Factors Blog

Approximately 95% of the addressable market remains dormant, not actively seeking to purchase a product or service at any given time. This percentage of the market can be tapped with the help of demand-generation tactics. As for the remaining 5%, that can be tackled with lead generation.

Mastering the art of demand generation is critical to the success of any product or service. This systematic process not only raises awareness but also piques customer interest in the product, presenting your product as an irresistible solution tailored to meet the unique needs of potential customers. By identifying the target audience early on in the marketing funnel, businesses can effectively tailor their offerings to meet customer needs and preferences, ensuring continuous improvements in subsequent iterations.

Moving on to demand generation, as we saw above, it focuses on actively engaging with the 5% of potential customers who express interest in finding a solution. By using more direct language and communication methods, lead generation helps businesses capture and interact with these active consumers.

However, generating leads, especially high-quality ones, is no piece of cake. As customer journeys lengthen, advertising costs rise, and alternative channels for customer interactions emerge, marketers must carefully prioritize their efforts to succeed in lead generation.

To put it succinctly, demand generation targets passive customers, whereas lead generation focuses on actively engaging with potential consumers. By employing both strategies harmoniously, businesses can create a robust and successful marketing approach, driving growth and gaining a competitive edge in their industry.

TL;DR

• Demand generation educates, creates awareness, and tailors solutions, while lead generation showcases product benefits.
• Quality leads are vital, and marketers must prioritize efforts as customer journeys lengthen and costs rise.
• Harmonizing demand and lead generation strategies create a robust marketing approach for growth.
• Demand generation sparks interest, while lead generation engages prospects, aiming to convert them.
• A successful demand gen campaign ensures qualified leads, while lead gen nurtures and converts prospects.
• Combining both strategies offers a seamless approach to customer acquisition and business growth.
• In an established market, prioritize lead generation; in a new category, focus on demand generation.
• Understanding lead types (MQLs, SQLs, PQLs) enables effective nurturing and conversions.
• Demand gen educates, and lead gen converts; their synergy drives modern marketing success.
  

Lead Gen vs Demand Gen: Laying the groundwork

What is lead generation? 

Lead generation is focused on finding and attracting potential customers (or leads) for your business. The primary goal here is to procure vital contact information from interested individuals who have expressed an interest in your offerings. So, before immediately contacting eligible leads through sales calls, organizations may educate and nurture prospective consumers through dynamic channels such as landing pages, opt-in email lists, or even insightful content pieces. With these channels, organizations can effectively attract valuable prospects, and pave the way for converting them into paying customers. 

An example of a lead generation strategy could be to offer a ‘free’ e-book in exchange for visitors' email addresses. By providing valuable content, your company captivates potential customers and establishes direct contact for further engagement with the customer.

Key Aspects of Lead Generation

• Targeted Engagement: With precision targeting, lead generation zeroes in on individuals who have already exhibited interest, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
• Conversion Optimization: The ultimate aim is to convert these prospects into leads by capturing their contact details, such as email addresses and phone numbers.

• Data-Driven Strategies: Employ advanced data analytics and tracking methods to measure campaign success and identify high-yield channels and tactics.

How does lead generation work?

It involves two key steps: initiating interactions with interested leads (potential prospects) and subsequently converting them into leads by obtaining their contact information.

To draw potential customers to your website, identify a winning strategy tailored to your business objectives and financial constraints. Some effective methods include:

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Social Media
• Display Ads
• Offline Events

Once visitors arrive on your website, the next step is to convert them into leads using various lead generation techniques. These methods aim to capture consumers' interest in your product or service, encouraging them to provide their contact details, often through the use of incentives known as "lead magnets."

Once a lead expresses interest in your offerings, it becomes a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). The digital marketing team then initiates nurturing campaigns, often leveraging marketing automation to send targeted emails and engaging content. Here, the goal is to educate and persuade prospects to transition into sales leads. This can happen through an inbound purchase on the company's website or by reaching out to a salesperson. In corporate sales, the sales team may directly contact potential customers to finalise the deal.

Also, read: Lead Enrichment

What is demand generation?

The systematic process of generating interest in a product or a service is known as demand creation. This process involves increasing product awareness and encouraging customers to explore the product or service as a potential solution to their needs. It also helps identify the target market and serves as the first step in the marketing funnel. What’s more, working on demand generation also helps businesses in understanding customer preferences that may be included in the product throughout subsequent revisions.
Let’s look at an illustrative example of Zendek Corp, a leading provider of industrial solutions, and see how demand generation can help even unconventional sectors. When launching its cutting-edge machinery for precision manufacturing, Zendek faced the challenge of reaching a niche audience in a highly specialized field. Unlike conventional consumer products, their solutions targeted a specific set of manufacturers requiring intricate equipment.

To address this, they strategically employed content marketing and industry partnerships to engage potential buyers. By creating informative whitepapers and hosting webinars that tackled the complexities of precision manufacturing, they positioned themselves as experts and thought leaders. This approach proved transformative, as it not only attracted over 10,000 industry professionals but also nurtured strong connections.
The campaign’s success wasn’t just measured in numbers; it led to partnerships and collaborations that further solidified Zendek’s position as an indispensable partner for manufacturers.

So, how are lead generation and demand generation different?

Demand generation primarily operates at the top of the funnel, focusing on raising awareness of your company and generating interest in your offerings. 

On the other hand, lead generation comes into play at the middle and bottom of the funnel, nurturing qualified prospects and guiding them towards becoming customers.

Let’s look at the channels for lead generation
Lead generation channels are focused on capturing and converting interested prospects into concrete leads. 

To understand this better, let’s assume you're a B2B software company specializing in project management solutions. You're eager to capture the attention of decision-makers in the engineering sector. To achieve this, you craft an in-depth eBook titled 'Streamlining Engineering Projects: A Comprehensive Guide to Efficient Project Management.' This resource delves into the challenges engineers face and presents effective solutions using your software.

Upon landing on your website, visitors are greeted with a well-designed web pop-up offering them this free eBook in exchange for their email addresses. This lead magnet not only promises valuable insights but also addresses a pain point specific to your target audience.

As prospects engage with your content, you leverage lead scoring to identify those displaying a high level of interest. This, in turn, triggers personalized follow-up emails offering case studies showcasing real-world success stories of engineering firms that benefited from your software.

Additionally, you employ retargeting techniques, displaying tailored ads across platforms to keep your solution top-of-mind. Now, social proof takes centre stage as you highlight testimonials from engineering companies praising the effectiveness of your software.

With CRM software in place, your sales team can seamlessly manage and nurture leads, ensuring no prospect falls through the cracks. A/B testing of email subject lines and content helps fine-tune your messaging for optimal engagement.

With this holistic approach, every tactic – from the initial lead magnet (eBook) to the nurturing emails – works in harmony to guide prospects towards a buying decision. The result? An engaged and well-informed audience that's not just interested in your product, but also trusts its ability to solve their challenges.

When it comes to lead generation, a few metrics that need to be kept in mind are:

• Lead quality
• Conversion rate
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Total lead value
• Cost of acquisition (CAC)
• Cost per lead (CPL)
  

Channels for demand generation
Effective demand generation involves a mix of strategic channels and tactics to spark interest and raise awareness about your offering. Here's a quick breakdown of the channels where these strategies can be applied:

• Content that resonates with your audience: Craft insightful blog posts, eBooks, and videos that address your audience's pain points.

• Social media amplification: Leverage platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram to engage, educate, and initiate conversations.

• Engaging email campaigns: Reach out directly with personalized email content, nurturing leads through informative sequences.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your content for search engines, ensuring your solution is discoverable when prospects seek answers.

• Webinars and interactive sessions: Host webinars to showcase your expertise and encourage real-time interactions.

• In-Person and virtual events: Participate in industry events and host virtual gatherings to connect with prospects.

• Influencer partnerships: Collaborate with industry influencers to expand your reach and credibility.

• Referral programs: Encourage satisfied customers to refer others, tapping into the power of word-of-mouth.

• Interactive content: Offer quizzes, calculators, and assessments to engage and provide value.

• Conversion-driven landing pages: Design landing pages that resonate and drive action.
• Free trials and demos: Offer hands-on experience with your product or service through free trials or demos, allowing potential customers to understand the value firsthand.

With these channels in your demand generation arsenal, you can seamlessly attract and engage potential customers, guiding them towards exploring your solution further.

A few metrics to remember concerning demand generation are:

• Brand lift
• Visibility
• Competitive analysis
• Brand awareness
• Sentiment analysis
• Content performance

While demand generation focuses on website traffic, brand awareness, social engagement, and content performance; lead generation focuses on landing pages, CTA, paid channels, as well as organic channels.

A successful demand generation campaign ensures that the leads generated are not only qualified but also genuinely interested in what your business has to offer. Meanwhile, by implementing lead generation techniques, you can effectively nurture and convert prospective customers into loyal, paying customers. So, naturally, the symbiotic relationship between demand generation and lead generation strengthens your overall marketing efforts and contributes to your business's success.

You may now be wondering, “Which tactic will help me achieve my company objectives the most effectively?”. Well, the answer is: Both! And that’s because you can't nurture quality leads and turn them into customers without first drawing them to your business. That is to say, demand generation directly aids lead generation. 

But we’ll get into that right after we look at some important points of difference between lead generation and demand generation with regard to:

The symbiosis of lead generation and demand generation: Why should businesses focus on both?

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s not lead gen vs demand gen – both are equally valuable. While focusing solely on demand generation may hinder your ability to close sales when your audience is actively seeking your product or service as a solution, working only on demand generation can bring in short-term cash but may not be best for long-term brand recognition, potentially impacting revenue in the long term.

The key to success lies in recognising that demand generation and lead generation are interconnected, and prioritising one over the other is irrelevant (and a disaster for business growth). Instead, businesses must focus on how these two approaches can be used in tandem to create a seamless customer acquisition plan – one that generates demand and nurtures prospective customers to turn them into paying customers.

The most effective approach to optimize marketing efforts is by combining strategies. For instance, offering free educational blogs can generate interest among consumers, prompting them to seek gated content in exchange for information such as email IDs. This way, you can engage and capture potential customers, building a valuable database for future marketing activities.

That said, businesses must seek to test and refine their strategies to achieve optimal results in the buyer's journey and inbound sales.

Does the market context matter?
In choosing the implementation strategy, it's of utmost importance to consider the context of the market. In an established market, if your competitive advantage is pricing, prioritize lead generation since the market demand already exists for the solution your business provides. This existing knowledge of the solution allows you to tap into potential customers who are actively seeking solutions. However, if you're pioneering a new category, focus on demand generation to create awareness and then generate leads.

When selecting your implementation strategy, the market context plays a pivotal role. In an established market, where your competitive advantage lies in pricing, prioritizing lead generation can be effective as the market already exhibits demand for the product. However, if you're breaking new ground in a nascent category, concentrating on demand generation becomes paramount. This approach ensures that awareness is first created, paving the way for subsequent lead generation.

Here’s an example to help you understand this better:
Meet InnovaSys: Elevating Industrial Automation

InnovaSys, a B2B industrial automation solutions provider, is aiming to make its mark in a competitive landscape. With cutting-edge solutions that enhance manufacturing efficiency, InnovaSys is venturing into a space where its technology is novel.

Recognizing the need to first generate awareness and establish thought leadership, InnovaSys embraces demand generation tactics. They host webinars, publish in-depth industry reports, and collaborate with influential trade associations to spotlight the advantages of their automation solutions. With this, InnovaSys aims to position itself as a trusted guide, driving curiosity and inquiry from potential clients.

Meet EngiTech: Transforming Data Analytics

On the other side of the spectrum, EngiTech, a B2B data analytics startup, is entering a market brimming with established players. Their unique selling proposition lies in an upgraded and revolutionary data aggregation and visualization tool that significantly streamlines decision-making for businesses.

In this scenario, where the demand for their tool is evident, EngiTech directs its efforts towards lead generation. They harness the power of targeted LinkedIn outreach, engaging with decision-makers who are actively seeking solutions to their data challenges. Additionally, EngiTech partners with industry influencers to amplify their reach among relevant circles.

In the case of both InnovaSys and EngiTech, the chosen strategy aligns with their respective market contexts. InnovaSys embarks on demand generation to pave the way for recognition and interest in their novel automation solutions. Meanwhile, EngiTech capitalizes on existing demand by focusing on lead generation to directly connect with businesses in need of their specialized data analytics tool

Types of Leads & Their Relevance

Understanding the nuances of different types of leads enables companies to implement targeted lead nurturing strategies, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience at the right stage of the buyer's journey. This empowers businesses to maximize their conversion rates, optimize marketing ROI, and ultimately, achieve long-term success. As you may agree, not all leads are created equal, and each type represents a different level of engagement and readiness to make a purchasing decision. By distinguishing between SQLs, MQLs, and PQLs, businesses can effectively prioritize their efforts, customize their approach, and allocate resources wisely. 

