Download Components Of A Smart B2B Attribution Solution

COMPONENTS OF
A Smart B2B
Attribution Solution
It seems like every B2B marketing analytics company claims to offer some
sort of attribution solution. As such, it can be hard for marketers to discern
what their actual attribution needs are, and whether they will be met by a
particular attribution solution.
And as marketing teams develop, add components and channels to their
marketing efforts, and increase their marketing spend, attribution needs
change, too.
To help determine whether a particular attribution solution is a good fit,
we’ve made this guide to help you know what components you should be
looking for in a smart attribution solution, and why those particular
components are important.
Components
1. CRM Integration
2. Multi-Touch Model
3. Omni-Channel Capabilities
4. Account-Based Attribution
5. Anonymous First-Touch Tracking
6. View-Through Conversions
7. Weighted Touchpoints
1
CRM Integration
Integrating with your sales data warehouse is an absolute necessity -it’s B2B attribution table stakes. The point of B2B marketing attribution
is to connect your marketing efforts to revenue, and in turn, give
revenue credit back to marketing channels that made each deal happen.
Without the revenue side (the CRM), attribution has little meaning.
Marketers would be forced to use and report on marketing metrics that
serve as proxies for revenue (visitors, leads, conversions, etc.). Then,
they can make a guess as to the percentage of visitors from each
channel that became leads, the percentage of leads that became sales
opportunities, and on and so on until they get to an estimated revenue
number. But these are only guesses, and they’re based on huge
assumptions, rather than by real-time data.
More than just lacking precision with these estimates, not all leads are
of equal quality. Attracting a few high quality leads is more valuable
than attracting many low quality leads. The higher up in the funnel the
marketing metrics are, the less they tell you about quality, which makes
using proxy metrics for revenue not very actionable.
A smart attribution model skips the proxy metrics by integrating into the
CRM, allowing marketers to use hard, indisputable data to test their
assumptions and optimize their strategy.
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“Effective alignment between sales and marketing
requires a shared set of definitions together with
agreement on roles, responsibilities and programs that
drive opportunities to the important closed/won status.”
- Julian Archer, Research Director, Demand Creation Strategies, SiriusDecisions
In addition to having the right data, attribution that integrates with the
CRM allows marketers to better communicate with the sales team.
When both the marketing team and the sales team are looking at CRM
data, they’re on the same page, with the same goals. It’s
inter-departmental alignment.
According to the 2015 State of Pipeline Marketing Report, organizations
that have tight alignment between marketing and sales have more
positive outcomes: a unified focus, the ability to prove business value to
upper management, and bigger budgets.
2
Multi-Touch Model
Marketing attribution is especially important in the B2B space, where
the customer journey is long and complex, requiring both the marketing
and sales team to work in tandem. Specifically, a multi-touch attribution
solution will tell the most accurate story of a customer journey, and B2B
marketers should thoroughly understand it’s importance.
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Let’s take a look at the issues that arise because of single-touch
attribution models.
Most marketing automation platforms handle attribution using a
lead-creation touch model. The lead-creation touch (what they typically
call first-touch) model gives full marketing credit to the marketing effort
that led to the first form fill-out. This is tracked through web
source-referral analysis plus any attached UTM parameters that lead to
a session where a lead is created. However, the lead-creation touch
model overvalues the middle of the marketing funnel (lead creation),
and undervalues the awareness stages, as well as the
bottom-of-the-funnel conversion stages.
“A company doesn’t realize its
[attribution] biases until it adopts a
full, multi-touch strategy...”
- Dave Rigotti, Head of Marketing, Bizible
Conversely, most CRMs handle attribution using a last-touch
(opportunity-creation) model. Last-touch works in a similar fashion, but
gives all the credit to the marketing effort that led to the final
conversion, which of course is in the sales team’s domain. This model
overvalues the bottom-of-the-funnel and ignores the efforts that
brought the lead in as an anonymous visitor and nurtured them into a
sales qualified lead.
