1、THE CMOs GUIDE TOB2B Marketing Attribution2017 EDITIONWhats Inside:1.The Problem(p.3)2.Understanding B2B Marketing Attribution For CMOs(p.3)3.How Is Attribution Different Than Web Analytics,Marketing Automation,Business Intelligence,And Other Marketing Tools?(p.5)4.Lets Talk Specifics(p.9)5.How Does
2、 It Fit In The Marketing Stack?(p.13)6.Selling Attribution To The C-Suite(p.14)7.Hear From Your Peers(p.17)The role of the CMO is increasingly about the intersection of technology and human management.Because we are in an era where data rules,those who can capture the best data and turn that into sm
3、art insights will win.Expertise in this space-those who can identify gaps in data,make sense of an abundance of data,and use the data and insights to lead teams-will determine which companies thrive going forward.In this guide for B2B marketing leaders,we will focus on marketing attribution and mark
4、eting attribution data,the foundation for effective marketing measurement,optimization,and planning.1.The ProblemFor the last few months,the marketing team has exceeded their website visit and lead generation goals through a combination of webinars and conferences,blog posts and ebooks,considerable
5、PPC spend,automated email campaigns,and strong organic search numbers.But the company keeps missing revenue goals.Marketing blames sales for not converting leads;sales blames marketing for bringing in low quality leads;and in the meantime lots of money is being wasted and growth is sacrificed.What d
6、o you do?2.Understanding B2B Marketing Attribution For CMOsThe above situation is a common problem for CMOs and their respective head of sales in todays B2B companies.The great news is that its something that can be avoided,but only by sophisticated attribution.B2B marketing attribution,at its simpl
7、est,is about connecting marketing and sales data.By connecting marketing to sales data where deals close and revenue metrics are held the marketing team no longer has to guess their revenue impact.Every deal can be tied back to specific marketing actions.Without proper attribution,marketers are forc
8、ed to use marketing metrics that serve as proxies for or leading indicators of revenue(visitors,leads,conversions,etc.).They can then guess that some percentage of visitors turn into leads and another percentage of leads turn into warm leads,and on and on to make a guess at how much revenue the mark
9、eting team is driving.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 in the funnel the metrics are,the less they tell you about quality,which makes using p
10、roxy metrics for revenue not very actionable.In the 2016 State of Pipeline Marketing Report,only 2 in 10 CMOs reported that they believe they are using the right attribution model and only 24.1%say they are using attribution to give credit where its due.In contrast,53.5%of CMOs use their current att
11、ribution system primarily because its easy and a further 22.5%dont even know why they are using their attribution model.How can a CMO meaningfully drive and optimize for revenue when they are not using the right attribution solution?Perhaps its time for an attribution audit.On the other hand,with th
12、e right B2B marketing attribution,marketers receive credit and can optimize based on actual full-funnel performance data.Revenue accountability and full-funnel transparency results in more efficient marketing content,audience targeting,channel decisions,budget allocation,etc.all from a revenue produ
13、cing perspective.Good B2B marketing attribution comprises at least two key components:a multi-touch model and connection to the CRM.This allows for a multitude of advantages,which well discuss in the following sections.3.How Is Attribution Different Than Web Analytics,Marketing Automation,And Other
14、Marketing Tools?Many marketing tools,ones that most organizations already use,claim to do attribution or at least some version of it.Its natural to want to use these tools for attribution as well since youve already committed to the rest of the tool.But unfortunately,when you take a closer look,they
15、 dont really do what you need and you end up with the same problems.Web and Other Channel-Specific AnalyticsWhen it comes to attribution,one limitation of web analytics(e.g.Google Analytics)and other channel-specific analytics(e.g.Facebook Insights)is that it only tracks form conversions,which is st
16、ill a proxy for revenue in a B2B situation.Not bad for a free or inexpensive tool,but it requires quite a bit of“hacking”to create a usable attribution solution through UTM parameters,event setting,and connecting spreadsheets full of channel-specific data in order to dig into the necessary granulari
17、ty of each channel all the way through to revenue.When hacking a solution,because the attribution is decentralized(done by each marketing channel separately),marketers face the challenge of double-counting credit.For example,if a visitor clicks on an AdWords ad on Monday,a Facebook ad on Wednesday,a
