Post on 27-May-2020
Research Report - Feb 2015
STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS AND ANALYTICS 2015
WHO WE SPOKE TO
To understand the state of metrics & analytics in B2B marketing
today, we spoke to directors and senior executives of B2B
companies to know what metrics they were using to measure
their marketing performance and the role of analytics in drawing
insights from it.
75 percent of the companies we spoke to were from the
technology sector, the rest spread across various industries. 42% of
them were over a billion dollars in revenue. While the survey was
done globally, a sizeable number of companies (67%) were from
the US.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 01
KEY FINDINGS:
84% marketers say they are currently investing
in analytics» tweet this «
70% marketers cited lack of resources to execute as
the biggest obstacle to investing in analytics» tweet this «
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 02
65% respondents say analytics has helped increase
sales revenue by over 10%» tweet this «
65% executives use analytics regularly for insights » tweet this «
56% marketers expect their analytics budget to
increase in the next 12 months» tweet this «
ANALYTICS IMPORTANT FOR MARKETING SUCCESS, SAY MARKETERS
How important is Marketing Analytics for marketing success?
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 03
As high as 86% of all respondents we spoke to felt that marketing analytics was
very important for the success of their marketing program. The rest felt it was
somewhat important.
86%
14%
0%
Very Important
Somewhat ImportantNot at all Important
MAJORITY SAY THEY INVEST IN ANALYTICS
84 percent of marketers said they were currently investing in analytics. Considering that
every marketer we spoke to felt that analytics was important to have in her tool bag, we were
surprised to find 16% of our respondents saying they do not invest in it.
Does your organization invest in Marketing Analytics?
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 04
84%Yes 16%
No
Yes
No
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 05
MOST MARKETERS ARE ABLE TO LEVERAGE ANALYTICS TO MEET THEIR REQUIREMENTS
85 percent of respondents said they were able to leverage their organization’s analytics
data to measure their marketing effectiveness. 15% said they were unable to do so. Many
of them, expectedly, are companies that are also not investing in it.
Are you able to leverage your organization’s analytics data to measure marketing effectiveness?
85%15%
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 06
75% OF RESPONDENTS ARE ABLE TO TRACK ROI TO VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS
29 percent of those who we spoke to said they were very successful in tracking the ROI of
their analytics investment. Another 46% said they were somewhat successful in doing so.
How successful is your organization at tracking the ROI of Marketing Analytics?
Very Successful
Somewhat Successful
Not at all Successful
46%
29%
25%
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 07
ANALYTICS HELPS THE BOTTOM-LINE65 percent of our respondents indicated that analytics has helped increase their
organization’s sales revenue by over 10%.
By what percentage has Marketing Analytics helped increase your organization’s sales revenue?
35%Below 10%
48%10-25%
13%25-50%
4%Above 50%
0%Rarely use analytics for insights
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 08
65% OF THE ORGANIZATIONS WE SPOKE TO SAID THEY REGULARLY USE ANALYTICS FOR INSIGHTS
Of the rest, 31% said they do so occasionally. Only a small proportion of marketers (4%)
lacked the tools or skills to turning data into insights.
Which of the following statements best suits your organization’s data utilization to measure marketing effectiveness?
65%Regularly use analytics for insights
31%Occasionally use analytics for insights
4%Lack the tools or skills to turn data into actionable insights
IMPROVING MARKETING PERFORMANCE & GAINING INSIGHT INTO THE SALES FUNNEL ARE THE TOP OBJECTIVES DRIVING ANALYTICS
Gaining actionable insights to improve marketing performance is the key marketing
objective driving analytics within organizations.
Considering increase in revenue was seen as the top priority objective for the year
2015 by B2B marketers (State of B2B Marketing 2015), it isn’t surprising to find the
high degree of importance given by marketers to understanding the sales funnel
through the use of analytics.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 09
89%Using analytics to improve marketing performance
19%Integrating disparate systems and siloed data
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 10
What are your organization’s key Marketing Analytics objectives?
39%Enhancing customer lifecycle
73%Gaining better visibility into sales funnel
35%Accelerating the analytics process from data collection to deriving insights
54%Combining data from multiple sources to draw correlations and make predictions
27%
Improving competitive analysis
54%Measuring marketing attribution across channels
19%Gaining executive level buy-in and support
19%
Reducing time taken to analyze data and interpret results
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 11
ANALYTICS HELP MARKETERS EVALUATE CHANNELS & PRIORITIZE INITIATIVES
81 percent of respondents saw the key benefit of analytics as helping them identify
marketing channels that provide the most ROI. 76% said it helps them prioritize their
marketing mix tactics.
A little over half the respondents (52%) were using analytics to help them demonstrate
marketing function’s contribution to overall revenue, highlighting the pressure that
B2B marketers today are increasingly facing toward achieving sales goals.
81%Useful for decision-making
81%Helps identify marketing channel that provides the most ROI
48%Better marketing message and positioning
76%Helps prioritize marketing mix tactics
38%Faster revenue growth
19%Better understanding of market conditions and trends
29%Helps identify the precise customer needs
Helps predict customer behavior 43%
48%Helps reduce marketing cost
Better utilization of resources 62%
52%Helps demonstrate marketing function’s contribution towards overall revenue
What are the key benefits of Marketing Analytics in your opinion?
