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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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 3 “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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 4 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 5 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 Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 6 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 7 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 Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 8 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 9 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 Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 10 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 11 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 Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 12 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 13 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 14 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 15 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, Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 16 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 17 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 Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 18 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. Components of a Smart B2B Attribution Solution 19 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