18、nd then buys something for$100 on Friday,both your AdWords data and your Facebook data will claim 100%conversion credit because they dont communicate with each other.When you bring both data sources into your spreadsheet and enter in that the conversion was worth$100,your report will show$200 of rev
19、enue 2x your actual revenue a big,and potentially embarrassing,problem.Marketing AutomationAnother set of marketing tech,marketing automation(e.g.Marketo,Eloqua,Pardot,Hubspot),focus on lead creation and typically look at attribution measurement from a broad channel or campaign perspective.They are
20、great at telling marketers what channels impact the middle of the funnel(lead creation),but they dont do a good job looking at bottom-of-the-funnel metrics(sales opportunities and revenue)with granularity needed for optimization,such as by paid search keywords,by specific blog posts,or by which even
21、ts were contributing as the source.Because they are so focused on lead creation,they also do a poor job with the top of the marketing funnel.Marketing automation tools dont connect back to the first anonymous touch,which is vital in understanding the start of the customer journey.Without that first
22、touch,would the visitor have come back to request a demo?Without the initial step in the funnel or the bottom-of-the-funnel metrics,marketing automation doesnt fulfill the multi-touch attribution needs of most B2B marketing teams.Moreover,their tracking is often inadequate to capture the full B2B cu
23、stomer journey.(This is also true of most channel-specific analytics.)Most have cookies that expire within 30-90 days of the contact creation date.Its fine for B2C marketers(and built with them in mind),where the decision process ranges from hours to a few weeks,but as B2B marketers know,the B2B cus
24、tomer journey is often longer than 90 days.Marketers dont use marketing automation for their primary source for web analytics,SEO,or advanced A/B testing,so why would you for something as critical as revenue attribution?Business Intelligence Visualization ToolsBusiness intelligence tools(e.g.Tableau
25、,DOMO,Qlik)are great at helping marketers visualize lots of data at a time.However,because they dont actually create data(e.g.use cookies to track visitor behavior and marketing activities)they are only as useful as the data that is inputted,which means youll still have to hack together data from se
26、veral sources that arent designed to work together.For example,because attribution isnt coming from a single source,you would not be able to tie together an anonymous visitor with a deal.Youll also run into the same limitations as the other tools because you are relying on their data.Finally,the big
27、gest limitation of all of these marketing tools is that they dont connect the marketing activity into a CRM.Because of that,it cant connect to specific customers and therefore doesnt connect to the sales department and revenue.This is often serviceable for B2C attribution because there isnt a sales
28、team process,but it doesnt cut it for B2B attribution.According to the 2016 State of Pipeline Marketing Report,the marketing leadership were more likely to report using down-funnel metrics like opps,pipeline,and revenue as the primary metric to measure marketing performance,while marketing practitio
29、ners were more likely to report using higher funnel metrics,like leads.Essentially,the more senior the marketer,the more important the bottom-of-the-funnel metrics are.However,the data also shows that while CMOs may think their primary metric is revenue,their team is using other metrics,and that may
30、 be because they dont have the right tools only 21%of non-senior marketers believe they are using the right attribution model.To find out why the team is focusing on top and middle-of-the-funnel metrics,CMOs should ask them questions like:-What attribution model are we using?W-shaped?Why are we usin
31、g our current attribution model?-Does our attribution model include first(anonymous)visitors?-Does it treat prospects as accounts or as individuals?-Do we look at digital channels such as paid social and offline channels such as events/conferences with the same attribution model?-What metric(s)does
32、our attribution data help optimize for?As a CMO,you might be measured based on revenue,but if your team is optimizing for other metrics(e.g.leads),your marketing will be misaligned and will underperform in the long run.For B2B CMOs to accurately report on these bottom-of-the-funnel metrics,it is abs
33、olutely necessary for the attribution solution to seamlessly integrate with the CRM.4.Lets Talk SpecificsWeve discussed the challenges marketers face when they try to use other tools,but in this section we will discuss the specific ways CMOs can expect sophisticated attribution to improve their mark
