Regalix:  84% of B2B Companies are Investing in Marketing Analytics as it is Vital to Measuring Marketing Performance

Online marketing initiatives need to be tracked and measured in order to improve marketing performance. Indeed, the insights gained from evaluating marketing performance can drive future marketing initiatives, and helps business-to-business (B2B) companies achieve their goals. This makes metrics and analytics an important part of evaluating marketing performance.

Marketing analytics is the practice of measuring, managing, and analyzing marketing performance to maximize its effectiveness, as well as optimize return on investment (ROI). Gaining insight through marketing analytics helps marketers become more efficient at their jobs and helps marketers make smarter marketing investments.

To understand the current state of metrics and analytics in B2B marketing, global innovation company, Regalix (@Regalix), interviewed directors and senior executives of B2B companies to discover the metrics they are using to measure marketing performance and the role that analytics plays in drawing insights from their metrics.

The study—State of B2B Marketing Metrics and Analytics 2015—surveyed directors and senior executives in the technology sector and various industries. Almost half (42%) of the surveyed companies were making over a billion dollars in revenue. “While the survey was done globally, a sizeable number of companies (67%) were from the US.”

The Majority of B2B Companies Invest in Analytics

Eighty-four percent of surveyed B2B marketers are currently investing in analytics, with the remainder (16%) stating that they were not investing in analytics. Additionally, 86% of surveyed B2B marketers felt that marketing analytics was very important to the success of their marketing programs. The rest (14%) felt that marketing analytics was somewhat important.

Meanwhile, 85% of respondents said they were able to leverage their organizations’ analytics data to measure marketing effectiveness (with the remaining 15% stating they were unable to do so).

When it comes to tracking ROI, 29% of respondents said they were very successful at tracking the ROI of their analytics investment. Forty-six percent stated they were somewhat successful at tracking the ROI of their analytics investment, and the remainder (25%) stated they were not at all successful at tracking the ROI of their marketing analytics.

As for increasing sales revenue, 65% of respondents said that analytics has helped increase their organizations’ sales revenue by over 10%. [See Figure 1]

Improving Marketing Performance is the Top Objective Driving Analytics Within Organizations

Eighty-nine percent of respondents stated that using analytics to gain insight into marketing performance was the key objective driving analytics within their organizations. This was followed by gaining better visibility into the sales funnel (73%), combining data from multiple sources to draw correlations and make predictions (54%), and measuring marketing attribution across channels (54%).

When it comes to identifying the key benefits of marketing analytics, 81% of respondents stated that identifying marketing channels that provided the most ROI was the key benefit of analytics. Eighty-one percent of respondents also stated that marketing analytics was useful for decision-making. Figure 2 lists down the other key benefits.

Email Marketing is the Most Widely Used and Tracked Tactic Among B2B Marketers

An astonishing 100% of respondents use email marketing as a marketing tactic in the B2B space. This was followed by content marketing (86%), social media marketing (81%), search engine optimization (81%), and website marketing (76%). Video marketing—long touted as a rising star in online marketing—was used by less than half (43%) of respondents.

When it comes to choosing marketing channels, 75% of respondents stated that their choices were based on their marketing objectives/goals and the profile of their target customers. This was followed by budget (65%) and ROI (60%).

As for tracking metrics, 100% of respondents track visits for website metrics, followed by views (95%) and page view duration (80%). When it comes to SEO metrics, 84% track click-through rate, followed by keyword clicks (74%) and percentage of total traffic from organic search (74%). For social media metrics, 63% track social reach (which is described as the number of followers, likes, members, subscribers, etc.); this was followed by traffic referrals by social media channels (50%) and engagement per post/tweet (50%).

When it comes to email metrics, 94% track click-through rate; this was followed by open rates (89%) and conversion rates (72%). As for content marketing metrics, 83% track leads; this was followed by downloads (78%) and views (61%).

B2B Marketers Cite Lack of Resources as the Key Obstacle Stopping Them from Investing in Marketing Analytics

Seventy-percent of respondents cite lack of resources as the number one challenge they needed to address before they could further invest in analytics. This was followed by time required to collect and analyze data (41%) and budget constraints (37%).

“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,” noted the report.

For more informational articles and breaking news stories about analytics, check out Marketing Digest.

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