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Single-touch models give rise to what is called model bias. By having an
attribution model that specifically targets only one part of the customer
journey, you will spend all your time optimizing for those best
performing activities, but you will shrink your funnel at all the other
stages, which will constrain growth over time.
You’ll notice that neither of these single-touch solutions are a great way
to model the customer journey. That’s because there are multiple
important touches in any given customer’s journey, hence the need for
a multi-touch model.
“As modern marketers know...customer
journey is a much more multi-touch,
multi-channel driven process.”
- Sangram Vajre, Co-Founder and CMO, Terminus
It varies from business to business, but the average B2B sale takes
around seven marketing touches. Of course, these seven touches don’t
all necessarily have equal impact -- there are key stages in the B2B
customer journey that are important for marketing and sales to
understand.
A great example of a multi-touch attribution model is the W-shaped
model. This model places emphasis on three key transitional funnel
stages: 1) the first anonymous touch (site visit), 2) the lead-creation
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touch, and 3) the sales-opportunity touch. You’ll notice that this
conveniently mirrors the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel, and
the bottom of the funnel.
It’s a model built specifically for B2B marketers to understand the B2B
customer journey.
There are many variations of multi-touch models, including a more
simplified U-shaped model as well as a more comprehensive Full Path
model. It’s imperative for B2B marketers to use a multi-touch model, but
which particular multi-touch model is best for your organization
depends on your desired level of data sophistication as well as your
marketing spend.
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3
Omni-Channel Capabilities
Omni-channel (online and offline) is another B2B-specific attribution
challenge because there’s a multitude of marketing channels and the
typical customer journey spans a wide range of them, including online
and offline channels. Omni-channel attribution allows marketers to see
the impact of every customer interaction from search keywords to
conference booth demos.
Having online-only attribution leaves B2B
marketers with a lot of guesswork.
Simplistic forms of attribution, like web analytics, only track online
interactions. The same goes for marketing automation measurement.
For B2B marketers who do offline marketing as well, this leaves a huge
gap in understanding. Advanced attribution solutions allow offline
touchpoints to just as easily be tracked and attributed revenue credit by
integrating with the CRM, where offline marketing reports are uploaded.
Having online-only attribution leaves B2B marketers with a lot of
guesswork. How are you supposed to be able to best allocate the
marketing budget when you can’t accurately compare offline channels
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like conferences with online channels? You may be reaping 2x the
revenue per dollar at conferences compared to AdWords, but you’d
never know without omni-channel attribution. That would be a huge
missed opportunity.
(Omni-channel attribution dashboard)
A smart B2B attribution solution with omni-channel attribution allows
marketers to see and assess their efforts the same way their audience
experiences it -- not as separate online and offline engagements, but
from a single, unified lens.
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4
Account-Based Attribution
Similar to the necessity of multi-touch attribution models, B2B
marketers need account-based attribution due to the complex nature of
the B2B customer journey.
Rarely will a buyer in a B2B marketplace click an advertisement, read a
blog post, then purchase your product in one visit. The journey just isn’t
that linear. Typically, there is a great deal of research involved in B2B
sales and that research requires multiple website visits, typically by
multiple people. Often, there are at least three customer “roles” in a B2B
sale: the researcher, the user, and the decision maker.
ACCOUNT
Researcher
User
Decision Maker
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The person assigned to research a product may not be the same person
who will use the product. They also may not have the power to make
the buying decision. But all of these players are under a single account,
and only one purchase can be made collectively.
In other marketing measurement tools, like web analytics and
marketing automation, the three roles are treated as three (or more)
different people -- and for good reason. Web analytics focuses on
optimizing the web experience for the unique visitor. And marketing
automation focuses on lead creation and lead nurturing, so it often
wants these people on different nurturing tracks based on their job
titles. Their technology was built with a different purpose, so naturally,
they don’t do a good job dealing with complex accounts.
When it comes to B2B marketing, these [three
roles] need to be treated as a single account.