Understanding SQLs, MQLs, and PQLs: Nurturing Leads for Successful Conversions

1. Marketing qualified lead (MQL): 

• MQLs are leads that have been identified as potential customers based on their engagement and interest in the company's offerings.
• They have shown interest in the company's products or services, but they may not be fully ready for direct sales outreach.
• Lead nurturing plays a critical role in converting MQLs into SQLs, as it involves providing them with valuable and relevant content, and guiding them through the decision-making process.
  

2. Sales-qualified lead (SQL): 

• SQLs are leads that have been contacted, evaluated and deemed ready by the sales team.
• They have shown a strong intent to purchase and are likely to be in the later stages of the buyer's journey.
• The sales team can focus on converting SQLs into customers by understanding their specific needs and providing personalized solutions.

3. Product-qualified lead (PQL):

• PQLs are leads that have experienced the product or service through free trials, demos, or other product interactions.
• These leads have already demonstrated an interest in the product's value and are more likely to be ready for sales engagement.
• PQLs can be a valuable source for SQLs since their experience with the product sets them apart from traditional MQLs.
  

As you can tell, these strategies are not mere buzzwords but indespensible instruments that shape how your business engages with its audiences.
Summing it up, demand generation becomes the guiding light, casting awareness and curiosity over a broad spectrum. It's about educating, sparking conversations, and carving a space for your brand to thrive. While lead generation showcases your product's strengths, resonates with a specific audience, and cultivates relationships that turn into loyal partnerships. The intertwined relationship between these strategies defines the success trajectory of modern businesses, drawing potential clients closer and transforming them into valued patrons.

As modern marketers, the true power lies not just in understanding the nuances of these two strategies, but in recognizing their synergy. It's a mix of education and distinction that fuels the marketing engine. 

Ready to enhance your lead gen or demand gen strategy for optimal tracking and performance? Discover how Factors can streamline implementation and drive results. Get in touch and let’s get started today. 

FAQs

1. What is a B2B demand generation strategy?

A B2B demand generation strategy is a comprehensive plan and set of actions implemented by a business to create and stimulate interest and demand for their products or services among other businesses or organizations. This strategy involves a series of marketing and sales tactics aimed at attracting and engaging potential buyers throughout the buyer's journey, ultimately leading them to express interest, make inquiries, or request further information. The goal of a B2B demand generation strategy is to generate high-quality leads and drive business growth by converting those leads into customers.

2. What is B2B lead generation?

B2B lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential business customers (other businesses or organizations) who have expressed interest in the products or services offered by a company. This process involves targeted marketing and sales strategies designed to generate high-quality leads that can eventually be converted into profitable business relationships.

3. What are the three stages of lead generation? 

It's essential to organize your marketing funnels around the three lead-generation phases:
Awareness: This stage involves creating awareness about a product, service, or brand among the target audience through various marketing efforts.

Interest: In this stage, potential leads express interest by engaging with the provided content or showing intent to learn more about the offering.

Conversion: The final stage focuses on converting interested prospects into actual leads by encouraging them to take a specific action, such as purchasing or providing contact information for further follow-up.

With over 750 million users, LinkedIn is by far the largest professional network in the world. 

What started off as a simple platform for like-minded business people to connect, has transformed into a social media behemoth. Today, LinkedIn offers everything from algorithmic news feeds, LinkedIn groups, live streaming, and of course, a wide range of advertising mechanisms. 

What does this mean for us B2B marketers? Opportunity.

LinkedIn’s massive database of professionals, companies, and industries may be leveraged by marketers to reach out to the right audience with the right message and drive high-quality opportunities. 

‍But there’s no hiding behind the fact that paid marketing on Linkedin can be expensive and competitive — especially for Seed/Series A companies looking to make limited budgets go a long way. 

As a result, early-stage teams generally prefer spending on Search Ads over LinkedIn. The former is believed to drive more high-intent leads and in turn, better return on ad spend. Conversely, LinkedIn is thought to be better suited to bigger companies for expensive, top of the funnel branding campaigns.

‍This is not necessarily true. 

When executed well, LinkedIn ads can be an effective channel to generate high-quality leads and bottom-of-the-funnel pipeline  — even for smaller teams. This chapter of our no-nonsense guide explores the Linkedin ads framework we’ve crafted over months of wins, mistakes & learnings as an early-stage start-up.

‍We won’t be discussing the basics of Linkedin Ads given that there’s loads of resources available on this as is. Instead, you can expect to find practical guidelines to pick off low-hanging fruit and drive RoAS. 

‍Linkedin Ads For Series A: Framework & Priorities‍‍

Quick results with limited spend and minimal effort is at the core of our LinkedIn ads framework. With that in mind, we suggest using LinkedIn ads to target the following audiences: 

1. Retarget prospects that are already engaging with your company
2. Target customers of your competitors 
3. Target top of the funnel ICP audience with ABM 

Given that not all accounts are equally likely to convert, It’s important to prioritize the right set of audiences. Here’s an order of priority we’ve been seeing growing success with:

1. Your first priority should be to retarget accounts that are already interacting with your brand — visiting high-intent pages, engaging with G2 reviews, or viewing previous LinkedIn ads. Given that these accounts already know about your product/company in some capacity, we can safely assume that they’re problem, solution AND brand aware. 

This audience is at a stage where they’re researching solutions (including yours!) to solve a challenge that they’re actively facing. This set can also include lost and churned accounts that have returned to engage with your brand. 

In short, this audience is relatively further along the sales funnel and accordingly, will require the least effort (and spend 😉) to convert. 

‍2. Next, look to target customers of your competitors. While this set of audience may not be aware of your brand, they’re certainly aware of the problem and are in fact already using an alternate solution. This implies that they’re ready to buy and may consider switching to your solution if it’s a better fit. In terms of ideal customer profile, it doesn't get much better than this. Use sales intelligence tools like Builtwith or Slintel to generate competitor customer lists. 

‍3. Finally, target your general ICP audience with account-based marketing (ABM). This consists of the set of accounts that fit your ideal customer profile criteria (based on size, industry, revenue range, technographics, etc). Although this set of audience would make great customers, they’re unaware of your brand as well as the problem your product is solving for. Accordingly, these accounts will require the most effort (and spend) to convert. 

With this priority framework established, let’s explore how to build these audience lists, run ads that convert, and optimize paid LI ads.

I. Build Audience Lists

‍For Retargeting…

Here’s a 3 step process on creating an audience list for LinkedIn retargeting

‍Step 1. Identify accounts from your website, reviews, and ad impressions

Use LinkedIn’s website tracking pixel in tandem with IP-based account identification tools to discover anonymous companies engaging with your website, G2 reviews, and previous LinkedIn ads.

Tactical Tips: LinkedIn’s website tracking pixel is limited to the number of visitors who actually accept cookies upon landing. This may be an issue for smaller teams with limited traffic because visitors accept cookies only 11% of the time. This may dramatically shrink your audience list. Luckily, there’s a quick fix: 

‍Use an “opt-out” cookie policy instead of an “opt-in” policy everywhere outside the EU to have cookies accepted by default. Both policies are privacy compliant outside the EU, but an “opt-out” policy will result in far more accounts identified by the LinkedIn pixel.

Step 2. Filter down your targets

Depending on the size of your website, you may identify hundreds or thousands  of unique accounts every week. It’s probably unrealistic to go after each and every one of them. Instead, refine your list by only targeting accounts that visit high-intent pages (Pricing, Landing pages, Comparison blogs, G2 reviews etc) and fit your ideal client profile based on geography, industry, technographic, revenue range, etc. Once complete, you’ll be left with a list of high-fit, high-intent ICP accounts. 

Tactical tips: In order to launch a campaign on LinkedIn, you must target at least 1,000 members. (Or 300 members, with Matched Audience — but we strongly discourage the use of MA). Given that you’re likely targeting multiple people from the same company, a final list of 500 accounts is a good starting point. 

3. Build a target member list:

At this stage, we have a brand-aware and possibly in-market set of ICP accounts ready for targeting. Use a sales intelligence tool like Apollo, Zoominfo, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator to create a list of at least 1,000 relevant members to target based on their roles, seniority, etc. 

‍Tactical tips: We find that it’s valuable to create awareness across the entire company you’re targeting. Accordingly, we strongly recommend targeting at least 2-3 employees from every account: final users, their managers, and the final purchase decision makers. 

‍For Competitor Customers & ABM

The process for creating audience lists in these cases is straightforward. Skip straight to building target member lists using sales intelligence tools like Builtwith, Zoominfo, Slintel, etc. Construct lists of competitor customers and ICP accounts by apply the right filters (technographics, firmographics, roles) so you’re left with the right contacts from the right companies. 

Now, we’re all set to run highly targeted ads that drive conversions.

‍II. Run ad campaigns

At this stage, we have a primed list of high-fit, high-intent audience fit for targeting. It's safe to assume that every member we’re targeting would find the product/service we’re marketing to be, at the very least relevant, if not of explicit interest to them. 

So now, we run great ads! Here are a few point to keep in mind:

‍Define objectives

The objective and approach of your LinkedIn ads should differ based on the audience you’re targeting. For instance, retargeting ads should look to convert brand-aware accounts and accordingly can be far more direct as compared to ABM ads targeted towards brand-unaware accounts. Here’s how to think about it: 

With retargeting ads, ads you’re targeting members that have already visited your website, interacted with your review pages, or viewed a previous ad. We needn’t create brand awareness from scratch. Instead, we should aim for these ads to generate sign-ups. Accordingly, use straightforward lead-gen forms instead of content assets or website redirects here. In this case, leads generated and conversion rate will be the two key objectives. You may also track cost per conversion and cost per lead. Targets for these will vary based on your budget and ACV. 

Tactical tips: Keep the number of form fields to a minimum. Work mail and phone number are plenty. 

With ads targeted towards competitors' customers and ICP audience in general, it’s better to use a 2-stage funnel: the first stage involves running comparison ads or branding ads to create awareness about your solution. The second stage involves converting target accounts with standard lead gen forms. While this is a more elaborate process than a simple lead gen form, it’s sure to drive better conversions as the target audience will be aware of your work, and thus more likely to submit a form. 

‍Make a mark with messaging

You do not want to run pesky ads and have people mute your campaigns. It’s vital to incorporate customer research into your ad copy and designs to capture positive attention. Even little things like line breaks and emojis can make or break your campaign. 

Remember to sell on every element of the ad: the intro text,headline, in-image text, description, etc. Most users won’t consume every part of the ad in its entirety — so ensure that each element is persuasive in its own right:

Depending on the target audience, you’ll want to use different messaging. The two examples shared above are relatively more direct with a clear objective — “let us give you a free trial”. This will probably be better suited to retargeting campaigns. 

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For ads targeted towards competitors, however, comparative ad creatives are likely to perform better. That being said, it’s also important to stay on the right side of the law and respect copyright and trademark policies. Here are a few competitor ad creatives we’ve found success with:

Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.   

Continue to experiment with different ad formats, messaging, and creatives until you identify what clicks. Here are a few examples of ads we’ve found success with:

‍1. Testimonial ads:

2. Before/After ads:

3. Ads with a hook or questions:

And there you have it! Advertising on LinkedIn, when done right, can be a highly effective channel to drive pipeline and revenue. To conclude, here are a few common mistakes to avoid while running LinkedIn ads:

• When using LinkedIn targeting, ensure that job titles are set in inverted commas so LinkedIn only targets users with those specific titles as opposed to related ones. Eg: ‘CMO’, ‘PMM’, etc. 
• Do not use the audience network on LinkedIn as it generally targets irrelevant members resulting in wasted spends. 

Are you a B2B SaaS marketer struggling to tackle the challenges of performance marketing for your brand? 

Are you finding it difficult to identify anonymous companies visiting your website, analyze your buyer journey, and measure ROI across campaigns, content, and sales touchpoints? 

If so, then this guide will help you.

In today's competitive business landscape, B2B SaaS marketers face numerous obstacles when it comes to performance marketing. 

One of the biggest challenges is analyzing the data from their ads, website, social media & campaigns. 

Without this crucial information, they would be missing out on valuable opportunities to engage with potential customers and drive conversions. Additionally, analyzing their buyer journey and measuring ROI across various marketing channels and touchpoints can be a daunting task, leaving unsure of which strategies are truly effective.

Let's delve into the blog to gain further insights and expand our knowledge on the subject.

What is Performance Marketing?

Performance marketing is a data-driven marketing strategy that focuses on driving specific actions or outcomes, such as conversions, leads, or sales. 

