The importance of tracking and analyzing your B2B digital marketing efforts and how to use data to optimize your strategy and improve your results.

 Measuring and Analyzing.

It seems weird that today could exist a company that doesn't measure or analyze their data in B2B marketing, and in case you're in one, let us explain why you must do it.

A long time ago, before data and analytics were so approachable, small and medium, businesses had it more difficult to study their audiences. Without data, making the next marketing move is more of a jump of faith than a data-driven decision, something in which we specialize in Codedesign.

So, if you aren't already measuring and analyzing your marketing efforts, read this entire article where we'll show you the importance of doing it, what data you should measure and how it can help you.

Also, if you want to dive deeper into this topic, look at our article on Data-Driven Marketing.

Without further ado, let's go with it!

Why is it important to Analyze and Measure your Marketing Efforts?

As a business owner, you must invest in digital marketing strategies to stay competitive, take your message to your audience and increase sales.

Either way, you need data to make clear decisions before and after starting any campaign.

Sometimes, as business owners, we may think we know what to do to achieve our goals. Ultimately, we're all entrepreneurs, and it's our instinct to make the best decisions for our company's well-being. Nevertheless, although entrepreneurial knowledge and talent it's essential, you would be a gladiator without a sword if you took your strategy without analyzing and measuring your marketing efforts (Yes, in this case, data is your sword.)

But what are the benefits, or why is it so important?

Let's look at some benefits you can obtain when you analyze and measure data.

Make Data-Driven Decisions.

Data and analytics have reached a level where they can predict your customer's next moves based on their interactions with your digital channels. 

Although we think we're free as humans, sometimes we're predictable. Machines can learn what we usually interact with based on our actions with social media, e-commerce and even search engines.

When you look at your data, you can get a clearer view of what your customers like and know where to aim your subsequent marketing efforts based on it.

Measure and Optimize performance.

Since data gives you detailed information on how your campaigns performed, you can measure how well your marketing efforts did and look at where you may fail to make the necessary changes to optimize your campaigns.

Measure ROI

When you look at your analytics, you can see which campaigns or channels make the most money, and so, identify the best ones for your business and which you shouldn't invest too much in, or, should modify tactics to get better results.

Personalization

We repeat it, humans can be very predictable, and you can use these predictions to personalize their digital experiences and make them suitable to their specific needs. Personalization is something that almost every customer like nowadays, as nobody likes to be treated with the same generic marketing strategy.

Every group of customers within your audience has their interests and necessities, so you have to measure this information to create more effective campaigns to reach them. If you want more information on this topic, check out our article on techniques and challenges for personalization.

Competitive Advantage

The idea is NOT to be that company that stays in "traditional" marketing strategies. Instead, be the one that takes advantage of new technologies to stay ahead of them. 

So, now that we know the importance of analyzing your marketing efforts, let's see the actual data you should measure to do it.

What data should you analyze as a B2B company?

In this part of the article, we'll show you the metrics and KPIs you should measure and analyze to evaluate your marketing efforts. This data can bring valuable insights for all departments within your business, so it's crucial that all of them, from marketing to sales, are aware of it.

Please take a look at them!

Website Traffic

Your website is the operation base for your business, as every channel you choose to be in should redirect customers to this place. When you analyze website traffic, you can get valuable information on aspects like:

• What media or search engines bring visitors or readers to your website?
• Your target audience's demographic.
• In what days or seasons do you get more traffic?
• Most popular or readable pages.
• Check out whether your promotional tools are delivering good results.
• Show you the average position of your keywords in search engines. This can help you understand your ranking keywords and their search volume.

Cost Per Lead

A lead is a contact with a potential customer or a "prospect," if you want to give it a more precise name. As you may guess, getting leads is very important for your sales team to get new customers, but for every new lead, you need to know how much you're spending on getting them and if that investment suits your business style. In this part is where Cost Per Lead, or as marketer like to call it, CPL, comes to play.

Now, CPL measures the amount you spend to obtain a lead vs. how much you generate for each. 

Depending on your business model, your CPL may differ, and even more, the necessity of getting more leads.

For example, if you manage e-commerce, your cost per lead is cheaper, but you need more of them to receive a good ROI. Why? Because, as a B2C model, it requires more quantity to see better results for the company.

But if you are on B2B, and own a law firm or a real estate company, then quantity isn't what you need. Instead, you need some quality leads that can pay for your services. In B2B, you get more from less. While acquiring leads for B2B is a bit trickier, this becomes easier when you align yourself with a data-driven agency that can target them strategically.

Conversion Rates

A conversion is the percentage of visitors that take a desired action from any marketing initiative; it can go from buying to someone clicking on an ad that redirects to a landing page. 

To measure this metric, you must divide the number of views between an ad (in marketing, we call it the Click Through Rate) or the number of sign-ups by the number of visitors on that page. Then, multiply this value by 100, and you obtain your percentage of Conversion Rate.

A good percentage may depend on your industry or goal. Still, rather than comparing yourself with other competitors, the best idea to identify success is to compare your latest campaign with the new one.

Marketing Qualified Leads

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are those users who meet the most significant number of characteristics to be your ideal client. 

What are these characteristics about? 

As always, they all depend on your niche, ranging from the type of company and its income to the actions they have carried out within your website or the pages they visited.

