While missed KPIs are never a goal, they should be far from a nightmare. It's surprising that so many marketers throw the baby out with the bathwater when talking about why a campaign failed, mislabeling misses as "bad data." Good, bad, or ugly, data received from a campaign is always a source of fuel that helps power optimizations for live campaigns and valuable knowledge for future initiatives.

The digital advertising industry has been slow to adopt suitable measurement for viewability, as old-school metrics like impressions and clicks hold onto their seat at the table. For brands to make the most of their audiences and publishers to make the most of their inventory, we must adopt metrics that go beyond whether the ad reached its desired target and loaded on the "right" part of the page -- and develop metrics for actual "time spent" engagement. To do that, we must rethink what "viewability" means, why it matters, and how to both deliver and measure it.

To improve planning, enhance performance and optimize spend, the most effective marketing organizations inject data and analytics into every phase of their marketing process. Here are six essential practices that best-in-class marketing organizations employ to become more data-driven -- and, in turn, make better, more profitable decisions.