Unlike traditional marketing methods that rely on broad reach and brand awareness, performance marketing is highly targeted and measurable, allowing marketers to track the effectiveness and ROI of their campaigns with precision.

In performance marketing, marketers set clear objectives and pay for marketing activities based on the desired performance metrics achieved. This could include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, affiliate marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and other forms of digital advertising. 

The success of performance marketing campaigns is determined by how well they achieve the intended outcomes and deliver a positive return on investment.

For B2B SaaS marketers, performance marketing is particularly relevant as it allows them to optimize their marketing efforts and allocate resources more effectively. By focusing on measurable actions and outcomes, B2B SaaS marketers can identify which strategies and channels are driving the best results, allowing them to refine their campaigns and generate higher-quality leads and conversions.

5 Reasons to Know Why Performance Marketing is Important?

Performance marketing is a crucial skill for every marketer to master. Here are five reasons why it is essential and relevant to your marketing success:

Measurable Results

Performance marketing allows you to track and measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. By analyzing key metrics such as conversions, leads, and sales, you can gain insights into what strategies are working and make data-driven decisions to optimize your marketing efforts.

Cost Efficiency

With performance marketing, you only pay for the desired outcomes achieved, such as clicks or conversions. This cost-efficient approach ensures that your marketing budget is allocated to the strategies that deliver tangible results, maximizing your return on investment.

Targeted Audience Reach

Performance marketing enables you to precisely target your ideal audience based on demographics, interests, and online behavior. By reaching the right people at the right time, you can increase the chances of generating high-quality leads and conversions.

Scalability and Flexibility

Performance marketing allows you to scale your campaigns based on your business needs. You can easily adjust your budgets, test different strategies, and optimize your campaigns in real-time, ensuring that your marketing efforts align with your goals and adapt to changing market conditions.

Continuous Improvement

One of the key advantages of performance marketing is the ability to gather data and insights throughout the entire customer journey. This data-driven approach enables you to identify areas of improvement, refine your messaging, and enhance your customer experience, resulting in higher engagement and better overall performance.

You can hire an experienced marketing automation consultant to your team to unlock the full potential of marketing campaigns, understand customer journey, drive meaningful results, and stay ahead in the competitive B2B SaaS landscape.

9 Performance Marketing Hacks in 2023

Are you ready to revolutionize your performance marketing strategy in 2023? 

My unique process brings you nine powerful performance marketing hacks designed to elevate your campaigns and drive exceptional results. From leveraging user-generated content to optimizing for voice search, these hacks are based on the latest industry insights and innovative techniques. Get ready to take your marketing efforts to new heights and outperform your competition.

Here are the nine performance marketing hacks for 2023:

1. Hack the Micro-Moments

In today's digital landscape, capturing your audience's attention in specific micro-moments along their customer journey is crucial. Micro-moments are instances where individuals are actively seeking information, making decisions, or looking for solutions. By identifying these micro-moments and tailoring your marketing messages to address their needs, you can effectively engage your audience and drive conversions.

Example: Suppose you are a B2B company specializing in project management software. One micro-moment could be when a potential customer searches for "how to streamline project workflows." 

In response, you create content that addresses this pain point, such as a blog post titled "5 Proven Strategies to Streamline Your Project Workflows."

Pro Tip

• Conduct thorough audience research to identify micro-moments relevant to your target market. 

• Utilize keyword research tools to discover common search queries associated with these micro-moments. 

• Develop content that aligns with these moments and provides valuable solutions. 

• Incorporate targeted keywords in your contents ensuring to rank in search results.

2. Optimize for Voice Search

In the era of voice assistants and smart devices, optimizing your content for voice search is essential to ensure your brand remains visible and accessible to your target audience. Voice search queries tend to differ from traditional text-based searches, as they are more conversational and often phrased as questions. By adapting your content strategy to accommodate these voice-based queries, you can improve your chances of appearing in voice search results and capturing valuable organic traffic.

Example: Let's say you run a B2B company that offers customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Instead of solely focusing on traditional keyword phrases like "CRM software," optimize for voice search queries such as "What are the best CRM software options for small businesses?" or "How can CRM software improve sales productivity?"

Pro Tip: 

• Incorporate long-tail keywords and conversational language into your content. 

• Consider creating FAQ pages or blog posts that directly address common questions related to your industry or product. 

• Leverage structured data markup (such as schema.org) to provide search engines with clear information about your content, making it easier for them to understand and present in voice search results.

3. Leverage User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful tool that allows your customers to become advocates for your brand. It involves encouraging and showcasing content created by your users, such as reviews, testimonials, social media posts, or case studies. Leveraging UGC can build trust, increase engagement, and enhance your brand's credibility in the eyes of your target audience.

Example: Let's say you operate a B2B company that provides call tracking software for small scale businesses. You can encourage your customers to share their success stories, positive experiences, or case studies using your software. 

Highlight these stories on your website, social media channels, or even in your email newsletters to demonstrate the value and benefits of your product through authentic and relatable experiences.

Pro Tip

• Create dedicated spaces on your website or social media platforms where users can submit their content. 

• Offer rewards, discounts, or recognition to those who contribute valuable UGC. 

• Monitor your social media channels, online reviews, and other platforms where customers may leave feedback.

4. Embrace Personalization

Personalization has become a crucial aspect of effective marketing including tailoring your marketing messages, offers, and recommendations based on individual customer preferences and behaviors. By delivering personalized experiences, you can enhance engagement, build stronger connections with your audience, and ultimately drive higher conversion rates.

Example: Suppose you are a B2B company that offers email marketing software. Instead of sending generic email campaigns to your entire subscriber list, segment your audience based on their interests, past interactions, or purchase history. Then, personalize your email content, subject lines, and product recommendations to cater to each segment's specific needs. For example, you can send targeted emails about advanced email automation features to customers who have shown interest in automation tools.

Pro Tip: 

• Utilize marketing automation workflows to segment audience based on the data generated.

• Craft personalized messages that resonate with each segment, addressing their pain points and highlighting the benefits of your solution. 

• Consider using dynamic content that adapts to each recipient's preferences in real-time.

5. Harness the Power of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has emerged as a highly effective strategy to expand your brand's reach, build credibility, and drive engagement. By collaborating with influencers who align with your brand values and have a dedicated following, you can leverage their influence and tap into their established trust to promote your B2B SaaS solution.

Example: Suppose you offer project management software for creative agencies. Identify influencers in the creative industry, such as renowned designers or project management experts, who have a strong online presence and a relevant audience. Partner with them to create sponsored content, co-host webinars, or conduct interviews to showcase how your software solves common pain points for creative agencies.

Pro Tip: 

• Look for influencers whose values align with your brand and who have an engaged and relevant audience. 

• Establish clear goals and expectations when partnering with influencers to ensure a successful and mutually beneficial partnership.

• Develop a partnership strategy that aligns with your marketing goals and leverage the influence of these trusted individuals to expand your brand's reach and drive meaningful engagement.

6. Implement Video Marketing Strategies

Video marketing has become increasingly dominant in the digital industry, offering a powerful medium to engage your audience, deliver compelling messages, and increase brand recall. By implementing effective video marketing strategies, you can captivate your audience and drive higher levels of engagement and conversion.

Example: Suppose you are a B2B company providing customer support software. Create tutorial videos using an online video editor that showcase how to maximize the features of your software, address common pain points, or provide tips for efficient customer support. You can also feature customer success stories through video testimonials, where clients share their positive experiences using your software.

Pro Tip: 

• Optimize your videos for different platforms and devices. Keep them concise, attention-grabbing, and focused on delivering value within the first few seconds. 

• Use storytelling techniques to engage your audience and showcase real-life scenarios or case studies.

• Include a strong call-to-action at the end of each video to encourage viewers to take the desired action, such as visiting your website, signing up for a trial, or contacting your sales team.

• Invest in quality production, including clear audio, engaging visuals, and professional editing. 

7. Optimize for Mobile-First Experiences

In today's mobile-driven world, optimizing your website and marketing efforts for mobile devices is essential. With the majority of internet users accessing content from mobile devices, delivering seamless mobile experiences is crucial for engaging your audience and driving conversions. By prioritizing mobile-first experiences, you can ensure that your brand remains accessible and user-friendly on smartphones and tablets.

Example: Suppose you offer a B2B SaaS solution for project collaboration. Optimize your website by implementing responsive design, which automatically adjusts the layout and content based on the user's device screen size. Ensure that your website loads quickly, provides intuitive navigation, and presents key information clearly, even on smaller screens. Simplify forms and optimize them for touch input to streamline the user experience on mobile devices.

Pro Tip: 

• Test your website's mobile-friendliness using tools like Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. 

• Optimize your website's loading speed by compressing images, enabling browser caching, and minimizing unnecessary code. 

• Prioritize the most important content and call-to-action buttons to ensure they are easily accessible and visible without excessive scrolling.

• Continuously test your website across different devices and screen sizes to ensure a seamless experience.

8. Utilize AI-Powered Automation

Incorporating AI-powered automation into your performance marketing strategy can greatly streamline your processes, save time, and increase efficiency. By leveraging automation tools, you can automate repetitive tasks, personalize communication, and deliver targeted content at scale, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Example: Suppose you run a B2B company that offers marketing automation software. Utilize an AI-powered email marketing automation tool to automatically segment your audience based on their behavior and preferences. Set up automated email workflows that nurture leads, send personalized recommendations, and follow up with relevant content based on specific triggers or actions taken by the recipients.

Pro Tip: 

• Begin by identifying repetitive tasks that can be automated, such as email scheduling, social media posting, or lead scoring. 

• Integrate your automation tools with your customer relationship management (CRM) system to sync data and ensure a seamless flow of information. 

• Regularly analyze and optimize your automation workflows to ensure they align with your business goals and provide a personalized experience for your audience.

• Map out your customer journey and identify opportunities where automation can enhance your marketing efforts. 

9. Experiment with Emerging Technologies

Staying ahead in the fast-paced digital landscape requires embracing emerging technologies and exploring innovative ways to engage your audience. By experimenting with technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), or interactive content, you can differentiate your brand, create memorable experiences, and leave a lasting impression on your target audience.

Example: Suppose you offer a solution for architectural design. Develop an AR mobile app that allows users to visualize how their designs would look in real-world environments. Users can use their smartphones or tablets to overlay virtual 3D models onto physical spaces, enabling them to experience and interact with architectural designs in an immersive way.

Pro Tip: 

• Start by researching emerging technologies that align with your industry and target audience. 

• Collaborate with technology partners or experts to bring your ideas to life. 

• Prioritize providing value and enhancing the user experience when incorporating emerging technologies into your campaigns.

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Key Considerations For Implementing Performance Marketing

Implementing performance marketing requires careful consideration of several key factors to ensure success. Here are some additional insights to keep in mind:

Data-driven Decision Making 

Performance marketing thrives on data and analytics. It's crucial to establish a robust data infrastructure, including proper tracking, measurement, and analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs). Leverage tools like Google Analytics, Factors.AI, or other marketing analytics platforms to gather actionable insights that inform your marketing strategies and optimizations.

Continuous Testing and Optimization

Performance marketing is an iterative process. Embrace a culture of continuous testing and optimization to refine your campaigns and improve their effectiveness. Conduct A/B tests, experiment with different ad creatives, landing page designs, and messaging variations to identify what resonates best with your audience. Tools like Optimizely, Google Optimize, or Factors.AI's experimentation features can assist in running controlled experiments and optimizing your campaigns based on data-driven insights.

Integration and Alignment

Ensure seamless integration and alignment between your marketing, sales, and customer success teams. Collaboration and communication are essential to create a cohesive customer journey and provide a unified experience. Implement marketing automation tools like Factors.AI to streamline lead management, nurture customer relationships, and foster a data-driven approach across departments.

By considering these insights and incorporating them into your marketing automation strategy, you can maximize the impact of your campaigns, drive conversions, and achieve your business goals.

How to Choose the Best Performance Marketing Tool?

To further enhance your performance marketing efforts, selecting the right performance marketing tool is crucial. Here are a few considerations to help you choose the best tool for your needs:

Assess Your Goals and Requirements

Start by clearly defining your goals and requirements. Identify the specific functionalities you need in a performance marketing tool, such as campaign management, analytics, automation, or integrations with other platforms. Consider factors like scalability, ease of use, and pricing models that align with your budget.

Research and Compare Options

Conduct thorough research on different performance marketing tools available in the market. Compare their features, user reviews, customer support, and reputation in the industry. Factors.ai offers a comprehensive suite of performance marketing features designed to optimize campaigns, enhance targeting capabilities, streamline data analysis, and maximize ROI.