Sometimes the sales team chooses several leads from the marketing team; even so, they aren't converting. This may cause a disconnect between your message and who you are sending it to.

If you want to set up a clear definition of what a "qualified lead" is, your marketing and sales team must be aligned on the same basics to create a smoother process for your business. 

To create this alignment, you can apply a strategy called Account Based Marketing. This tactic consists of both teams being able to define a select group of clients with the greatest possibility of converting or the ones you are most interested in. Immediately afterwards, they create personalized strategies, with the help of data measurement, to convert them more effectively. To learn more about applying Account Based Marketing, read our guide.

Customer Acquisition Cost.

This is one of the most critical sales metrics and involves how much your business spends for every customer acquired. 

If you want to calculate this percentage, choose a time period (a quarter is a suitable time to work with). Measure how much you spent on sales and acquisition costs and divide by how many customers you acquired.

Like Cost Per Lead, a good value depends mainly on your business niche, so consider it when analyzing it.

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer LTV refers to how much earnings you receive from every customer while doing business with your company. Once again, this value can vary from one niche to another, and price plays another part in its result. For example,  if you sell a one-time purchase service, your LTV value will be more specific than a consulting-based service.

With Lifetime Value, you can determine a reasonable Cost Per Lead or Customer Acquisition Cost. If you have a high LTV, you could spend more money acquiring customers or clients. But, if your LTV is low, you should focus on lowering your commercial costs and creating better sales and marketing strategies.

Monthly Recurring Revenue.

This metric is one that only applies to subscription-based businesses. If that is your case, take note. 

This metric is quite simple, and it consists of calculating the approximate monthly earnings that you'll earn during a quarter or the entire year based on the number of subscribers. Then, you calculate month by month to see if your earnings are in line with your goals.

Churn Rate

This metric also applies to subscription-based services, and it's an important one.

So, for any business, it's a rule of thumb that we'll lose a certain amount of customers. Rather than making a huge deal out of it, the best thing to do is calculate it and see how we're performing, despite the number of unsubscribed customers. Eventually, the idea with this is that your subscription amount is higher than the unsubscribed ones, and also find out why people decide to unsubscribe.

To calculate this value, establish a period and see how many clients you had initially and lost by the end. To get the final result, multiply the number of lost customers by 100%, and you'll find your churn rate percentage.

How to use data to optimize your Digital Marketing strategy?

After reading this, you get a first view or a more precise understanding of why measuring and analyzing data it's important for your business. And it doesn't matter whether you are a small or large business. Studying your marketing efforts will always be a great option. As data and analytics guru Bernard Marr said: 

“While the average small business has less self-generated data than big players. . .this doesn’t mean big data is off limits. In many ways, big data is more suited to small businesses because they’re generally more agile and able to act more quickly on data-driven insights.”

A Forbes article discussing a survey from Deloitte to marketers says that:

• 49% of respondents said analytics helps them make better decisions.
• 16% say that it better enables key strategic initiatives
• 10% say it helps them improve relationships with both customers and business partners

Looking at these facts and testimonies, there's no doubt that you should start analyzing your data, so in this part, we'll give you ways to use it to improve your marketing efforts.

Create consistent and personalized marketing messages.

Since analyzing data gives you a more profound understanding of your customer's needs, it can help you to personalize and create consistent marketing messages for all of them. This is crucial for today's B2B market as 84% of customers say it's very important to treat them like a person, not a number. This statistic shows that users don't want generic messages from the companies they want to hire. Instead, they want content and marketing messages that better suit their needs.

When you study your data, you'll find the specific needs of each group within your audience and then segment it to deliver the right content for all of them.

Besides, B2B data can help you expand your marketing efforts to every channel and offer a consistent experience so customers don't feel they are talking to a different company as they move from one channel to another. In marketing, this is what we call Omnichannel Experience; you can learn more about it in this article.

Create the correct marketing campaign for each client.

Connecting with the previous point, we have to emphasize that there's no one size fits all approach when you market in B2B business. Whether you sell the same services to all your candidates, you must know they don't come to you for the same reason. 

Now, you may think that creating a personalized message for all of them is a titanic task. Still, data and technology make it easier for us to achieve. By studying data like the company's niche, income amount and services they might be interested in, you can segment your audience into smaller groups and then create strategies that fix their necessities.

Product promotion and development.

With all this detailed information from your audience, it becomes easier to promote services with the right message or even develop new ones targeted to their pain points and needs. 

Also, if you're smart enough and understand more of your audience's needs, you can use data to create "needs" for your audience. When you detect a problem they have yet to see and quickly offer a solution, they'll show more interest in your new offering and will be confident hiring you. 

Best Data Analytics Software.

Data is more reachable than ever, and nowadays, you don't need multiple computers to perform this task. To close this article with enough valuable information, we want to give you some software recommendations so you can start measuring and analyzing your data:

• Semrush
• HubSpot Marketing Hub
• Mixpanel
• Smartlook

Final thoughts.

Data gives you direct access to infinite ways to improve your marketing efforts, you just need to understand what's happening and then create strategies to either improve what isn't working or keep investing in what's doing well.

In Codedesign, we are a data-driven agency that helps companies improve based on their specific needs starting from their situation. If you want to work with us, tell us more about your business and contact us!

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