want in the existing tool. IT says marketing always asks data questions too late, right before a campaign needs to launch. While the CFO and CEO keep insisting they just need a solution that raises revenue. We put everyone at the same table, and work to agree on the same goal. Once that’s done, we help them align the processes behind it.” 

Always start with a use case

That alignment work always starts the same way: with a use case, defined precisely enough that all three teams can act on the same words.

If a client doesn’t already know what their use case should be, Kevin and Maarten start by building what Kevin calls a ‘value leader’: “We diagnose the customer portfolio, showing which customers are valuable, who’s gone quiet, where the margin sits. Starting from there, we draft a list of concrete initiatives: win back the sleepers, grow the loyal accounts, protect the margin, etc.”


The fix nobody expects

“That’s when our key added value shows up,” says Kevin, “turning the use case into a shared language that every department of the business can act on.”

That exercise can start almost embarrassingly small. On a recent project, the customer's IT team had built a customer intelligence workspace for marketing, complete with a glossary explaining every field, built exactly to the brief marketing gave them. Marketing still couldn't use it. Nobody had failed to listen; two teams were simply speaking different languages, and without someone translating between them, they stayed stuck. Kevin asked the marketers to write their own version of the glossary, in their own words, and merged the two into what he now calls a data dictionary.

The same logic applies to building new data points in the customer database. Maarten's example: a client wanted to flag customers who were disengaging. Naming the idea was easy, everyone agreed they needed a "sleeper" flag. Defining it precisely enough to actually build was the hard part. "So we sat down with marketing and IT together," Maarten says, "and agreed a sleeper is someone who hasn't purchased in three months, hasn't visited in six. Then we created the field."


Turning a use case into a shared language that every department of the business can act on: to me, that’s where our real added value shows up.
Kevin De Beck, data activation expert at delaware

Adoption is a long game

Only when every stakeholder speaks the same language, Kevin and Maarten look at whether the existing technology can facilitate the approach. If it can't, they fix the technology first, together with a wider team at delaware. 

  • “What makes this different from a typical platform rollout is also the last step,” Kevin explains. “We embed the process in the organization, writing down how sales, marketing and IT should keep working together.” 
  • Also different: long after the groundwork, delaware stays in touch. Some clients keep them on retainer for months, sometimes years. Kevin helps IT understand what marketing actually needs, Maarten helps marketing turn that understanding into the next business use case. 
  • “We see ourselves as coaches,” Maarten concludes. “A glossary, a shared field definition, and the long hours talking to colleagues with different views are all small steps, but that’s how we add value. That’s how we help marketers activate their data: turn it into a commercial competitive advantage that actually moves the business forward.”



Where does your organization actually stand?

Kevin and Maarten's diagnosis always starts with the same four questions: does the business see past opens and clicks? Is communication actually relevant to the person receiving it? Is the data foundation solid? And are your teams set up to act on any of it?

Take the 3-minute data activation scan to find out where you stand.

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