Request Demos and Trial Periods

Once you have shortlisted a few tools, request demos or trial periods to evaluate their functionality and user experience firsthand. This will help you assess how intuitive the tool is, how well it aligns with your workflow, and whether it provides the necessary insights and functionalities to meet your performance marketing objectives.

Remember, the best performance marketing tool for your business will depend on your unique requirements, objectives, and budget. Take the time to thoroughly evaluate and compare different options to ensure you choose a tool that empowers you to optimize your campaigns, drive results, and achieve your performance marketing goals.

Wrapping Up and My Experience With Performance Marketing

In conclusion, as we wrap up this tutorial on performance marketing hacks in 2023, I want to congratulate you on completing this insightful journey. I hope that you've found these strategies and insights to be valuable assets for your performance marketing endeavors.

With over 10 years of hands-on experience in the field, I have witnessed firsthand the transformative power of these hacks. Collaborating with diverse clients across industries, I have had the privilege of optimizing campaigns, driving conversions, and helping businesses achieve their goals.

As you apply these strategies and leverage the insights provided, you can position yourself to drive exceptional performance and stay ahead of the competition in the dynamic world of performance marketing. Embrace these powerful tools and techniques, and propel your marketing efforts to new heights of success.

Are you generating lots of leads but not enough conversions? That’s the story of many startups as well. 

Enter Account-based marketing — a strategic approach that personalizes marketing efforts for individual accounts to increase the likelihood of conversion. 

In this guide, I'll share 6 battle-tested account-based marketing tactics that personalize marketing, and turn targeted accounts into happy customers, without draining your team.

We’ll cover tactics including:

• Building personalized landing pages addressing your ideal customer's pain points
• Small, industry-focused webinars to engage key accounts
• Tailored ads optimized for different buying stages

Let's dive into the ABM tactics that deliver real results.

6 account-based marketing tactics + examples

Here are 6 of our favorite ABM marketing tactics that businesses have seen great success with.

1. Personalized landing pages: A personal touch for your target accounts

Personalized landing pages speak directly to your target accounts, addressing their unique needs and pain points. 

This isn't about simply changing the company or industry name on a generic landing page — it's about creating a tailored experience that resonates with your ideal customer profile.

Take Procurify, a Vancouver-based spend management company. They were in full-on growth mode, having secured Series B funding and expanded their teams. But with growth came increased pressure on the marketing team to accelerate customer acquisition.

Procurify's solution? An innovative strategy that involved creating 50 super-personalized landing pages that spoke to the exact needs of the industry they catered to. 

The result — 38% overall demo rate, a testament to the power of personalization.

The key to Procurify's success was understanding their target accounts' needs. All the landing pages, though following a similar template, were unique in what they said. The copy spoke to only one person/industry and no one else. That’s what made this work.

But these pages also need to be seen by the right people. Procurify paired their landing pages with video ads, which had a cost-per-conversion that was just a quarter of their search ad spending.

The takeaway? Personalized landing pages can be powerful for your ABM toolkit. 

2. Thought leadership webinars and roundtables: Engaging target accounts with industry insights

Webinars and roundtables are not new in the world of marketing. But when used in an ABM strategy, they can be a goldmine. 

Inviting thought leaders from your target accounts to participate in these events helps you provide value to your audience and also build excellent relationships with key decision-makers.

A great example of this is the SaaS company, Outreach. They regularly host webinars featuring industry thought leaders. 

This not only positions them as a knowledge hub in the industry but also allows them to engage with their target accounts on a deeper level.

For instance, they hosted a webinar titled "How to create and close more pipeline in 2023". 

Here Andrew Arocha, CRO of Drift, and Melton Littlepage, CMO of Outreach jammed together on different tips and strategies to close more sales and improve team productivity. 

The topic is a perfect audience merge of both businesses, helping them raise awareness of what they do—while connecting Outreach to Drift for future business opportunities.

How can you replicate this for your own ABM strategy? Here are a few steps:

• Identify the thought leaders in your target accounts
• Invite them to participate in a webinar or roundtable discussion
• Choose a topic that is relevant to your industry and your target accounts
• Promote the event to your target accounts and broader audience
• Follow up with participants after the event to continue the conversation

If you’re a smaller company, start with leaders that aren’t too popular. For example, connect with marketing heads instead of CMOs. They’re more accessible and can help you get started quicker. 

3. Segmented ads: Tailored messaging for every buying stage

In the world of ABM, the more personalized your approach, the better your results. This is particularly true when it comes to advertising. Segmented ads, which are tailored based on the buying stage and industry of your target accounts, can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates.

One SaaS company that has successfully leveraged this tactic is DocuSign. As part of their ABM campaign, they targeted 450 accounts with different messaging, images, and calls to action, depending on the account's industry and stage in the buying cycle. 

This highly personalized approach allowed them to speak directly to the needs and interests of each account, resulting in a more effective campaign.

Here’s one more example from Intridea – a full-service digital agency. They rented a billboard right across Ogilvy & Mathers’ office for some confrontational copy. 

How can you replicate this in your own ABM strategy? Here are a few steps:

• Identify your target accounts and segment them based on industry and buying stage
• Develop different ad creatives and messaging for each segment and industry
• Use a platform like LinkedIn or Google Ads to create targeted messaging
• Monitor the performance of your ads and adjust them as needed

Segmented ads can be a powerful tool in your ABM strategy. By tailoring your ads to the specific needs and interests of each target account, you can increase engagement, improve conversion rates, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.

4. Freebies: A win-win strategy for engagement

Everyone loves a good freebie, and your target accounts are no exception. Offering valuable resources like reports, templates, or even personalized gifts can be a great way to catch the attention of your target accounts and show them you're invested in their success.

One company that has leveraged this tactic to great effect is O2, a leading provider of mobile and broadband services in the UK. 

A few years ago, O2 decided to raise its profile as a total communications provider in the B2B space. They created personalized, well-researched, value propositions that showed prospective targets how much they could save by switching to O2.

The results—impressive. 

The campaign generated £260m in the pipeline and £39m in closed deals. The personalized reports were a key part of this success and helped the business gain access to accounts that otherwise did not convert.

So, how can you replicate this in your own ABM strategy? Here are a few steps:

• Identify the key decision-makers in your target accounts.
• Understand their needs and challenges.
• Create personalized freebies that address these needs. This could be anything from a valuable report or whitepaper to a product demo or a custom gift.
• Deliver these freebies through personalized ads or direct outreach.
• Follow up with the decision-makers to get their feedback and continue the conversation.

The success of O2's ABM campaign shows that freebies can be a powerful tactic in ABM, especially when they are personalized and provide real value to the target accounts. 

So, the next time you're planning your ABM campaign, consider what kind of valuable freebies you could offer to your target accounts and allocate some resources to creating them.

5. Curated emails: Nurturing relationships with target accounts

Connecting with your dream accounts is all about relationship building. And email can be one of your best tools for nurturing those relationships. Instead of blasting generic emails to every account, get strategic with personalized outreach. Really get to know your target accounts—what makes them tick, what challenges they face, and what solutions they need.

Take Skill Share, the online learning platform, as an example. They could send generic course lists to every account. But, they choose to send carefully curated courses that are relevant to a user’s activity and choice of courses. 

So, if a user shows interest in video production and editing courses, Skill Share curates a list of courses that are relevant. You can also take it one step ahead — design course pathways that help a user go from 0 to hero where you suggest the next best course automatically over email, when one is nearing its end.

If this is difficult to implement because of how your platform is built, segment your audiences based on the categories of content they consume and create personalized emails for each segment.

The takeaway? Don't just blast emails and hope for the best. Take the time to craft customized outreach that provides real value. That's how you make target accounts feel special - and turn them into loyal customers.

6. Visual social proof: Show, don't just tell

Visual social proof is a powerful way to showcase your company's success and the value you bring to your customers. This can take the form of case studies, customer testimonials, or even social media campaigns that highlight your company's achievements.

For instance, HubSpot, a leading marketing, sales, and service software, uses visual social proof on its homepage by showcasing its customers' logos. This gives potential customers a sense of trust and reliability, knowing that other reputable companies are using HubSpot's services.

Another great example is Ahrefs, an SEO tool, which uses visual testimonials from leading experts in the industry. This gives the company credibility and reassures potential customers about the quality of their product.

Visme, an infographic tool, shows the number of people using their tool around the world. This gives potential customers a sense of the tool's popularity and effectiveness.

Showcase the logos of some of your best clients. Talk about how your product has helped them grow. If you can, combine this with personalized landing pages and showcase industry-relevant logos on each page.

This helps build trust with your customers even before they have booked a demo call or talked to anyone from your team. After all, it’s not about telling your target accounts what you can do for them but showing them real, tangible proof of what you've already done for others.

Deliver a personalized marketing experience at every stage

Implementing these ABM tactics is only half the battle. To truly make the most of your ABM strategy, you need to know which accounts to target and which metrics to track.

Knowing which accounts to target helps you focus your resources on the accounts that are most likely to convert. This is possible with the help of account scoring. Account scoring, implemented right, can give you a clear picture of which clients you must target first and which ones can be deprioritized for better resource allocation. 

You also need to be tracking the right metrics to measure the success of your ABM strategy and to make necessary adjustments. Some key metrics to track include engagement rate, conversion rate, and customer lifetime value. But remember, the metrics you choose to track should align with your overall business goals.

Here we go again. 

Steve from sales is beaming at the office party. And why wouldn’t he be? The team can’t get enough of the star performer who closed ANOTHER high-value deal. 

Everybody seems to be missing out on the fine print, however. When asked “How did you hear about us?” the prospect promptly replied-” Oh! I registered for your webinar through LinkedIn and quite enjoyed it” 

What they fail to mention is that they also compared their current solution to your product with blogs from your website. In fact, the final demo booking came through a click from a search ad. 

Your team isn’t the only one suffering from salesman Steve syndrome. B2B marketing teams often struggle to quantify their impact on pipeline. The following article explores what revenue attribution is and how it can help with the same.  

What is revenue attribution?

Revenue attribution is the process of identifying and assigning value to marketing touchpoints based on their relative influence on conversions, pipeline, and revenue.

With revenue attribution, marketing teams can gain valuable insights into which strategies and activities are most effective in driving bottom-line impact. 

This information enables businesses to make data-driven decisions, optimize their marketing budgets, and improve overall marketing performance. Ultimately, revenue attribution empowers organizations to better understand their return on investment (ROI) make informed decisions to drive growth and profitability.

So if Steve’s team had conducted a comprehensive revenue attribution analysis, they’d assign “credit” to all the channels involved in the deal: paid and organic marketing channels, offline events, AND sales. 

And how much “credit” would each channel get for the sale? That is based on the revenue attribution model they choose to use. 

How do you measure revenue attribution?

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Revenue attribution can be leveraged with a wide range attribution models, each with different use-cases based on the industry, length of sales cycle, number of touchpoints, and so on. 

For example, a B2C company with a short sales cycle and single decision-makers can rely on simplistic single-touch models. Whereas B2B companies with long customer journeys and multiple decision-makers must use multi-touch revenue attribution models — especially if they’re interested in figuring out how multiple channels contribute to revenue. 

A certain attribution model will help discover the best TOFU channels while another may help understand what channels convert the most customers. 

To understand the different attribution models, let us take the example of a customer: Bart. Bart is a mid-level manager for an e-commerce business. He stumbles upon a checklist on LinkedIn that helps identify customers with high CLV. He starts the limited trial version of the product and then follows the company’s page on Linkedin, which announces a webinar on customer loyalty. He signs up and finds the session very helpful. He decides to search for the company and look into the full product, complete with all of its capabilities and features. In the next quarter, when his boss gives him a higher sales target, he looks into the pricing page. Soon after, he books a demo with the sales team.

Now if we were using attribution models to assign credit in this scenario- 

Single Touch Attribution

• First Touch Attribution: Attributes revenue or credit solely to the first touchpoint that initiated the customer's journey. It is ideal for businesses looking to understand what channels get them the most new customers. In Bart’s case the channel is LinkedIn 
• Last touch attribution: Attributes revenue solely to the last touchpoint in the customer’s journey. It is beneficial for companies looking to understand what channels drive the most conversions. In this case, that channel is the demo page.

Multi-touch Attribution

Attributes revenue to multiple touchpoints in the customer journey. 

