B-to-B Marketing Analytics: Making Sense of Marketing Metrics

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MAKING SENSE OF MARKETING METRICS

B-TO-B MARKETING ANALYTICS


It’s part of each and every step of your marketing efforts, allowing you to continuously optimize and tweak personas, content,

distribution, and every other element of your marketing programs to achieve maximum ROI.

The easiest way to talk about marketing analytics is by associating it with the ubiquitous sales funnel and the phases of the sales cycle.

MARKETING ANALYTICS IS NOT A STANDALONE EFFORT.


The funnel in this graphic shows the basic revenue model used by all B-to-B marketers.

Raw leads progress to marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), which are skillfully converted to sales-accepted leads (SALs), which eventually become

sales-qualified leads (SQLs), and ultimately are converted to sales win ($$$).

Think of the revenue model as a state diagram that explains all of the clear and mutually exclusive statuses that any lead can be in at any time. You need to define the stages,

the transitions, the maximum time in each stage, and the exit criteria at each juncture.


Once you’ve created and gained agreement on a solid revenue model, you’re ready to think about the four categories of metrics that you’re measuring across this

revenue model: volume, conversion, velocity, and value.


Volume metrics are those you can scoop up early on in the marketing process simply by counting shares, impressions, visits, clicks, downloads, and email opens.

Every click, download, and conversion should be tracked and measured, but that’s only half of the work. Decide which metrics matter most to your organization and benchmark against both your own historical performance data and that of your industry.

THE FOUR Vs OF MARKETING METRICS

VOLUME

CONVERSION

VELOCITY

VALUE


Conversion metrics are rates and ratios. What percentage of unqualified names becomes leads? What percentage of leads becomes MQLs?

This is why it’s critical to have a well though-out revenue model. When a name is in two places, your reporting won’t be accurate. Measuring conversion rates between stages will shed light on where some of your leads may be getting stuck in the funnel and pinpoint where to troubleshoot.


VOLUME

CONVERSION

VELOCITY

VALUE


Velocity metrics tell how long various parts of the process are taking. What is the average time spent in each stage? How long is it taking for an MQL to become an SQL? What is the average length of the sales cycle?

In today’s lengthy B-to-B sales cycle, slow and steady really does win the race. But over time, a good lead-nurturing program should begin to shorten the overall time it takes a qualified lead to move from the top to the bottom of the funnel, particularly as you get savvier about qualifying leads and moving them from stage to stage.


VOLUME

CONVERSION

VELOCITY

VALUE


Value metrics are the sexy metrics, the ones expressed in terms of dollars, euros, and yen — basically what it all means to the bottom line. Return on marketing investment (ROMI) is a good example; cost per lead is another.

Value metrics help answer questions like: How much value is marketing producing? Is my investment in marketing creating or destroying capital? How much is an SQL worth? Is it worth more than it costs to generate?


VOLUME

CONVERSION

VELOCITY

VALUE


The next step is to map metrics to owners. Across the spectrum of the four Vs, different people need to see different kinds of metrics.


Operational metrics (the number of clicks and downloads, for example) are particularly important to the people who are re-sponsible for ensuring that the systems are up and running.

These tactical metrics provide real-time feedback, which allow for rapid response to anything that needs to be fixed. They also provide a baseline for higher-level metrics like key performance indicators (KPIs).

MAPPING METRICS TO OWNERS

OPERATIONAL

PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION

KPI


Performance monitoring and optimization metrics provide a rich feedback loop for marketing managers to fine-tune their efforts. They are the bedrock for testing and testing again to ensure every landing page garners the most registrations or that conversions continue to climb.

These are the metrics that should drive your decisions about subject lines, content and creative choices, calls-to-action, offers, and media choices. They can also include volume, velocity, conversion, and value metrics.


OPERATIONAL


KPI



OPERATIONAL


KPI

KPIs take the longest time to gestate and are the metrics that make up the executive scorecard. They can help demonstrate both the literal and figurative value of marketing, but they are almost useless in the management and optimization of marketing activities.

If you see that ROMI was down last quarter, high-level numbers tell you nothing about why. Value metrics are the check engine light on your car. They tell you something is wrong, but not what. For this, you need to look at operational, performance, and optimization metrics.

The people who report to the CMO will need to see these numbers broken down into specific markets, media, campaigns, channels, and offers.


While value metrics are the most important metrics that your executives want, you have to nail your operational metrics first,

because the value metrics are built on the operational numbers.

You must be diligent at the operational level, inputting and tracking tactical deployments, and then making meaningful summaries. Choose the best tactical tool for each need, and then buy a solution that integrates all the

data and provides different ways to manipulate it for reporting.

Almost every mature marketing tool today has standardized APIs that let other programs access its data. Technology time is on your side. The prices on these integration and reporting tools are coming down

and the capabilities are going up.

THE BOTTOM LINE ON METRICS


With your marketing metrics down, are you ready to take your B-to-B marketing to the next level?

Get the “Modern Guide to B2B Marketing” and learn how to research, plan, implement, and iterate your way to success.

BUT THERE’S MORE TO THE STORY.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE.

http://resources.yesler.com/modern-guide-to-b2b-marketing.html?utm_source=bma&utm_medium=slideshare&utm_campaign=modern_guide


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