STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS · ANALYTICS 2016 Research Report July 2016 . Introduction The need for marketing analytics appears to be well established amongst marketers

STATE OF B2B MARKETINGMETRICS &ANALYTICS 2016

Research Report July 2016

www.regalix.com

IntroductionThe need for marketing analytics appears to be well established amongst marketers. A majority of them have invested in analytics and of those who haven’t, 67% said they would in the next 12 months.

To get a better understanding of how effectively marketers have integrated analytics into their marketing program, we spoke with senior B2B marketers across industries from around the globe.

Here’s what our study led us to conclude.

STATE OF B2B MARKETING M

ETRICS & ANALYTICS 2016

01

Marketers unanimously agree on the need for analytics, but not all are as yet committed to investing in it

All the respondents we spoke with agreed that marketing analytics was important for their marketing success. 84% of them rated it as very important; the remaining 16% rated it as somewhat important.



02

In your opinion, how important is Marketing Analytics for your marketing success?

Does your company invest in Marketing Analytics?

84% Very important

16% Somewhat important



03

Most marketers say they could leverage their marketing analytics data to measure performance

28 percent of respondents who had invested in analytics said they were able to leverage their analytics data to measure their organization’s marketing performance very effectively; while another 55% said they could do so (at least) somewhat effectively.

The remaining 17% of respondents, who we spoke with, said they were not able to leverage their analytics data effectively enough.



04

How effectively are you able to leverage your analytics data to measure your organization’s marketing performance?

55% Somewhat effectively

28% Very effectively



05

17% Not effectively enough

Organizations are getting better at tracking ROI from analytics. And it’s showing in the bottom-line

An interesting data point that emerged in this year’s study in comparison to last year’s, was the larger number of marketers who said they were able to track the ROI of their investment in analytics with some degree of success; and the positive impact it seems to have had on their sales revenue.

As against 75% of respondents last year (Ref: State of B2B marketing metrics & analytics 2015), 86% of marketers who had invested in analytics this year said they were either very successful or somewhat successful in tracking the ROI of their investment in analytics; and only 14% of respondents said they failed in tracking ROI in comparison to 25% last year.

Would better tracking lead to better performance? Perhaps. Here’s what the numbers say: 29 percent of respondents this year said marketing analytics has helped increase their organization’s sales revenue by over 26%, in comparison to only 17% who said so last year.



06

How successful is your organization in tracking ROI from analytics data? Very successful

Not at all successful

64%22%

14%

Somewhat successful

By what percentage has Marketing Analytics helped increase your organization’s sales revenue?

50% and above

Between 26 and 50%

Between 11 and 25%

Less than 10%

8% 21% 42% 29%



07

Identifying channels & allocating spends are the key benefits sought by marketers from analytics

Continuing with the trend we saw last year, helping marketers in identifying marketing channels that provide the most ROI (79%) once again topped the list of key benefits pursued by marketers in analytics, followed by the benefit, helps in allocating marketing spends more effectively (68%).



08

What are the key benefits of Marketing Analytics in your opinion?

79%

64%

54%

38%

54%

29%

51%

68%

30%

49%

Helps in identifying marketing channels that provide the most ROI

Helps in allocating marketing spends more effectively

Helps in optimizing the marketing mix

Provides a better view of the sales funnel

Helps in better marketing messaging

Helps engage with the customer better

Helps demonstrate marketing function’s contribution toward overall revenue

Helps in identifying precise customer needs

Facilitates faster revenue growth

Helps sharpen social media strategies



09

Marketers work with basic tools; but feel the need for more advanced analytics

Web analytics (91%) and spreadsheet (80%) were the most popular tools used by marketers, followed by campaign automation (66%) and social analytics (66%).

But on further enquiry, they did express the need for a more granular level of analysis. When asked to mention the tools that they thought would require more attention in the coming year, the highest number of respondents picked on predictive analytics (65%). There was also a surge in the number of respondents who picked mobile analytics (50%), business intelligence (44%), and attribution tools (44%).



10

Which of the following Marketing Analytics tools & technologies does your organization currently use? And which of them do you think will require more attention in 2016?