Rule-Based Attribution

• Linear Attribution: Distributes revenue or credit evenly across all marketing touchpoints in the customer's journey. It does not take into account the impact of individual channels in the customer journey. In Bart’s case, all the channels – organic, inbound and sales would get equal credit.
• Time Decay Attribution: Assigns more revenue or credit to touchpoints as they near conversion i.e. the touchpoint right before the conversion will be assigned the highest credit. It helps understand the bottom-of-funnel and conversion channels effectively. In Bart’s case, the channel with the highest attribution is direct. 
• U-Shaped Attribution: Gives more weight to the first and last touchpoints while allocating a smaller portion to the intermediate touchpoints.  This attribution model helps separate the channels which provide leads and the ones that provide conversions. In Bart’s example, the LinkedIn post and the demo page are touchpoints with highest attribution. 
• W-Shaped Attribution: Emphasizes the first touchpoint,the touchpoint responsible for opportunity creation, and the last touchpoint.  In Bart’s case, LinkedIn, visit to the pricing page and the demo are the three touchpoints with highest attribution. 

That said, there’s a lot that needs to be taken into consideration when picking an attribution model. Each has its advantages and use cases which you should take into account based on your requirements. 

Are marketing attribution and revenue attribution the same thing?

Marketing attribution focuses specifically on attributing the value or impact of marketing touchpoints or activities in driving customer conversions or sales. It aims to identify which marketing channels, campaigns, or tactics are responsible for generating leads or influencing purchasing decisions.

On the other hand, revenue attribution goes beyond marketing and takes a more comprehensive approach. Revenue attribution considers the contributions of various departments or functions within an organization, such as marketing, sales, customer success, and other operational activities, in generating revenue.

Revenue attribution helps analyze multiple touchpoints and interactions across different functions can influence customer behavior and contribute to revenue generation. Different revenue attribution models can be used to assign value to these touchpoints and activities, whether they are marketing-related or not, to gain a holistic understanding of the revenue-generating process.

Who should be concerned with revenue attribution?

The customer journey and buying process for B2B products are long and complex, and revenue attribution can help bridge the gap between different departments/teams. Unfortunately in most b2b companies, only revenue teams are concerned with revenue attribution, keeping all revenue efforts siloed. 

By understanding the contributions of different teams, channels, and campaigns in revenue generation, teams can allocate resources more effectively. They can identify areas that require increased investment or support based on their revenue-generating potential and ensure that the organization's financial resources are allocated strategically for maximum impact. 

For marketing teams, revenue attribution helps identify effective tactics and channels and refine targeting. According to Alex Sofronas- “it almost acts as a GPS”, helping teams navigate where they are headed by aligning data and insights with organizational goals. Similarly, it helps customer support teams to personalize interactions and make data-driven decisions to drive revenue. 

Why is attributing revenue so important for businesses? 

Revenue attribution opens various growth avenues. Teams can leverage the added insights to accelerate the purchase decision and optimize spending. For businesses at the beginning of their growth curve, it can help develop templatize marketing plans or create iterative action plans. Here are some of the other benefits of revenue attribution: 

Understanding the customer journey

Revenue attribution helps businesses gain a better understanding of the customer journey. B2B sales cycles are often 6-9 months long. Analyzing individual sessions or website traffic through analytics tools only provides a partial view. Ad platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter may focus on the current month's Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) without considering the long customer journey. If the impact of an ad is realized 6 months later, when a customer moves down the funnel and books a demo or makes a purchase, revenue attribution will help figure this out. By accounting for the entire journey through detailed revenue attribution businesses can make more informed decisions.

Shining a light on effective strategies and touchpoints

Analytics tools track individual sessions or devices, not account-based activities. With revenue attribution businesses can identify the most effective touchpoints for individual customers and plan their spending accordingly. It can also help avoid premature assumptions about campaign success or failure.  

Promoting sales and marketing alignment

By following the account from the first touch, attributing leads to their sources. Unlike CRMs which only provide the original source of the lead, revenue attribution tracks previous interactions and helps understand the conversion process. it allows businesses to foster alignment between sales and marketing teams. This qualitative approach helps marketers improve lead quality and understand customer intent, resulting in better targeting.

Facilitating better forecasting and planning

Revenue attribution helps businesses with forecasting by understanding the decision-making process of buyers. Maybe the efforts you put in today will yield results in 6 months. It also allows for the evaluation of the effectiveness of revenue-generating activities and provides benchmarks for results, enabling more accurate forecasting and strategic planning.

Identifying high-value customers

Revenue attribution enables businesses to identify segments that contribute the most revenue. By understanding the specific characteristics and behaviors of high-value customers within each segment, businesses can tailor their marketing and sales efforts to attract and retain similar customers, leading to increased revenue.

Getting Started with Revenue Attribution

No matter what attribution model you choose to follow, or the goals you set out to achieve, data plays a vital role in successful revenue attribution. So the first order of business for revenue attribution is to collect and consolidate all historical data. Whether it is a sale registered in a CRM or the number of customers reading your newsletter. 

But with so many channels and teams involved, doing so can mean getting buried in a pile of datasheets and reports.

A robust revenue attribution tool will help you unify data across multiple channels, set-up relevant, custom conversion goals, and breakdown the analysis with granular filters and segmentations. 

Factors.ai is a revenue attribution tool that helps monitor and optimize GTM performance across campaigns, content, and events. 

With Factors.ai, businesses can choose and compare various attribution models tailored to their unique buyer journeys, ensuring effective resource allocation and reducing marketing leakage.

It is best suited for companies that want a deeper understanding of their customer journey and revenue pipeline

Revenue attribution is the link between data, analytics and your organizational goals. Create a roadmap to sustainable growth and higher revenue with our new revenue attribution tool. Click here to get started! 

Maximize ROI with Revenue Attribution

Revenue attribution assigns value to marketing touchpoints, helping businesses understand their impact on conversions and revenue.1. What is revenue attribution and why it matters: Enables data-driven decisions and optimized marketing budgets.

2. Key Insights: Identifies high-performing channels to enhance profitability.

3. Attribution Models:
- Single-Touch Models: Ideal for B2C with short sales cycles.
- Multi-Touch Models: Suited for B2B with complex, long sales cycles.

By selecting the right attribution model, businesses can refine strategies, improve performance, and drive sustainable growth.

FAQ: 

What is an example of revenue attribution?

During a B2B purchase cycle, a customer interacts with various channels such as customer service representatives, marketing campaigns, and salespersons. Revenue attribution is the process of allocating monetary value to each of these events.

Why is revenue attribution important?

Revenue attribution is crucial for businesses to help understand the effectiveness of marketing, sales, and customer support efforts in driving revenue. It helps optimize spends, identify effective strategies and refine budget allocation for each function. 

How do you calculate attributed revenue?

Attributed revenue is calculated by assigning credit to different touchpoints based on their contribution to a sale, using single-touch or multi-touch attribution models such as the w-shaped model or linear attribution model.

Picture this: You're standing in a room full of potential customers, but you only have the resources to engage a few. How do you decide who to approach? You identify those with the highest conversion and revenue potential for your business.

That’s account scoring.

Account scoring, a part of account-based marketing, helps you rank potential customers from the most to the least valuable. It's like a compass that helps you navigate the complex world of B2B sales and marketing, guiding you to accounts with the highest potential.

Businesses that use lead and account scoring models, see a 77% boost in lead generation ROI compared to those that do not.

In this article, we'll delve deep into account scoring, help you understand its importance, how it differs from lead scoring, and how to do it right.

TL;DR

• Account scoring is a strategy to rank potential B2B clients based on their value and conversion potential
• A well-defined ideal customer profile (ICP) is the backbone of successful account scoring
• Unlike lead scoring, account scoring sizes up the potential of entire companies, not individual contacts
• Core steps in account scoring include establishing a customer profile, identifying company traits, gathering information, giving scores to each trait, and ranking companies based on their scores
• Things like projected earnings, how much a company interacts with your brand, its buying intentions, strategic alignment, and the competition level can be factored in for creating a killer account scoring system
• Don't forget to periodically check and fine-tune your scoring method
• Tools like Factors help in identifying, scoring, and understanding potential customer accounts effectively. They provide a holistic view of your audience, going beyond known users to tap into anonymous user data, G2 reviews analytics, and LinkedIn impressions bringing them all together for a clear picture!

What is account scoring?

Account scoring is a process of ranking potential customer accounts based on their estimated value. This value is determined by the account's proximity to the ideal customer profile (ICP) — which represents the perfect-fit persona for a company's product or service.

Account scoring is not just a fancy term in ABM—it guides you toward the most promising opportunities. 

But why is account scoring so integral to ABM? 

Well, ABM focuses marketing efforts on a select few high-value accounts. And to identify these accounts, you need a reliable scoring system. 

Account scoring helps you sift through a sea of potential customers and zero in on those that are most likely to convert and bring the highest value.

In the following sections, we'll delve deeper into the intricacies of account scoring, including how to nail your ICP for effective scoring, the difference between account scoring and lead scoring, and a step-by-step guide to the account scoring process. So, stay tuned and get ready to become an account-scoring pro!

Why do you need to nail your ICP for effective account scoring?

The Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) serves as a blueprint for sales targeting. It represents the type of customer who derives the most value from your product or service, making them highly likely to convert and bring the highest value.

Scoring accounts without a well-defined ICP is like trying to hit a target with your eyes closed 

Your ICP is a detailed description of who uses and buys your product, and who needs your product, dialed in by firmographic data (company size, geography, revenue, industry).

Here are some key reasons and benefits of nailing the ICP for effective account scoring:

• Focused approach: Knowing your ICP keeps your marketing and sales teams focused. Instead of wasting resources on accounts that are unlikely to convert, you can concentrate your efforts on those that align with your ICP.
• Consistent messaging: An ICP helps you create a persona in the minds of your marketing and sales team. Every piece of content that’s created is talking to that one person—so the message you convey starts becoming consistent across your content.
• Personalization: When the entirety of your marketing team understands the ICP, it becomes easier to identify where your target audience is most likely to hang out, and the problems they experience, and then reach them through highly personalized and relevant content.
• Revenue: Accounts that match your ICP are not just more likely to convert—they're also more likely to bring in higher revenue. These are the accounts that will see the most value in your offering and be willing to pay for it.

To put this in perspective, suppose you're a B2B SaaS company offering project management software. Your ICP could be mid-sized tech companies with a remote workforce. If you focus your marketing and sales efforts on these companies, you're likely to see a higher conversion rate than if you were targeting small brick-and-mortar retailers.

What's the difference between account scoring and lead scoring?

Account scoring and lead scoring are both used to prioritize potential customers but there’s a slight difference in the approach for both.

Lead scoring is used to rank individual leads based on their perceived value to the company. This value is typically determined by a lead's behavior, such as their interactions with your website or email campaigns, and demographic information. The goal of lead scoring is to identify the leads that are most likely to convert into customers.

Account scoring takes a more holistic approach. Instead of focusing on individual leads, it considers the potential value of entire organizations. This value is determined by various factors, including the organization's size, industry, and fit with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). A powerful analytics tool like Factors can help you de-anonymize website traffic at an account-level.

Here's a quick comparison:

Let’s now dive into the process of scoring accounts for your business. 

A step-by-step guide to account scoring

Account scoring is not a one-size-fits-all process. It varies based on your business model, target audience, and the tools you use. But, there are some common steps that most businesses follow when scoring accounts. 

1. Define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Your ICP is a description of the company that's a perfect fit for your product or service. This could include factors like industry, company size, and revenue. For example, your ICP might be a mid-sized tech company in the SaaS industry with a revenue of over $5 million.

To define your ICP, you need to:

• conduct interviews, surveys, etc.(primary research) 
• read reviews for your and your competitor’s products, watch customer interviews, etc. (secondary research)

Segment your target audience based on their motivations, frustrations, and needs. Identify their goals and assess where their needs/motivations and the benefits of your product/service intersect.

2. Identify key account attributes

Key account attributes are the characteristics that make an account valuable to your business. They could include factors like the account's potential to purchase, its lifetime value, or its strategic importance to your business. 

For instance, a key attribute might be a company's use of a competitor's product, indicating a potential to switch to your product.

The key attributes of an account can be identified by understanding your customer's journey and touchpoints in your funnel. Ask questions like: 

• How do your customers find you? 
• How do you generate leads? 
• Which channels do you use? 
• What is the first interaction point? 
• How long does it take to convert leads? 
• What are the channels that bring the highest number of closed deals?

These will help you add more detail and personality to your ICP.

3. Collect data on the identified attributes

Once you have a well-defined ICP, it’s time to move to data collection. This is where a tool like Factors can come in handy. 

Factors unifies data across marketing, sales, and social media platforms under one roof, allowing you to collect holistic data on your accounts. 

This could include your CRM data, third-party data (social, advertisements, website), and intent data from platforms like G2 and LinkedIn. 

When it all comes together, you see a clear picture of how accounts that closely resemble your ICP behave across platforms and what type of messaging resonates with them.

To improve further, keep track of your ICP accounts and the conversion rates. You need to determine what are the common attributes of your highest converting accounts. 

4. Assign a score to each attribute

Based on the data you collected and the attributes you identify as high-value, begin assigning an importance score. 