However, we know that when it comes to B2B marketing, these people
need to be treated as a single account. The researcher may start at the
top of the funnel and once they’ve hit the middle, they’ll pass it on to the
user to evaluate. Once the user has evaluated and decided to move
forward, they’ll try to sell it to the decision-maker, who starts near the
bottom of the funnel. B2B marketers need to understand the nuance of
this journey and see each contact under the same account, rather than
three leads with unique customer journeys.
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Furthermore, the sales team will want to know who engaged with what
content so they can have meaningful and effective conversations. In the
same way, he marketing team will want to know which pieces of content
resonated with the different job roles, so they can refine their audience
targeting.
But at the same time, when it comes to attributing revenue credit when
the deal closes, the marketing efforts that touched each individual
should be represented, rather than just the marketing targeted at
decision-makers. The only way that can happen is through
account-based attribution.
5
Anonymous First-Touch Tracking
When a visitor goes to a B2B website, the goal of the website typically is
to get the visitor to fill out a form because that turns the visitor into a
lead. That form fill enters them into the marketing automation system
and allows marketers to start sending lead nurturing content -- a key
part of the B2B marketing process.
However, because marketing automation focuses on lead creation and
lead nurturing, it has one big gap that results in a large amount of direct
traffic. When visitors come to the B2B website, they’re anonymous until
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they fill out a form. So if a visitor comes to the website through search,
leaves without filling out a form, and then comes back at a later date by
manually typing in the URL and fills out a form, that conversion will be
counted as direct traffic. It’s like the first visit (via search) never
happened.
Anonymous first-touch attribution gives B2B
marketers the ability to see the true first touch,
unlike simplistic attribution solutions that call the
lead creation touch the first touch.
The remedy for this attribution inaccuracy is anonymous first-touch
attribution. On today’s internet, you’re never truly anonymous. Just
about every site places a tracking cookie on every visitor and gives them
a cookie ID that persists from session to session, so that they don’t get a
new ID every visit.
Going back to the previous scenario, a smart attribution solution is able
to connect the cookie ID from the first anonymous session with the
cookie ID from the session where the visitor filled out a form. This
communicates that it is the same person who made both visits, and that
the real first touch in fact wasn’t direct. Rather, it actually was from
search.
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Anonymous first-touch attribution gives B2B marketers the ability to see
the true first touch, unlike simplistic attribution solutions that call the
lead creation touch the first touch. The anonymous first touch is the
true start to the customer journey and deserves credit.
6
View-Through Conversions
View-through conversions -- being able to track and attribute credit
when someone sees an ad, but doesn’t click on it -- is a critical
component of valuing brand advertising.
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Because there’s a lot more brand advertising in the B2C world,
view-through is often thought of as more necessary in B2C marketing
analytics than B2B. But that’s changing. As more and more B2B
companies invest in brand advertising, view-through conversions will
become more of a must-have for smart attribution solutions.
As more and more B2B companies
invest in brand advertising,
view-through conversions will become
more of a must-have for smart
attribution solutions.
How does view-through work?
Digital ad technology is rapidly maturing, and we’re now at the point
where it’s possible to tell whether a person viewed an ad (typically a
banner display ad) and then went to the site later, without ever clicking
on the ad. The ad may have introduced first awareness, name
recognition, or just reminded the viewer to look into the product or
company. When they later visit, through search, direct, or some other
marketing channel, the display ad won’t ever get any credit unless their
analytics program has view-through conversion attribution capabilities.
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When it comes to direct traffic (contextless, meaningless traffic), with
view-through conversion, B2B marketers are able to understand the
context behind the direct visit (e.g. they saw an ad and where) and can
make smarter decisions because of it.
7
Weighted Touchpoints
When it comes to giving credit to marketing touchpoints, most
marketers and their attribution models focus on time: the first touch,
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the last touch, or the amount of time before conversion (time decay
model).
If your customer journey and sales process is short and straightforward,
time may be sufficient as the only factor. But B2B customer journeys are
more complicated and more fluid than ever before. Therefore, time
shouldn’t be the only factor that marketers use to determine the value
of each marketing interaction.
