Data Is Useless to Business Until It Starts Driving Revenue says Aderemi Ademilua
Covenant University marketing scholar Dr. Aderemi Victor Ademilua has challenged marketers to stop treating customer data as a reporting tool and start using it as a commercial asset capable of driving measurable revenue.
In an era where businesses have access to unprecedented volumes of customer information, Ademilua argues that the real competitive advantage is no longer in how much data a company collects, but what it does with the insight hidden within that data.
He made the assertion while presenting “Data-Driven Marketing: Turning Insights into Revenue” at a webinar organised by the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) in August 2026.
Ademilua, a lecturer of Marketing at Covenant University and Founder of 1603 Media Consulting Limited and Demil Realties Limited, said organisations must fundamentally rethink the role of data in marketing and business strategy.
The Data-to-Revenue Gap
According to Ademilua, data-driven marketing has moved beyond dashboards, campaign reports and performance reviews. It is increasingly becoming a strategic driver of business growth.
Findings from a survey of 33 marketing professionals cited by him reinforce this shift. As many as 96.7 per cent of respondents rated data-driven marketing as either “very” or “extremely” important to their businesses, while 96.9 per cent reported at least moderate revenue improvement from its use.
Also, 90.9 per cent said they used marketing analytics often or always. But Ademilua's argument is that collecting and analysing data is only the beginning. The real question, he said, is whether organisations can convert those insights into decisions that improve acquisition, retention, customer value and ultimately revenue.
“Data has moved from the marketing dashboard to the boardroom,” he declared.
He argued that data should no longer be used primarily to explain what happened yesterday. Instead, businesses should use it to determine what they should do next.
When Bad Data Becomes Bad Business
Personalisation: The Untapped Revenue Engine
Ademilua also identified personalised marketing as a major opportunity that many businesses have yet to fully exploit. According to the survey, 39.4 per cent of respondents identified personalised marketing as the strongest source of return on investment.
He encouraged marketers to combine customer segmentation, behavioural information and predictive analytics to move away from generic communication and deliver the right message, to the right customer, at the right time.
For him, personalisation is not simply about making communication appear more relevant. It is about using customer intelligence to create experiences and offers that increase the likelihood of conversion and long-term loyalty.
Forget Vanity Metrics. Follow the Money
Ademilua further challenged marketers to rethink the metrics they use to demonstrate value.
He urged practitioners to make revenue the “North Star” of marketing analytics, rather than relying heavily on impressions, clicks, reach and engagement.
Instead, he said marketers should pay closer attention to conversion rates, customer lifetime value, retention, customer acquisition costs and the direct revenue contribution of marketing activities.
“Analytics is becoming the engine of marketing performance,” he said, pointing to the 90.9 per cent analytics adoption recorded in his survey as evidence that data is becoming increasingly central to marketing decision-making.
The AI-Ready Marketing Organisation
Looking ahead, Ademilua called for businesses to develop AI-ready marketing teams capable of bringing together human creativity, data intelligence and artificial intelligence.
He cautioned against viewing AI merely as a tool for automating repetitive tasks, arguing that its potential extends across the entire marketing value chain.
From understanding consumers and predicting behaviour to personalisation, content development and campaign optimisation, he said AI has the potential to fundamentally reshape how marketing creates value.
His survey found that 54.5 per cent of respondents expect AI to have the greatest impact on marketing over the next five years.
For Ademilua, the future of marketing will therefore not belong to organisations that simply possess more data or deploy more technology. It will belong to businesses that can turn data into insight, insight into action and action into revenue.
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