If mid-size companies convert better for you, the company size attribute should be given a high score. Assign the scores for each of your ICP’s attributes between 1-10 or 1-100 as preferred. Then, when the total score for an attribute goes beyond a set threshold, the account can be considered sales-ready. 

Let’s consider an example: 

Let’s assume you identify that mid-size companies with $5+ million in revenue convert best for you, after their 5th interaction with your content. 

The important attributes here are company size, revenue, and engagements. 

Based on this, here’s how we can score the attributes on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest importance:

• Company revenue - 10
• Company size - 8
• Number of engagements - 7

Now, if another one of your accounts has an annual revenue of $7 million, is small-to-midsize, and has interacted with more than 5 of your content pieces, the score will be 25. 

This means that account meets all the criteria. In fact, since the account exceeds the $5 million revenue mark, you can assign a higher score to it. 

For simplicity, we’ll set the sales-ready threshold to 25. 

Whenever an account reaches this score, your sales team can be automatically notified to reach out and make contact.

5. Prioritize accounts based on their scores

Once you've scored your accounts, you can prioritize them based on their scores. Accounts with higher scores are more likely to convert and should be given priority for outreach or ABM targeting. 

Factors offers AI-fueled insights that can help you prioritize accounts by understanding what interactions they’ve had with your website and across different platforms. It can help you visualize the user timeline giving you a view of how a specific account has interacted with your content since the first touchpoint. 

Remember, this is a basic process of account scoring. But it isn’t the whole picture. Account scoring needs to be customized according to your sales cycle, ICP, and approach.

Important questions to ask for effective account scoring

Account scoring requires constant evaluation and refinement to ensure that it remains effective. Here are some additional questions you should ask to make your account scoring more effective:

What is the potential revenue from this account? 

If an account can bring in more revenue due to its size, assign a higher score. These will offer higher ROI for the same amount of marketing and sales effort. 

For instance, an enterprise account requesting a custom plan might have a higher potential deal size than a small business account.

How engaged is this account with our brand? 

Engagement is a strong indicator of an account's interest in your product or service. 

Accounts that visit your website frequently or engage with your emails can be assigned higher scores. You should also determine the type of engagement before assigning higher scores. 

What is the account's purchase intent? 

Purchase intent is essentially little signals that tell if a visitor is interested in your products or services or not. 

For instance, if a visitor goes and downloads one of your industry-focused resources like a trends report, or an ebook, they show higher purchase intent than someone who only reads your blog content.

How well does this account fit into our long-term strategic plans? 

An account's fit with your strategic plans can also influence its score. 

Suppose you plan to target the martech industry—an account from that industry should receive a higher score than an equally qualified account from another industry.

That’s because it aligns with your long-term strategic plans and represents a potential growth opportunity.

What is the level of competition for this account? 

With ABM and account scoring, you’re prioritizing accounts that show the highest potential for conversions and ROI with lower effort. 

If you’re going after an account that’s already targeted by your competitors, it might be more challenging to win. In such a case, you need to decide if it is worth pursuing the account or does it make more sense to prioritize another one with lower competition.

Leverage account scoring, the secret sauce to successful ABM

Account scoring is not just a tool, it's a game-changer. It's the secret sauce that guides your ABM efforts toward the accounts that are likely to convert and can bring in significant revenue. 

It demands precision, understanding, and constant refinement — all of which may seem time-consuming. But when done right, account scoring can make your marketing more targeted, efficient, and ultimately, successful.

What if there was an easy way? What if a tool could help you identify accounts with ease and give you a holistic view of your audience — across all platforms?

That's Factors. 

Factors helps you discover anonymous companies visiting your website and brings together data from social media, website analytics, G2, and advertising platforms giving you all the information on a single convenient dashboard.

So, as you venture into account scoring, remember this: account scoring is more than assigning numbers; it's about understanding value. 

And with Factors, you're always one step ahead in this game. Get ready to use this secret sauce for your ABM campaigns. Because with Factors, the game is always in your favor.

Account Scoring: The Key to Smarter B2B Targeting

Account scoring helps B2B companies prioritize the right potential customers by ranking accounts based on their revenue potential and alignment with business goals. It is a data-driven approach that enables marketing and sales teams to focus their efforts on accounts most likely to convert and drive high returns.

The foundation of effective account scoring is a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This profile captures company traits like size, industry, and revenue, ensuring that resources are directed toward accounts that best match business objectives. Unlike lead scoring, which evaluates individual prospects, account scoring evaluates entire organizations, making it ideal for account-based marketing (ABM) strategies.

The process involves defining the ICP, identifying key account attributes, collecting data on those attributes, assigning scores based on importance, and ranking accounts. This system enables teams to streamline their outreach, improve marketing precision, and increase revenue potential.

Continuous refinement is essential. Businesses must adjust their scoring models as markets shift and customer behaviors evolve. Implementing a robust account scoring framework positions companies to pursue the right accounts with confidence, maximizing both efficiency and ROI.

Drowning in data but thirsty for answers? We've been there. As content creators, we have numbers on clicks, views, bounce rates, and more. 

But what we need is for that information to come together and show us what's working,  what's not, and how to improve. 

That's where content marketing analytics tools come in. 

Content marketing analytics tools are digital platforms that help you understand how your content is performing. They provide insights into key metrics like site traffic, social media engagement, search rankings, and whether your content is driving conversions.

They help make sense of your content so you can optimize your content marketing strategy. They show key metrics like site traffic, social engagement, search performance, and whether your long blogs are converting readers.

But with many options, finding tools for B2B SaaS teams is hard. We've listed the top content marketing analytics tools to prove & improve the impact of content. These tools ensure you're making progress with your content, not just treading water. Let's get started! 

tl;dr

• Content marketing analytics tools help SaaS businesses understand and optimize their content strategy.
• Key features in these tools include visualizations, customer journey insights, integrations, metric tracking, an intuitive user interface, customizable reporting options, and real-time analytics
• The 6 best content marketing analytics tools for SaaS include: Factors, Google Analytics, HubSpot, HockeyStack, Dreamdata, and Matomo
• The right content marketing analytics tool can make your decision-making and optimization efforts more streamlined and provide valuable insights into audience engagement and campaign performance.
• Factors helps you identify top-performing content, uncover hidden patterns, and track customer journeys, ensuring that your content marketing strategy continually evolves for maximum impact.

What to look for in a content marketing analytics tool?

Every tool is designed with a specific audience in mind. But here are some of the features that your content marketing analytics tool must possess. 

• Account Visualizations: Visualizations translate raw stats into a form simple to grasp and analyze. They help you quickly spot trends, patterns, and outliers that wordy stats may miss. A solid analytics tool will offer various visual formats, like charts, graphs, and heat maps, to suit different data types and needs.
• Insight into Customer Journeys: Each customer interaction with your content is a step in their journey. Insight into how customers interact with your content is key to improving your content strategy. The analytics tool you choose should show each customer's full path, tracking what they do across channels and touchpoints. This means seeing the content they connect with, the actions they take, and the order of these interactions.
• Integrations with Other Tools: No tool operates alone. Your content marketing analytics tool must work with your other marketing software. This could mean your CRM, email tool, social media manager, and more. Seamless linking allows centralized data control, eliminating manual data transfer between systems.  
• Ability to Track Relevant Metrics: Not all metrics are equal. The tool should track metrics most relevant to your goals. If your goal is brand awareness, track page views and social shares. If lead generation is what you’re after, track form completions, and newsletter signups. The tool should allow custom metrics for your needs.
• Intuitive User Interface (UI): A tool can have all features but if it’s hard to use, no one will want to use it. An intuitive interface makes it easy for all skill levels to navigate the tool and leverage it for their use cases. This means clear menus, logical layouts, and helpful tips.
• Customizable Reporting Options: Every business is unique, as are reporting needs. A good tool allows customized reports to focus on important data. You may also want a tool that allows you to choose metrics, how they're displayed, and who they're shared with. Custom reports also make it easier to share insights with stakeholders.
• Real-Time Analytics: The digital world constantly changes. What worked yesterday may not work today. Real-time analytics lets you monitor content performance now so you can quickly spot and respond to changes like traffic spikes, engagement drops, or social share surges. Responding fast gives you an edge. 

6 Best Content Marketing Analytics Tools for SaaS in 2023

Let’s get started with the 6 best content marketing analytics tools that you must try. 

1. Factors.ai

Factors is a must-have tool for B2B marketers. It provides real-time data and actionable insights that help B2B companies maximize content impact and drive measurable results. With Factors, you get a custom snapshot of how your audience is engaging with your content assets so you know what's working, what's not, and what needs to change. 

Factors automatically tracks and compiles key content marketing metrics saving you time. You can use these data-driven insights to refine your content creation, enhance the distribution of your top-performing content, and refresh older content that needs improvement.

“The quality of data is amazing. It's one of the best in the market. With Factors.ai we have been able to increase our top of the funnel and at the same time we have been able to add a few into the middle of the funnel.” — Wilson L., 5-star review on G2.

Features

Factors offers a wide range of features designed to help you optimize your content marketing efforts:

• Comprehensive Content Analytics: Factors gives you in-depth insights into how your content is performing, who's engaging with it, and how well your campaigns are working. It helps content marketers easily see what's effective and make changes to optimize their strategy. As Praveen R., Head of Product Marketing at a small startup put it, Factors helped them identify the content and pages that were working well and offered good insights into the typical customer journey.
• Explain Feature: The "Explain" feature helps uncover important patterns in your data so you can spot trends and understand what's driving your results. Anirhudh Sridharan found it helpful in digging out patterns that impact their conversion metrics.
• Automated Alerts and Notifications: With this feature, you can get automated notifications about important visitor activities so you can respond promptly, engage leads at the right time and access a bigger pool of potential customers. Some Factors users have said that implementation of Factors has substantially expanded their top-level pipeline, granting them access to a broader pool of potential prospects and allowing them insight into each prospect's characteristics and behaviors. 
• Attribution Tracking for Content Campaigns: This feature helps you keep track of how your content campaigns are performing across channels so you can double down on what's working and optimize your strategy. Chaitanya G., Head of Growth at a startup mentioned, Factors provides effective solutions to various challenges faced by marketing teams while offering automated alerts, enabling them to engage with prospects at the right time and focus on targeted campaigns that result in higher ROI.

• Easy Integration with Marketing Tools: Factors integrates perfectly with the platforms you already use, bringing all your data together for a complete picture of how your content is performing. No more juggling metrics across different places—get it all in one spot for easy insight into what's driving your results.
• Account Segmentation and Audience Insights: Factors gives you the power to segment accounts based on their behaviors and interests so you can tailor your marketing just for them. See who's engaging with what content, how they're interacting with your brand over time, and what makes them tick. Then craft targeted messaging and content to match. Gayatri Ivaturi S., Director of Digital and Content Marketing at a Mid-Market company, said Factors allow them to understand website activity and buyer intent at an account level. Combining multiple custom reports, they segment and target leads based on this behavior and intent data.

“Implementing automated alerts by Factors has dramatically enhanced the efficiency of our sales team. Gone are the days of dedicating countless hours to researching prospects before initiating contact, as we now possess all the necessary information readily accessible.” — Ashok D., 5-star review on G2

Integrations

Factors.AI offers a wide range of integrations to ensure seamless data flow and enhanced functionality. Here are some of the key integrations and how you can use them:

• 6signal: Discover anonymous companies on your site so you can understand their behavior and interests. 
• Clearbit Reveal: Get the details on the companies stopping by your site so you can tailor your marketing to them. 
• Salesforce: See how your marketing activities directly impact your sales and get insights right in your CRM. 
• HubSpot: Share data between your marketing platform and CRM for a complete customer view and optimized efforts.  
• Segment: Bring all your customer data together for a deeper analysis of your audience and how to best engage them. 
• Rudderstack: Get a 360-degree customer view for smarter marketing and customer experiences.  
• Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Bing Ads: Track how your ad campaigns are performing straight from Factors. Optimize your ad spend based on real data.
• Google Search Console: Gain insights into your site's visibility and performance in Google search. Improve organic traffic based on search behaviors. 

For a full list of integrations, check out Factors’ integration page.

Pricing

Learn more about pricing here: www.factors.ai/pricing

2. Google Analytics

Google Analytics (GA)—we all know it and we've all used it at some point. For B2B SaaS brands, GA provides insights into who your customers are, how they're engaging with your content, and where the cracks are in their journey. 

