B2Bs Still Struggle to Tie Leads to Marketing Touchpoints

Marketers that focus on ROI and other financial metrics more likely to employ sophisticated techniques

While online marketers continue to rely on the click as a major measure of effectiveness, often to the neglect of other marketing channels that played a role in earlier stages of the purchase funnel, business-to-business (B2B) marketers around the world have a similar problem, according to the “2010 Lead Generation Marketing ROI Study” by the Lenskold Group.

Nearly half of B2B marketers surveyed said their highest level of lead generation measurement capability was to give all credit to the last marketing touchpoint. Fewer were able to employ more sophisticated techniques that would more accurately attribute lead generation across multiple touchpoints, and a fifth of marketers did not use this type of measurement at all.

Measurement capabilities varied, however, based on whether B2Bs were using ROI metrics to determine their marketing effectiveness, versus avoiding financial and profitability metrics in favor of using only traditional marketing metrics. Since 2008, usage of at least some financial metrics such as cost per lead and cost per sale increased significantly, but in 2010 just 27% of respondents were calculating ROI or net present value.

Marketers that did measure ROI were better able to track leads to marketing touchpoints. Only 11% said they did not do any tracking, compared with 40% of marketers using only traditional metrics. They were also about twice as likely to use modeling to identify incremental leads and interaction effects among touchpoints, and five times as likely to measure incremental leads with techniques like market testing.

In addition, companies that reported using more sophisticated measures of ROI reported that their marketing efforts were highly effective and efficient at a greater rate than those neglecting such financial metrics.

“It is evident that there is more profit potential in lead generation marketing that can be achieved with better tracking, effectiveness measurements, and ROI discipline,” says Jim Lenskold, president of Lenskold Group, in a statement. “Higher performing marketing organizations are focused on lead quality, sales conversion and long-term customer value. With the confidence of financial measurements and ROI discipline in their tool kit, highly effective and efficient marketers are better prepared to accept or request additional lead generation budget.”