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 12
CROSS-CHANNEL VIEW IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CAPABILITY SOUGHT IN ANALYTICS TOOLS
82 percent of marketers looked for cross-channel view of results in their analytics tool.
This was followed by 68% of those who sought predictive and prescriptive analytics.
Given the long sales cycles that B2B businesses undergo, we weren’t surprised when only
less than half the respondents (46%) said they looked for real-time reporting capabilities
in their analytics tool.
But what did come as a surprise to us was when none amongst those whom we spoke
to tagged mobile device support as a capability that they sought. This waning interest in
mobile amongst B2B marketers was noted by us earlier in our report on the
State of B2B Marketing 2015.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 13
In your opinion, which of the following capabilities are most important while evaluating Marketing Analytics tools & technologies?
68%Predictive and prescriptive analytics
82%Cross-channel view of results
Dashboards 64%
A/B and multivariate testing 50%
Real-time reporting 46%
Advanced customer behavior analysis 55%
Integration with Microsoft Office apps 5%
Creation and testing of hypothesis 36%
Integration of online and offline data 50%
Mobile device support 0%
OLAP and ad-hoc query support 5%
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 14
ANALYTICS TOOLS STAY SIMPLE; AND IN THE CLOUD
Dashboards (77%) and Spreadsheets (73%) are currently the most widely used analytical
tools. In going with the changing times, cloud-based solutions at 64% won over
on-premise analytics software at 36%.
Custom data modelling (32%) is yet to find popular adoption amongst B2B marketers,
who seem to prefer out-of-the-box solutions to meet their analytical needs.
73%Spreadsheets
32%Embedded analytics components
77%Dashboards
64%Cloud/SaaS based analytics solution
36%Presentation software or tools
55%Database querying tools
23%Statistical analysis software
46%Business intelligence tools
41%Data visualization tools
36%On-premise/installed analytics software
32%Data modeling tools
27%Programming languages
Which of the following Marketing Analytics tools & technologies does your organization currently use?
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 15
EMAIL MARKETING IS BY FAR THE MOST WIDELY USED AND TRACKED TACTIC AMONG B2B MARKETERS
Email marketing was chosen by one and all as the most universally used marketing
tactic in the B2B space. There were no surprises in the list that followed which included
Search Marketing, Social Media and Website Marketing.
Video, voted as the most indispensable content type for 2015 by B2B marketers in
our earlier survey, State of B2B Content Marketing 2015, came in here at a low 43%,
suggesting that it is yet to play a significant role in the analytics mix.
Which of the following marketing tactics does your organization use and analyze?
76%Website marketing
71%Display/banner advertising
100%Email marketing
81%SEO (organic search) marketing
81%Social media marketing
86%Content marketing
76%PPC (paid search) marketing
43%Video marketing
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 16
We first asked our respondents how they chose their marketing channels. 75% of them said
they based it on their marketing objectives and the profile of their target customer. The role
of competitors (20%) did not seem to influence their decision much.
On what basis does your company typically select a marketing channel or mix?
75%Target customers
75%Marketing objectives/goals
65%Budget
60%Products or services being offered
60%Return on investment
20%Stages of customer life cycle
20%Competitors
5%Stages of product life cycle
MARKETERS STICK TO BASICS WHEN TRACKING THE METRICS OF THEIR PROGRAMS
Running through the list of metrics that marketers said they tracked to evaluate
their marketing programs, we find most of it dominated by numbers that are easy to
capture and interpret.
There were, however, some exceptions along the way and we will talk about this
under each finding.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 17
It was encouraging to see the conversion rate being tracked by a significant number of the
companies we surveyed alongside visits and page views.
Which of the following Website metrics does your organization track?
100%Visits
80%Page view duration
95%Views
80%Conversion rate
75%Bounce rate
50%Exit rate
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 18
What of the following SEO metrics does your organization track?
68%Keyword rankings
58%Unique search terms driving traffic
63%Top sources of organic traffic
74%Percentage of total traffic from organic search
84%Click-through rate
53%Keywords triggering search results
53%Conversion rate by key term
74%Keyword clicks
42%Keyword movement (e.g. month-over-month)
42%Branded versus non-branded organic search traffic
32%Lead-to-close rate
Which of the following PPC marketing metrics does your organization regularly track?
84%Click-through rate
47%Sales conversion rate
63%Visit-to-lead rate
37%Opportunity-to-close rate
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 19
Which of the following Social Media metrics does your organization regularly track?
63%Social reach (# of followers, likes, members, subscribers, etc.)
13%Sales by social media channel
50%Traffic referrals by social media channels
44%Leads by social media channel
50%Engagement per post / tweet
38%Conversion rate by social media channel
31%Brand sentiment (ratio of positive to negative mentions)
19%Top influencers
19%Share of voice/conversation
(% of conversation compared to the competitors)
0%Cost per follower
B2B marketers don’t expect to generate much leads through social media engagement and
this is noticeable by the fact that only 44% tracked leads and 38% track conversion rate.