Features

Google Analytics offers a range of features that are relevant to content analytics, visualization, reporting, and dashboards. Here are some key features:

• Customer-Centric Measurement: Google Analytics allows you to understand how your customers interact across your sites and apps, throughout their entire lifecycle. 
• Insights to Improve ROI: With Google's machine learning capabilities, Analytics can uncover new insights and anticipate future customer actions.
• Connect Your Insights to Results: Analytics integrates with Google's advertising and publisher tools, giving you the flexibility to optimize your marketing performance based on the insights you gain from your data.
• Make Data Work for You: Google Analytics offers an easy-to-use interface and shareable reports. You can quickly analyze your data and collaborate with your team, making your data work for you.

Integrations

Google Analytics is designed to work seamlessly with other Google solutions, providing a complete understanding of your marketing efforts and enhancing performance. Some of the top integrations include:

• Google Ads
• Search Ads 360
• Display & Video 360
• Google Cloud
• Google Search Console

Apart from these, most tools integrate and pass data to Google Analytics 

For more detailed information on these integrations, you can visit the Google Analytics Integrations page.

Pricing

Google Analytics is a free tool, making it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes. For more advanced features, Google offers Analytics 360, a more customizable version of Analytics, that is part of Google’s paid suite of products. That said, pricing starts at $150,000 per year which may not be affordable for midsized companies.

3. HubSpot

HubSpot is a comprehensive marketing analytics platform that provides insights into your marketing efforts and their impact on revenue. It offers a suite of tools for tracking, reporting, and analyzing your marketing channels.

Features

• Track the Complete Customer Lifecycle: With Hubspot, you can build reports that analyze your CRM data to discover key trends. Track the actions of your website visitors to understand behavior and trigger automation workflows. Use multi-touch revenue attribution to map how marketing touchpoints work together to drive revenue.
• Check Site Performance and Measure Traffic: You can measure traffic to your website and check its quality based on interactions. This feature also allows you to analyze how each of your pages is performing, compare key metrics like sessions and conversion rates, and find out which traffic sources bring in the most sessions and customers over time.
• Analyze Reports Across Several Marketing Channels: HubSpot's analytics are built into everything you do, right out of the box. You can see detailed reports for every marketing asset, from your website to emails, blog posts, social media, and more. Then add any report to your dashboard to track everything in one place.

Integrations

HubSpot seamlessly integrates with over 1,250 leading apps and web services, including:

• Google Contacts
• Mailchimp
• Xero
• Aircall
• Airtable
• Microsoft Dynamics 365

For more detailed information on these integrations, you can visit the HubSpot Integrations page.

Pricing

HubSpot's pricing for its marketing analytics software is structured as follows:

• Professional Plan: Starts at $800 per month, billed annually. This includes 2,000 marketing contacts. Additional marketing contacts cost $225 per month per 5,000 contacts.
• Onboarding Fee: You’re also charged a $3,000 onboarding fee for the Professional plan and a $6,000 onboarding fee for the enterprise plan. 

4. HockeyStack

HockeyStack is an analytics and attribution tool designed for B2B companies. It provides a complete picture of every customer touchpoint, from the first interaction to the closed deal, helping you refine your marketing strategy.

Features

• Attribution 2.0: HockeyStack uncovers every touchpoint, from the first interaction to the closed deal, providing a comprehensive view of the customer journey.
• Custom Dashboards and Reports: HockeyStack allows you to create custom dashboards and reports to visualize your data in a way that makes sense for your business.
• Goal, Funnel, and Segment Tracking: Track your marketing goals, funnels, and segments to understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
• CRM, Billing System, Customer Support, and Ad Network Integrations: HockeyStack integrates with your existing tech stack, providing a unified view of your marketing, sales, revenue, and product data.

Integrations

• CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce
• Ads: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Ads
• Account-Based Marketing: 6sense, Rollworks
• Marketing Automation: Mailchimp, Pardot, Marketo, HubSpot Marketing Hub

For more detailed information on these integrations, you can visit the HockeyStack Integrations page.

Pricing

HockeyStack's pricing starts from $949 per month for 10,000 visitors per month and 10 seats. The setup and onboarding are completely free.

5. Dreamdata

Dreamdata is a B2B revenue attribution platform that connects your content to pipeline and revenue. It provides insights into how your content is influencing leads, prospects, and new business, helping you make data-driven decisions about your content strategy.

Features

• Content Analytics: Dreamdata's Content Analytics provides insights into how your content is influencing leads, prospects, and new business.
• Content Funnel Performance: It allows you to see what content influenced your accounts at different stages of their journey.
• Content Performance: With Content Analytics, you can identify what source channel is bringing in the right audience to your content.
• Data-Driven Content Strategy: Dreamdata helps you develop a truly data-driven content strategy by providing insights into what content to create for each step of the funnel, how long to wait for conversions at each stage of the pipeline, what channels to invest more in, and which are your true evergreen pages.

Integrations

Dreamdata integrates with a wide range of tools across different categories. Here are some of the key integrations relevant to content marketing:

• CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Microsoft Dynamics
• Ads: LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads
• Marketing Automations: HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot
• Customer Success: Intercom
• Sales Tools: Outreach
• Website Tracking: Segment, analytics.js
• Data Warehouse: BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Snowflake
• Business Intelligence: Google Data Studio, Tableau, Looker, PowerBI, Metabase
• Reverse ETL: Hightouch, Census

For more detailed information on these integrations, you can visit the Dreamdata Integrations page.

Pricing

Dreamdata offers several pricing tiers, starting from a free tier to custom enterprise solutions:

• Free: $0/month, includes up to 30,000 Monthly Tracked Users, up to 5 Seats, B2B Web Analytics, Unified Ad Spend Report, Company Enrichment & Segmentation, De-anonymize Traffic, LinkedIn Ads Engagement, and the option to share reports with your colleagues.
• Team: From $599/month, includes everything for Free, plus 30,000 Monthly Tracked Users, up to 10 Seats, Connect your CRM, Revenue & Multi-Touch Attribution, Performance Analytics & ROAS, Customer Journeys up to 2 years, LinkedIn & Google Conversion Optimization, and Data-Driven Contact to Company resolution.
• Business: From $1,499/month, includes everything in the Team, plus 60,000 Monthly Tracked Users, 20 Seats, Connect your Marketing Automation, Replay Historical Tracking Data, Content Analytics, Customer Journeys up to 3 years, SSO & User Roles, and Shared SOC2 Type II Report.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing, includes everything in Business, plus Unlimited Monthly Tracked Users, 30 Seats, ROI & CAC Reporting, Data Warehouse Access, Custom Stage Objects, Custom Attribution Model, SAML, OpenID, Azure AD, OneLogin, or Okta, and Service Level Agreement.

6. Matomo

Matomo is a powerful open-source analytics platform that provides insights into your website's traffic and marketing effectiveness. It's designed to give you complete control over your data, with a strong focus on privacy compliance.

Features

• Content Tracking: Matomo's Content Tracking feature shows how effective specific pieces of content are at generating interactions on your website or app. It tracks content impressions and content interactions, allowing you to analyze the interaction rate and discover the most effective placements and variations for your content.
• Customizable Dashboard: Matomo allows you to customize your dashboard to suit your needs, providing a personalized view of your analytics.
• Multiple Integrations: Matomo can be integrated with the most popular Content Management Systems, Ecommerce platforms, and Tag Managers.

Integrations

Matomo offers a variety of integrations with popular Content Management Systems, Ecommerce platforms, and Tag Managers. Here are some of the key integrations:

• Content Management Systems (CMS): WordPress, Wix, Webflow, Squarespace, Drupal, GoDaddy Website Builder, Jimdo, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Joomla, Kajabi
• Ecommerce: Shopify
• Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager
• Other: Cloudflare, React, Vue.js

Pricing

Matomo offers several pricing plans, including a free option:

1. Free Plan: This plan is free and includes self-hosted analytics, full data ownership, and no data limits.
2. Cloud-hosted Plans: Starts at $23/month for 50,000 hits a month. The pricing increases as your monthly traffic grows. However, all plans, including the base plan have all the important features. 
3. Enterprise Plan: If you need Custom data limits, custom data retention period, white labeling, custom domains, or specific enterprise requirements, this plan is the ideal fit for your needs. 

Experience The True Potential of Your Content Marketing Analytics

The B2B SaaS landscape has evolved beyond traditional content marketing and embraced the power of data-driven decision-making. Content marketing analytics tools enable this transition and help marketers better understand their audience, optimize campaigns, and ultimately, drive growth and success.

Factors stands out as an exceptional choice for SaaS businesses in search of an analytics tool.  It not only reveals hidden insights but also streamlines the most complex aspects of content marketing strategy. It works behind the scenes to reveal anonymous website visitors, track customer journeys, and offer actionable data. It equips businesses with the invaluable information needed for strategic, well-informed marketing decisions.

So, don't let the vast sea of data intimidate you. A powerful and flexible content marketing analytics tool like Factors can make your life simple. 

Ready to make the best of your content marketing efforts? Book a demo with Factors today and see how it can help you make the right decisions.

Did you know the content market industry is projected to reach an astounding $107 billion by 2026? With such high stakes, almost half of the marketers have planned to increase their content marketing budgets this year.

But here's the catch: while everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, measuring content marketing ROI is where many marketers trip.

In this article, we'll discuss 5 of the most common mistakes marketers make when measuring content marketing ROI. 

What is Content Marketing ROI?

Content marketing return on investment (ROI), is a metric that measures the revenue a business earns from its content marketing efforts compared to the cost of those efforts. It's a way to quantify the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy in terms of financial returns.

Calculating content marketing ROI might seem daunting, but it's quite straightforward. Here's a simple formula:

This formula gives you a percentage that represents your return on investment. 

For example, if you spent $1000 on content marketing and earned $3000 in revenue, the profit is $2000. This means your ROI is 200%---you made $2 for every $1 spent.

Why is Measuring Content ROI Important?

Here are some of the major reasons why every marketer must measure the ROI from content marketing:

Streamline Budget and Resource Allocation

Content marketing is a broad field that includes various types of content—from blog posts and social media updates to podcasts and videos. 

Each of these content types requires different resources and has a different impact on your audience. When you measure the ROI of each content type, you can understand which ones are delivering the best results and allocate higher budgets to that type of content.

Let's consider an example. Suppose you have a budget of $10,000 for content marketing. You decide to split it equally between blog posts and video content, spending $5000 on each.

A few months in, you find that:

• Your blog posts generated $10,000 in revenue, giving you an ROI of 100% (10,000 - 5,000) / 5,000 * 100
• Your videos generated $20,000 in revenue, giving you an ROI of 300% (20,000 - 5,000) / 5,000 * 100.

Along with revenue, your attribution model shows that while blog posts are often the first touchpoint, videos are the last touchpoint before a customer makes a purchase.

This data suggests this—blog posts are important for attracting customers and videos are more effective at converting them. As a result, you decide to allocate a higher budget to video production in the future.

This kind of data-driven decision-making can help you optimize your content marketing strategy and ensure that your resources are being used effectively.

Helps with Executive Buy-In

We've all heard of a CEO or CMO who redirected their marketing budget from organic to paid ads. Why does this happen? The answer—content marketing does not offer an immediate or direct conversion, unlike paid marketing. 

However, a comprehensive tracking and analytics system like Factors makes attributing revenue and sales to content marketing easier. All the data is displayed in the form of a user timeline in chronological order. You see all the touchpoints all the way from the first one right up to the conversion, helping you set up attribution and get executive buy-in for increased budgets. 

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Can Reduce Churn

When tracking ROI, you tend to notice gaps within your existing content. This could be a lack of knowledge base, FAQs, video tutorials, or other content pieces. 

If you notice that your customers interact and use your existing knowledge base a lot, you can double down on the content there to help them make the most out of your product or service. 

As customers become more invested in your products through these efforts, sunk cost fallacy comes into play and your customers are less likely to switch.

Improve Collaboration Between Sales and Marketing

Measuring content ROI also requires collaboration between the sales and marketing teams. During sales calls, your sales team can identify which content a user viewed before booking the demo. They can then correlate the conversion rates with the type of content to identify what performs best.

For instance, if whitepapers or webinars are effective in moving leads further down the sales funnel, your marketing team can double down on these pieces. This can also help the sales team close more leads and bring in more revenue.

Mistakes to Avoid When Measuring Content Marketing ROI

When it comes to measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your content marketing efforts, there are several common mistakes that marketers often make. Avoiding these pitfalls can help you gain a more accurate understanding of your content's performance and its impact on your bottom line.

1. Not Understanding the True Cost of Content Production and Distribution

Most marketing teams do not track the true cost of content production and distribution. 

This cost includes both 

• direct costs: such as the cost of hiring writers or purchasing content
• indirect costs: such as the time spent by your team to manage, edit, and distribute the content.

According to a Forbes article, content is the gasoline that fuels the entire marketing engine. Just like gasoline, there are different grades of content and each grade comes at a different price. Knowing the collective costs of creating and distributing content is the best way to start identifying the ROI from your content marketing efforts.

