For a long time marketing analytics has been synonymous with data mining. However, technology now makes many more activities possible. Analyzing consumer behavior and responses now also includes social media and online purchasing which creates huge data files. They can be mined to better understand consumers and used to create predictive algorithms. Companies also need to know what marketing activities have what results which is a challenging task. There are some versions of marketing automation software than can track how consumers respond and whether those responses are profitable.
Marketing faculty need to include these tools. The following article introduces a tool that helps: http://online.wsj.com/article/