1. Spreadsheets2. Web analysis3. Campaign automation4. Business intelligence5. Social analytics6. Mobile analytics7. Tag management8. Attribution tools9. Predictive analytics10. Relational (SQL) database11. A/B or multivariate testing

Currently being used

Need more attention in 2016

80%

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

91%

66%

66%

29%

29% 29%

31%

26%

14% 26%

29% 44%65%

15%

43% 44%

44%

15%

50%

50%

38%



11

While marketers use a diverse set of metrics to track their programs, most stay with basic data points

Despite having at their disposal a panoply of metrics to choose from, most marketers opted to stay with basic data to track programs. What we also noticed was that while revenue continued to top the list of priorities for marketers as our earlier studies have shown (Ref: State of B2B Marketing 2016), the metrics tracked by them on their marketing programs didn’t often mirror this. Sales driven metrics like keyword clicks (for SEO), visit to lead rate (for PPC), and conversion rate (for mobile & email) proved less popular than more generic data points like keyword ranking (for SEO), click-through rate (for PPC), and mobile site traffic (for mobile).



12

Which of the following Website metrics does your organization track?

85%

85%

82%

78%

75%

72%

67%

61%

51%

49%

46%

Sessions or visits

Page views

Conversion rate

Users

Bounce rate

Pages/sessions

Average session duration

Top traffic sources (direct/organic/referral)

Mobile v/s desktop visitors

Exit rate

Percentage of new sessions



13

Which of the following SEO metrics does your organization track?

Keyword ranking

Top sources of organic traffic

Keyword clicks

Unique search terms driving traffic

Percentage of total traffic from organic search

Keywords triggering search results

Branded versus non-branded organic search traffic

81%

78%

67%

53%

64%

58%

38%

Which of the following PPC metrics does your organization track?

Click-through rate

Visit-to-lead rate

Lead-to-close rate

Opportunity-to-close rate

Sales conversion rate

80%

42%

42%

46%

37%



13

Which of the following Social Media metrics does your organization track?

Social reach

Traffic referrals by social media channels

Engagement per post or tweet

Sales by social media

Leads by social media

Brand sentiment (ratio of positive to negative mentions)

Cost per follower

67%

66%

67%

25%

50%

25%

13%

Mobile site traffic

Conversion rate

App engagement

Visitor and consumer usage pattern

Mobile advertising metrics

App downloads

Which of the following Mobile metrics does your organization track?

76%

42%

24%

27%

26%

27%



14

Open rate

Conversion rate

Unsubscribe rate

Clicks-per-email

Deliverability rate

Social sharing rate

Click-through rate

Which of the following Email metrics does your organization track?

92%

95%

79%

61%

69%

64%

25%



15

More marketers see an increase in their analytics budget in the next 12 months

59 percent of respondents said they expect their analytics budget for the next 12 months to increase, with another 38% maintaining it would remain the same.

Only 3% of respondents, as compared to 11% last year, felt their analytics budget would decrease.

This is just as well, given the positive impact that analytics seemed to have had on the bottom-line as seen earlier.



16

With technology evolving, analytical tools are getting sharper and metrics to measure the success of a marketing program are getting more diverse.

The study sounds quite optimistic in predicting the future of analytics. Marketers are getting better at tracking ROI from analytics and the positive impact of it seems to be showing up in their revenues.

While the basic analytical tools were the most popular, the need amongst practitioners for a more advanced level of analytics was felt. Given the wide range of tools available today, marketers would do well to explore beyond the basics and prepare themselves to work with more involved data points, allowing for more predictive and intelligent analytics in the future.

Final thoughts



17

About the Analysts

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.

Arunh started his career with consumer product marketing, moved to brand management, and been involved in new product launches. In his various roles, he has had deep involvement with consumer and product research. Arunh is currently involved in studying emerging trends and understanding consumer behavior in the digital space.

Nimish VohraSVP, Principal Analyst

Arunh KrishnanSr. Analyst



18

About Regalix ResearchHeadquartered 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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STATE OF B2B MARKETING METRICS & ANALYTICS · ANALYTICS 2016 Research Report July 2016 . Introduction The need for marketing analytics appears to be well established amongst marketers