34、eting teams effectiveness.Multi-Touch Attribution ModelingMarketing attribution,especially in the B2B space where the customer journey is long,complex,and requires both the marketing and sales team to work in tandem,tells the most complete and accurate story of the customer journey.Specifically,this
35、 means understanding the importance of multi-touch attribution models,such as W-shaped,for B2B marketers.Most marketing automation platforms handle attribution using a lead-creation touch model and most CRMs handle attribution using a last-touch(opportunity-creation)model.Lead-creation touch(what th
36、ey often call first-touch)gives full marketing credit to the marketing effort that led to the first form-fill.This is tracked through web source-referral analysis plus any attached UTM parameters that lead to a session where a lead is created.However,because it gives 100%of the credit to that single
37、 touch,the lead-creation touch model overvalues the middle of the marketing funnel,and undervalues the awareness stages as well as the bottom-of-the-funnel conversion stages.Last-touch works in a similar fashion,but gives all the credit to the marketing effort that led to the final conversion.This m
38、odel 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.The systematic over and undervaluing of specific stages in the funnel is called model bias.By having an attribution model that specifically
39、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.Youll notice that none of the single-touch solutions are a great way to model the c
40、ustomer journey.It varies from business to business,but B2B sales are known to frequently take dozens of marketing touches.Of course,these many touches dont all necessarily have equal impact there are key stages in the B2B customer journey that are important for marketing and sales to understand.The
41、 W-shaped attribution model,for example,accounts for these key stages and places emphasis on the three most important touches:1)the first anonymous touch(site visit),2)lead-creation touch,and 3)sales opportunity-touch.Youll notice that this conveniently mirrors the top of the funnel,the middle of th
42、e funnel,and the bottom of the funnel.Its a model built specifically for B2B marketers to understand the B2B customer journey.Of course,the W-shaped model isnt the only,nor is it always the most appropriate,attribution model.A Full Path model,for example,takes it one step further and adds a fourth k
43、ey touchpoint:closed-won.And for the most advanced marketers,a custom attribution model may be most appropriate,where the marketing team can set the key touchpoints and dictate their weight.Multi-touch attribution models give credit to touchpoints throughout the entire funnel,ensuring a more accurat
44、e representation of the customer journey.Omni-Channel AttributionOmni-channel(online and offline)attribution is another B2B specific challenge because theres a multitude of channels and the typical customer journey spans a wide range of them,including online and offline.Omni-channel attribution allo
45、ws marketers to see the impact of every customer interaction from search keywords to conference booth demos.Web analytics,naturally,only tracks online interactions.Same goes for marketing automation measurement.For B2B marketers who do offline marketing as well,that leaves a huge gap in understandin
46、g.By integrating on the CRM side as well,advanced attribution allows offline touchpoints to just as easily be tracked and attributed credit.Omni-channel attribution finally allows marketers to see and assess their efforts the same way their audience experiences it not as separate online and offline
47、engagements,but from a single,unified lens.Account-Based AttributionAdvanced attribution is particularly important for B2B marketers because of the account-based nature of the the sales team,and the fact that it is companies buying products,not the individual person.Often,theres at least three custo
48、mer“roles”in a B2B sale:the researcher,the user,and the decision maker.In web analytics and marketing automation,the different roles are tracked as three(or more)different people,and they are treated as such.Thats because web analytics measures in terms of unique visitors and marketing automation of
49、ten wants these people on different nurturing tracks based on their titles.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 theyve hit the middle,theyll pass it on to the user to evaluat
50、e.Once the user has evaluated and decided to move forward,theyll try to sell it to the decision-maker who starts the funnel near the bottom.B2B marketers need to understand the nuance of this journey and see them as a single account,rather than as three individuals with unique journeys.The sales tea
