What is a Golden Record and Why Should Marketers Care?

WHAT IS A GOLDEN RECORD?

A golden record is a single master record for all critical data and is often referred to as the source of truth. In the marketing context, it relates to having the most reliable record for an individual at that point in time. With various databases used all over the world, a real challenge exists to pinpoint whether the contact you have for a person is accurate now, as opposed to being accurate at one point in time -- these are two very different measures.

Finding a golden record is not necessarily easy due to the complexities of business operations and sourcing data from the right places. Purchasing a contact from a data provider is not the silver bullet to keeping your database up-to-date with golden records as these sources can inherently be outdated themselves. Having reliable data is the foundation of marketing and sales efforts and will help maximize the impact of your activities.

So what steps need to be taken to achieve or come close to creating the golden record? Let’s first take a closer look at how a golden record is built and why it is important for businesses to access it.