For any great business, data is the lifeblood and it is nowhere more true than in the land of B2B marketing. For companies who want to learn more about their audience, optimize their strategies and track results, B2B marketing analytics is a game-changer. But what the heck is B2B marketing analytics, and how do you make the most of it to get your campaigns into fighting shape?
This blog will help you:
-
Learn what B2B marketing analytics is and why it is important.
-
Discover important statistics to follow to make better decisions.
-
Explore ways to simplify analytics with tools and technologies.
-
Develop a strong marketing analytics plan that distinguishes you from the competition.
You’ll be able to take away useful ideas on how to help your org make smarter, data-driven decisions about marketing.
Chapter 1: B2B Marketing Analytics – Why It Matters
What if we Made Decisions Based on Reason and Not with Emotion
B2B Marketing Analytics frees organizations from the chains of intuition and guesswork. It gives you actual, tangible insights on what’s working among all of your campaigns, and what you still need to bring up to speed. Utilizing data, teams can invest budgets wisely, craft messaging, and reach the right people at the right time.
For example: A company that is running 5 email marketing campaigns to power its lead generation can look at open rates, click through rates (CTR), and conversions to understand which of its audience segments is engaging better. It enables marketers to double-down on their winning campaigns and tweak weak ones.
Justifying ROI
One of the biggest selling points of analytics is the way it can demonstrate ROI. Unlike B2C marketing, which may depend on appealing to emotional buying triggers, B2B marketing is often measured in hard numbers. Once you have analytics, you can tie directly into revenue, and make a compelling argument for the value of your team to business.
Staying Competitive
There’s a revolution happening in the B2B space. For example, according to Forrester, 68% of all B2B customers research independently online before they contact a salesperson, etc.… One of the best things about marketing analytics is that it can bring you into the present and see what people and other businesses are doing today, right now and what your business can do to have a competitive edge.
Chapter 2: Key B2B Marketing Metrics to Monitor
Although there are plenty of metrics that come into play when it comes to B2B marketing analytics, let’s take a look at some of the most crucial ones to keep your finger on the pulse of.
Customer Acquisition Costs (CACs)
This informs you about the cost of acquiring a new customer. CAC is a simple formula that you can compute by taking your total sales and marketing costs and dividing it by the number of customers you have gained over a certain period of time. The lower your CAC, the more efficient your campaigns are generally going to be.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
This statistic can predict the overall revenue you will earn from a customer throughout your relationship. CAC vs CLV will help you to know if your acquisition efforts are giving you a reasonable return or not.
Lead Conversion Rate
Your capacity to convert prospects to paying customers really is all-important in B2B. Lead conversion rate reflects the proficiency of your sales funnel and tells you how many leads move on to the different stages.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) vs. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
Clearing the MQL and SQL lines draws the marketing and sales line in the sand. MQLs represent your prospecting prospects, and SQLs represent those who are ready to buy. Analytics enables the monitoring of how good a job these two groups are doing with the hand-off.
Pipeline Velocity
How fast leads pass through your Sales funnel is known as the pipeline velocity. Any insight you collect here can help your team to identify bottlenecks or ways to grease the skates on the conversion process.
Engagement Metrics
Metrics such as email open rates, social media shares, website dwell time, and click-through rates on emails offer glimpses into how your audience is engaging with your content. The more engaged, the more likely a person will be aware of your brand and have trust in it.
Chapter 3: Tools and Technologies for B2B Analytics
Appropriate Spurs Innovation – Technology Stack Fosters Innovation
Use the Appr
The right tools encourage data science innovation.
Scaling analytics to make it actionable requires tools. Here are some of the top technologies current B2B marketers are using to help them get a leg up:
Google Analytics
Must-have to follow and understand your web traffic and audience behavior. When you use it together with goals to measure lead form submissions or newsletter sign ups, analytics is particularly powerful.
Software-Specific Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Applications such as Salesforce and HubSpot enable businesses to track and control interactions with customers, as well as unify marketing and sales data.
Automation Platforms for Marketing
Automation tools like Marketo and Pardot fill this void between campaign management and B2B marketing analytics to enable analyzing activities in the funnel, like MQL nurturing.
Data Visualization Software
Products such as Tableau and Power BI make it much easier to digest reams of data with dashboards, allowing you to quickly understand what’s interesting and how to take action.
Predictive Analytics and AI
Tools such as Demandbase and ZoomInfo use AI to take account-based marketing to the next level, helping organizations pinpoint high-value prospects and provide tailored communications.
Pro Tip: Make sure your tools work together. A disjointed tech stack can result in siloed data and lost opportunities.
Chapter 4: Building a B2B Marketing Analytics Strategy
Also available for: FREE Download by clicking here.
Effective B2B marketing analytics strategy doesn’t develop overnight. Here’s how to make one step by step:
Step 1. Define Your Goals
Establish your aims in using B2B marketing analytics and whether those are focused on lower CAC, higher conversion rates, or an increase in CLV.
Step 2. Select the Right KPIs
Specify the metrics that relate directly to your objectives. For instance, if you’re working to better qualify leads, then tracking MQLs and SQLs will be incredibly important.
Step 3. Standardize Data Collection
Determine the source and nature of data to be acquired. Inconsistent data your issue? Whether it is web performance, CRM inputs, or email engagement, have each department adopt the same practices.
Step 4. Leverage Real-Time Reporting
Real time dashboards and alerts let your team take immediate action when anomalies emerge, whether it’s an opportunity missed or a risk on the horizon.
Step 5. Analyze and Refine Campaigns
There’s more to it: Analytics is not an one-time activity! Lean on insights to do everything from improving weaker areas to A/B testing factors such as subject lines or calls-to-action (CTAs), and investing heavier into what’s successful.
Step 6. Bring Teams Together
Establish your analytics strategy to be something that is developed by your marketing and sales and customer success teams all simultaneously. The more in alignment the stakeholders, the better results you’re going to have.
The Future of B2B Marketing Analytics
More Info: Let’s Block Ads!
The future landscape of B2B marketing analytics will be shaped by AI and machine learning. These technologies are already bringing greater predictive power to analytics. For example, platforms like conversational analytics are helping to make unstructured data less unwieldy.
For smart businesses, not having an analytics practice is no longer an option; it is absolutely necessary. The industries that can mature from them and evolve from ‘reactive decisions’ to ‘proactive analytics-backed insights’ will have an edge over others, enable them to separate themselves, as well as enhance their client relationships in the industry and keep them a step ahead.
Rosemary Barker