the btob challenge: value and attribution

San Francisco| August 13–17

The B2B ChallengeValue and Attribution

Rob CatafordBusiness Online

VP Analytics and Customer Intelligence

San Francisco | August 13–17, 2012 | #sessf

B2B Digital Marketers are asking, “How do I…”

1. Demonstrate the value of marketing and content development?

2. Focus budget and effort to the most effective channels and content?

3. Become a partner with sales and go beyond simply providing leads?


Solutions to These Questions

1. Demonstrate the value of marketing

• Apply the correct attribution

• Look at company-level „opportunities‟

2. Focus budget and effort

• Measure and optimize based on full sales funnel

• Measure and optimize based on marketing objectives

3. Become a partner with sales

• Inform sales on prospect behavior

• Alert sales on new potential and hot prospects


Demonstrate the value of marketing


• Look at company-level „opportunities‟


Let’s start with a story…

No,

A “True Story”

what’s really happening

behind the scenes


I really need to find that solution that will

solve everything!


YOU happen to develop and market an enterprise software solution that solves everything

We Rule!


(but you have competitors)


So…what happens at XYZ Company?


“XYZ” assigns Jim and Susan to lead the investigation and vendor selection process.

Conducts some non branded searches like “Software solutions that solve everything”

Clicks an organic link to your site

Reads some analyst reviews and learns that your company is a leader in the space.

Reviews your products and value proposition on your web site.

Ignores the PPC links – expects he would be presented with a landing page and some kind of call to action – he’s just researching

Jim – Marketing manager: early research


Conducts some searches which lead to some blogs and other social networking sites for you and your competitors.

Starts following you and your competitor’s twitter handle.

Clicks on a link from a blog to your site and starts browsing.

Sees your company sprinkled across the blogs and reviews and the sentiment appears positive.

Susan – part of investigation and vendor selection process

“XYZ” assigns Jim and Susan to lead the investigation and vendor selection process.


Jim and Susan call a meeting with key stakeholders to start discussing things – you are in their list of possibilities.

Has concerns on the security and maintenance behind some of the solutions.

Wants to make sure the solution will fulfill the long term needs to solve everything forever.

My people will be using the system – need to ensure training and support are available and the system is easy to use.

Operations Manager

IT Manager

They all take actions to research further…

CFO


A group of IT, Operations and Financial staff go to your site (via mostly branded search – PPC and Organic)

Reports that he has been getting emails from your company each month with various topics, whitepapers etc. He saw you at an event last year and left his card.

Reports that she has seen some display advertising for your company and that you must be a big player in the space.

Fills out a form on your site to get to a whitepaper.

Also fills out a form after a PPC search.


Your sales people reach out to the people who filled out the forms and start the direct sales process.

In the mean time…IT personnel download some white papers on the technical solution.

Jim starts to build a competitive matrix with information from your web site..

The CFO attends a sales pitch and goes back to the web site to check out the management team – he also goes to LinkedIn.

Operations staff download some product demos and watch some videos to understand how the product is going to work for them.


You become shortlisted and are asked to conduct a small pilot. The audience for the summary presentation is around 20 people.

Before the presentation most of the audience researches you on the web site.

A couple of key people read a whitepaper that clearly differentiates your solution.


They select you! … its due diligence time and contracting time.

They research the web looking for negative sentiment.

They read your customer use cases online and ask to speak to those customers.

The contract is signed!


Back to the question…

“How do I show the organization the value of my digital marketing and content development?”


Did your reporting and analysis say…• Search drove one lead and one lead came from a bookmark or typed url.

• This $1M sales was assisted by…

• Non branded organic search driving initial awareness

• Social marketing driving awareness and nurturing the prospects

• Events, display and email driving brand recognition

• Web site general content educating the prospect

• Branded SEO and PPC making leading to engagement and prospect nurturing

• Technical web content dealing with specific objections

• Product demos and videos helping late in the sales cycle

• Leadership bio’s and case studies acting as references

• Over 20 people, all influencers, engaging with multiple marketing channels and web site assets

Or did your reporting and analysis say…

Were you able to inform sales that this company was a “hot” lead and where there may have been issues during the sales cycle?


Use Case – Demonstration of the Key Principles

Get the attribution right.

• Use the data to understand the attribution

• Apply the correct model

• Model may be different depending on intent

• Pay attention to cross channel


Attribution ModelsIn Visit – Participatory Model In Visit – Last Touch Model

One Week– Participatory Model One Week– Last Touch Model

Investigate different models to determine which is best suited. In this case “One Week - Last Touch Model”


Channel Crossover Analysis

Majority of traffic is single channel

When there is crossover, patterns of channel flow emerge

Use cross channel analysis to determine if it should built into attribution model



Measure at the Individual and Opportunity level

• Aggregate individuals into opportunities

• By IP Address (unknown visitors)

• By eMail domain (known visitors)

• By company (known visitors)

• By direct connection to an opportunity (known visitors connected to CRM)

• Measure marketing based on connection to an opportunity rather than an individual conversion


Opportunity Reporting Example Opportunity “Lookback” report

Campaigns and Assets touched by Opportunity Visitors

Website Pages touched by Opportunity Visitors


Opportunity Based Metrics

“Pct Opportunity Visitors” identifies people associated with a CRM opportunity – even if they are unknown.Channels that drive leads do not necessarily align with channels that nurture the pipeline

Evaluate campaigns and Marketing Assets based on Opportunity nurturing.


#2 - Focus budget and effort

Measure & Optimize on:

> full sales funnel

> marketing objectives



Measure based on the full sales funnel

• Connect the web to lead nurturing and CRM systems

• Create conversion metrics based on the funnel stages


Funnel Based Metrics

Channel

Campaign or Asset

Web site based metrics

Lead Nurturing and CRM based metrics



Measure based on marketing objective

• Awareness, Interest, Action and Value

• Create metrics and rollup metrics that evaluate objective vs. intent


Metrics by Intent

Acquisition/Awareness Metrics

Interest/Engagement Metrics

Action/Conversion Metrics

Value Metrics


Intent ScoringMetrics Weighted and Aggregated into General Scores


# 3 - Become a partner with sales

> Inform sales on prospect behavior

> Alert sales on new potential and hot prospects


• If you are applying these principles, you have the ability to inform sales…

• Which opportunities are engaged and active.

• Which individuals are active.

• What different roles are interested in within the opportunity

• Predict which companies are in the pre-opportunity stage


Engagement as a Sales Predictor

Recent Web ActivityMeasure of engagement (predictor to sales)

Change in engagement for previous period

Factor representing engagement and change


Activity Report

Campaigns and Assets touched by Company Visitors

Web Site Pages touched by Company Visitors

eMailaddresses


Re-Cap

1. Demonstrate the value of marketing


• Look at company-level ‘opportunities’

2. Focus budget and effort

• Measure and optimize based on full sales funnel

• Measure and optimize based on marketing objectives

3. Become a partner with sales

• Inform sales on prospect behavior

• Alert sales on new potential and hot prospects


I’m Rob Cataford, VP Customer Intelligence BusinessOnline

Based in Ottowa, Canada [email protected]://ca.linkedin.com/in/robcataford

You can find this deck on the SES website or at Slideshare.net/BusinessOnline

Discussion / Questions

mailto:[email protected]

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robcataford

http://ca.linkedin.com/in/robcataford

the btob challenge: value and attribution

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