Multi-touch models do a great job of layering on key customer journey
transitions into the model, and account-based attribution adds the
B2B-specific nuance of correctly handling multiple customer roles within
a single account. They are big steps in the right direction, but they still
don’t take into account one major thing: not all marketing touches have
equal impact.
Multi-touch and account-based models are big
steps in the right direction, but they still don’t
take into account one major thing: not all
marketing touches have equal impact.
Weighted Touchpoint Values
A click on a display ad does not make the same impact on a prospect as
a user conference, where they flew across the country to spend several
days. That difference holds true irrespective of both time and
transitional stage.
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A smart attribution model understands the natural differences in
marketing touchpoints and values them accordingly.
Similar to lead scoring, what value you give to each marketing channel
begins, largely, as an educated guess. Should all user conferences be
credited an additional 30% above whatever your multi-touch model says?
Or 20% or 10%? It’s hard to say, but as you collect more data, you’re able
to refine the values you give to each channel to make it more accurate.
This can, and probably will, be done by AI in the near future.
Weighted Halo Effect
The differences between marketing touchpoints can be applied beyond
saying that a Search touchpoint is worth an extra 10%, a Display
touchpoint is worth the standard percentage, a Webinar touchpoint is
worth an extra 20%, etc. If touchpoints naturally have different amounts
of impact, then you must also consider the second element of impact: the
halo effect. The impact of some marketing touchpoints have longer
effects than others. Impactful marketing touchpoints can potentially be
the catalyst, and should receive some credit, for future sessions.
I’ll give you an example: a person comes to your website through organic
search and eventually leaves without filling out a form. Then, she returns
five minutes later by typing in your URL (direct) and proceeds to fill out a
form. That lead creation should not be credited to direct -- it would more
accurately be credited to organic search. That’s because, as a touchpoint,
we know that organic search is higher impact than direct. Without the
engagement that happened because of organic search, that direct visit
likely would not have happened. And while we can’t say with certainty the
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can’t say with certainty the exact duration of organic search’s halo effect
for every B2B company, it’s probably longer than five minutes.
This doesn’t just apply to direct traffic. Instead, it should also apply
similarly across all marketing channels.
For example, attribution models should weight significant events like
user conferences with longer halo effect durations. If someone flies
across the country to spend a couple of days thinking about your
product and category, and then a couple days later comes to your
website via search and requests a demo, that conversion was probably
affected more by the multi-day user conference than your SEO.
Therefore, to accurately give credit where it’s due (the purpose of
attribution), that conversion should be credited to the conference. And
that only happens with weighted touchpoints.
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The concept of weighted touchpoints has two components: its weighted
value and its halo effect. B2B marketers will have a much more accurate
understanding of the customer journey and their impact on it, when
their attribution model takes these two components into account.
About
Bizible is a B2B marketing attribution solution dedicated to helping companies make
profitable marketing decisions.
Bizible’s technology connects all marketing activity (both online and offline) to revenue,
enabling revenue credit to be accurately distributed to the marketing channels that are
making an impact. This advanced, multi-touch attribution technology allows marketers to
do more effective and more efficient marketing.
Bizible.com
Components of a Smart
Attribution Solution Checklist
CRM Integration
Ensure your marketing data is truly and accurately connected to sales data
Multi-Touch Models
Eliminate channel bias by taking into account multiple touches throughout
the entire funnel
Linear
W-Shaped
U-Shaped
Full Path
Custom
Omni-Channel Capabilities
Make sure you measure offline channels the same way you measure online
channels
Account-Based Attribution
Treat multiple people within the same company as a single account, not as
individual accounts
Anonymous First-Touch Tracking
Give credit to the marketing effort that broke through the noise and
convinced your target audience to take the first step
View-Through Conversions
For marketers who use display advertising, give credit to ads that caught the
viewers eye, even if it didn’t make them click right away
Weighted Touchpoints
Add nuance to your attribution data, and give the appropriate amount of
credit whether it’s a click from search or a multi-day user conference