More involved metrics like Brand Sentiment and Share of Conversation are yet to find
popular appeal with the marketers.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 20
What Mobile metrics are more often tracked?
50%Mobile site traffic
25%Conversion rate
25%App downloads
17%Visitor and consumer usage pattern
33%App engagement
17%Customer acquisition cost
42%Type of device used to access mobile app/site
83%Click-throughs
0%QR/Barcode tags
0%SMS marketing metrics
33%Session length
25%Ad impressions
8%Session interval
8%Mobile advertising metrics
Mobile Apps perhaps need higher traction in the marketing mix to warrant more attention
in the analytics area. This is an opportunity that both marketers and their agencies need to
address as engaging customers through Apps could be one way of reviving the mobile space
in B2B marketing.
Deliverability rate 56%
Clicks-per-link in email 50%
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 21
Which of the following Email metrics does your organization regularly track?
94%Click-through rate
Open rate 89%
Unsubscribe rate 67%
Conversion rate 72%
Clicks-per-email 67%
Inbox placement rate 0%
Social sharing rate 11%
List size 44%
Which of the following Content Marketing metrics does your organization regularly track?
83%Leads
Views 61%
Comments per post 39%
Downloads 78%
Duration (time on page) 33%
Likes, +1’s, tweets, shares, etc. 44%
Conversion rate 39%
To us it would seem like social integration of content and encouraging conversations
amongst stakeholders are areas that need attention as revealed by the rather low numbers
cited by our respondents for ‘likes’ & ‘shares’ (44%) and comments per post (39%).
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 22
Which Video metrics are often tracked?
90%Views
60%Time duration spent
30%Play rate
30%Comments
30%Visitor traffic
40%Likes, +1’s, tweets, shares, etc.
0%Brand conversation
30%Engagement
10%Conversions
30%Downloads
0%Hosting venue
20%# of videos produced monthly
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 23
56% OF RESPONDENTS EXPECT THE ANALYTICS BUDGET TO INCREASE IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS
About a third (33%) expect the budget to remain the same.
However, in terms of actual allocation, the share of analytics as a percentage of the
overall marketing budget remains, at best, modest.
How do you see your Marketing Analytics budget change over the next 12 months?
Increases
DecreasesRemains the
same
11%
56%
33%
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 24
What percentage of your marketing budget is currently allocated towards Marketing Analytics?
87%Below 10%
13%10-25%
0%25-50%
0%Above 50%
LACK OF RESOURCES IS THE NUMBER ONE CHALLENGE THAT MARKETERS NEED TO ADDRESS TO INVITE FURTHER INVESTMENT IN ANALYTICS
70 percent of our respondents tagged lack of resources to execute, as the biggest
obstacle that was stopping their organization from investing in analytics.
Given the increasing pitch for outsourcing elsewhere, this might be a good opportunity
for external vendors to take the initiative and present a viable proposal to marketers for
outsourcing their analytics to them.
© REGALIX RESEARCH STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS 2015 / 25
What are the key obstacles stopping your organization from investing in Marketing Analytics?’
33%Issues with data quality and integrity
37%Budget constraints
30%Lack of system integration
30%Lack of strategic vision / roadmap
37%Lack of know how in using analytics tools
22%Lack of proper analytics tools
70%Lack of resources to execute
41%Time required to collect and analyze data
Nimish VohraSVP, Principal Analyst
Srinivasan SeethapathySenior Marketing Manager
Nimish, Senior Vice President, works with CMOs and senior
marketing professionals. His research focuses on customer
experience management, predictive analytics, mobile
enablement and other emerging trends that help customers
leverage technology as an enabler of marketing and
business outcomes.
Srinivasan’s research is focused on optimizing customer experiences
across all channels. His research is aimed at marketers who want to
understand how they can spend their budgets more efficiently by
improving customer experiences across marketing channels.
ABOUT THE ANALYSTS
ABOUT REGALIX RESEARCH
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we help the CMO organization leverage emerging digital practices for creating marketing leverage as they bring new products and innovation to market. Regalix Research helps marketers through research-based insights, consulting and peer-to-peer programs that guide marketing strategy development and execution. Our focus is helping Technology companies leverage innovation and best practices to create real differentiation. Our analysts are practitioners with a successful track record of delivering real marketing results for both leading Fortune 500 companies as well as venture backed firms.
Regalix is an award-winning Global Innovation company that leverages technology and marketing to help companies grow. We create successful ventures with our clients through co-innovation and idea-driven frameworks that inspire companies to think different. We bring ideas to life by envisioning new companies, developing brands, engineering products, and designing technology platforms. Founded in 1998, Regalix is based in Palo Alto. Our Silicon Valley setting has enabled us to stay ahead of emerging trends in digital technology and marketing.
For over a decade, we have provided complete marketing services – Social, Mobile, Content, Multi-channel Campaigns, Technology Development, and Analytics – to companies such as CA Technologies, Citi, Apple, eBay, Cisco, VMWare, NetApp, Cypress, LSI, Keynote, and MetricStream.
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