2. Relying Exclusively on Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics make you feel good about your marketing efforts. They include website page views, the number of subscribers on your newsletter list, the number of likes or followers on social media, and email open rates.

However, vanity metrics tell you nothing about your business performance.

For example, a million monthly page views might sound impressive. But if they do not translate into sales, they are not contributing to your bottom line. Similarly, having a large number of email subscribers is meaningless if they do not engage with your content and take the desired actions.

Instead, focus on actionable metrics like: 

• website conversion rates
• click-through rates of email campaigns
• customer acquisition costs
• positive brand mentions on socials and other websites

These metrics help you better understand how your content is impacting your bottom line and make data-driven decisions to improve your content marketing ROI.

3. Ignoring Micro-Conversions

Micro-conversions are the smaller actions that website users take on the path to macro-conversions. 

Micro conversions can include actions such as:

• signing up for a newsletter
• downloading a whitepaper
• brand mention on social media

While these actions may not directly lead to a sale, they are important indicators of user engagement and can provide valuable insights into the customer journey.

Ignoring these micro-conversions can lead to missed opportunities for optimization and improvement. But tracking and analyzing these small actions helps you better understand your customer's behavior and make impactful decisions for your content strategy.

4. Relying only on self-attribution

Self-attribution is the source of conversion as reported by the customers themselves. This could be through surveys, feedback forms, or other direct communication where the customer tells you how they found out about you or what influenced their decision to convert.

A study by Google mentions that customers have an average of 2.8 touchpoints before making a purchase. This means that if you're only attributing success to the last touchpoint, you're missing out on considering the impact of the other 1.8 touchpoints.

Consider a customer who discovered your brand through a blog post. They also engaged with your social media content before making a purchase through a promotional email. If you ask this customer what influenced their purchase, they may mention it was the promotional email. But that undervalues the role of other pieces of content within the buyer journey.

To avoid this mistake, complement self-attribution data with other methods of tracking customer interactions. This means, using analytics tools like Factors to track customer behavior on your website and across platforms, and implementing various attribution models to consider all touchpoints in the customer journey. 

For example, a linear attribution model would give equal credit to all touchpoints, while a time-decay model would give more credit to the touchpoints closer to the conversion. 

Let’s now look at how we can calculate the content marketing ROI with an example. 

Calculating Content Marketing ROI With An Example

Let's take a look at an example to better understand how to measure the ROI of a content marketing campaign. 

Suppose one of your blog posts started ranking on Google through SEO and was also promoted on social media and email campaigns. 

By the end of the month, the blog got 800+ unique visitors – 500 through search engines and 300 through promotional efforts. Of these 800 visitors, 60 signed up for the product.

You earn around $5000 from these 60 customers

If the cost of producing and promoting the blog post was $1000—which includes the cost of writing and repurposing the content across platforms, what’s our ROI on this piece of content?

Using the content marketing ROI formula:

ROI = ($5000 - $1000) / $1000 * 100% = 400%

This means that for every $1 spent on the blog post, you earned $4 back. 

And because SEO content keeps bringing in visitors, long after the work is done, you continue to reap the benefits from these efforts.

Measure your content efforts with Factors 

Let’s get started with a practical setup of how you can leverage Factors for content marketing ROI measurement. 

Step 1: Define Your Goals and Metrics

Before you start measuring your content performance, you need to determine what success means for content marketing. 

For you, it could mean increasing website traffic, generating leads, improving conversion rates, or boosting customer engagement. Determining your metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you measure your progress toward these goals.

Factors provide Attribution tracking which helps you create reports that attribute your marketing efforts to specific goals and metrics.  

Here's how you can build an event report in Factors.ai:

1. Log in to Factors and click on Reports > Analyse

2. Next, click Attribution Reports. These reports keep track of all the touchpoints through the platforms that Factors has connected with and UTM data to identify the source of conversion. 

3. Next, we need to identify the specific goals that signify a successful conversion. 

Step 2: Set Up Tracking/Attribution

If you haven’t set up events, you can do so by clicking on the configure icon beside your profile picture and clicking Events.

1. Factors also automatically track events across all the pages of your website. You can simply set a page as your conversion goal (for ex. Demo page). Let’s take this as an example and create an attribution report. 
2. The conversion goal is set to the /schedule-a-demo page. 

3. Marketing touch points are the type of marketing campaigns that you want to track within these reports. Tactics are outbound marketing campaigns like Google ads. Offers are inbound marketing tactics like landing pages and content that you create to bring in visitors. 
4. We then pick the Property as a Campaign here so we can attribute the marketing efforts to specific campaigns. You can pick a source if you want to identify which of your channels is bringing in the most conversions. 
5. Then, we move to Criteria. This helps you configure how a conversion is attributed to a specific campaign. We’ll start by configuring it to the first touchpoint. This means all conversions are attributed to the first touchpoint. 

We also set the time window to 30 days. This ensures that even if a visitor converts after 30 days, you can attribute it back to the first touchpoint. 

6. Once done, click Run analysis and you’ll have a complete visual report specifying exactly what campaigns bring in your leads. 

Step 3: Understanding Campaign Costs and ROI

Scrolling down the report will give you a breakdown of individual campaigns that bring in leads. 

1. Factors can also bring in the ad spends for each campaign on a single dashboard. This means you can identify how much money was spent on a campaign vs. the return. 

2. Scroll below the chart to see the breakup. This breakup will give you insight into how your content marketing performs and the number of conversions it brings in.

With that, you have a fundamental understanding of how to attribute business success to your content marketing efforts and showcase the impact to the stakeholders. 

However, it’s just the beginning. Factors integrates with 6signal by 6sense, Hubspot, Zapier, Ads platforms, Slack, and many other tools to bring data from across platforms under a single dashboard. This lets you create comprehensive reports and also gives you a holistic view of all your marketing campaigns, no matter the platform.

Leverage The Factors Advantage for Content Marketing ROI Optimization

With content marketing, you're juggling multiple tasks—creating content, tracking performance, and more importantly, measuring return on investment (ROI). But, measuring ROI isn’t straightforward. It involves setting clear goals, tracking the right metrics, understanding your costs, and connecting the dots to get a holistic view. 

That’s a lot to handle. But Factors is here to simplify things for you.

It makes tracking and understanding your content marketing efforts a breeze. With its analytics and attribution tools, you can easily track user behavior, identify key touchpoints, and optimize your sales process. Plus, Factors’ customizable dashboards give you a real-time view of your key metrics, helping you make data-driven decisions on the fly.

So, are you ready to unlock the full potential of your content marketing? Then it's time to take the next step. Book a demo with Factors and start your journey towards content marketing success, today!

For SaaS businesses, content is more than a 'good-to-have'—it's a business asset. A staggering 92% of marketers acknowledge the importance of content in the growth of their business. 

But, merely recognizing the importance is not enough. You also need to understand what effective content marketing is, how it catalyzes growth, and what metrics can measure its effectiveness. 

In this article, we’ll look at the top content marketing metrics and KPIs you need to measure for content effectiveness and success. Let's get started.

What are Content Marketing Metrics?

Content marketing metrics quantify the effectiveness of your strategy and content marketing efforts. They offer an understanding of how well your content—whether blogs, emails, videos, etc.—is engaging your target audience and converting them into customers.

As you continue to scale content, tracking these metrics should be of utmost importance, especially for SaaS marketing teams. 

These metrics provide clarity about the strengths and weaknesses of your content strategy and can help you measure specific attributes of your content that your target audience likes—guiding your future content decisions.

Most importantly, content marketing metrics serve as a gauge for your content's impact on your business success, helping you make data-driven decisions and strategic adjustments to enhance the ROI.

Why Your SaaS Company Needs to Track Content Metrics

Content marketing metrics provide key insights into what's performing, what's not, and where you need to make changes. Metrics help you:

• Understand Your Audience Behavior: Stats like page views, time on page, and bounce rate paint a clear picture of how your audience interacts with your content. Are they hooked or leaving quickly? What content pieces are they consuming? And how can this data help create content that aligns with our audience's preferences? These insights help you create content that better fits what your audience wants.
• See Content Performance: How do you know if your content is successful? Social shares, comments, and conversion rates show whether your content resonates with your audience and leads them to sign up, download, buy, or any other goal you may have. 
• Plan Future Content: By tracking metrics over time, you spot trends and patterns to shape your future content plans. For example, if one type of content always does well, create more of that type of content. 
• Optimize Your Content: Tracking metrics allow constant optimization of your content. You can test different strategies, see their impact, and refine your content based on what works best. 
• Prove ROI: Content marketing costs time and money. Metrics such as revenue, leads generated, and customer acquisition cost help show it's worth the investment. Execs want to see returns.      

Next, let’s explore the types of metrics SaaS companies should monitor. 

The Metrics Guiding Your B2B Content Strategy

As a B2B company, content marketing metrics are your compass to success. They show how to navigate the sea of content and connect with your audience. Here we explore the five types of key metrics to measure:

Consumption Metrics

These are the most basic metrics and provide insights into how your audience consumes your content. These metrics also look at the frequency and depth of their content consumption. 

Stats like pageviews, sessions, and referrals reveal how many view your content, how often, and the channels they use. 

Engagement Metrics

With engagement metrics, you can determine how your audience interacts with your content. They also help you guide your future content creation decisions by understanding what content is attractive to your audience. 

Data on likes, shares, comments, and session duration are a few examples of engagement metrics. Keep track of these metrics to ensure steady growth and to build influence over time.

Retention Metrics

Once your audience has consumed and engaged with your content, they can either bounce off to never return, or keep coming back for more. Retention metrics help you understand how many of your users return to your content or website for more. 

Data on return visits, subscription rates, and churn rates signal how valuable your audience finds your content. 

For a SaaS business, retention can be difficult as competitors are prying for opportunities to copy your effort. But once you develop a content moat (think Hubspot or Drip), you have a strong business asset that prevents your customers from going elsewhere. 

Cost Metrics

Next we come down to the metrics that tell you how valuable the content is for your business. These numbers include the cost per lead (CPL), cost per click (CPC), return on ad spend (ROAS), ROI, and others. 

Cost metrics show whether your content achieves outcomes efficiently. It also helps you understand how long before your content starts generating positive ROI for your business and can help guide your budgeting decisions. 

Lead Gen Metrics

Businesses create and distribute content to bring in leads. Lead gen metrics tell you how many leads your content has generated.

These metrics include lead volume, lead quality, and conversion rates indicating your content's impact on your business. 

While these metrics may work individually, a combination of these metrics gives you a holistic view of your content performance. They steer your strategy by revealing what's effective and what needs refinement. 

Content Marketing Metrics vs. KPIs: What’s the Difference?

Metrics and KPIs are words commonly thrown around in the marketing world. But what’s the difference? While KPIs and metrics are both quantitative measurements, they serve different purposes. 

While all KPIs are metrics, not all metrics are KPIs. Understanding the difference between these two can help you better track and measure your content marketing success.

12 Content Marketing Metrics and KPIs SaaS Companies Should Measure

Now that you have a grasp on the types of metrics in content marketing, let’s look at the 12 most important content marketing metrics you need to keep track of to ensure your decisions are backed by the right data. 

1. Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the number of visitors who land on your website from unpaid search results. 

This metric is a testament to the quality of your website's search engine optimization (SEO). It's a reflection of your website's relevance and the quality of its content. The higher your organic traffic, the more opportunities you have to generate leads and conversions.

Suppose you have recently started a blog to drive more organic traffic. You look at a tool like Google Search Console or Factors to see that your website has received 5,000 visits from organic search after a month of content efforts. 

This indicates that 5,000 people found your website through a search engine and visited your site, demonstrating the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. Here, you can also check the keywords and terms that people search for to find your content. 

2. Impressions

Impressions represent the number of times your ad or content is displayed and viewed by users. In the context of digital marketing, impressions give you an idea of the reach of your content. It's a measure of potential audience size, giving you insights into the potential reach of your content or ads.

Factors helps you see the exact number of impressions for all your campaigns in a single place. It makes it easy for you to take a holistic decision on what campaigns are working and how you can optimize your marketing channels with the best ads. 

Consider that you run a LinkedIn ad campaign and your ad has 10,000 impressions. This means LinkedIn showed your ad to 10,000 people. It also helps you decide if segmenting further or broadening your keywords and audience can improve reach and targeting. 

3. Clickthrough Rate

Clickthrough rate (CTR) is a ratio that compares the number of times your viewers click on a specific link to the number of total views on a page, email, or advertisement.

It's a key performance indicator for ad campaigns and provides insights into the effectiveness of your ads or emails. A higher CTR indicates that more people are clicking on your link, which could lead to higher conversions.

For example, an ad that was displayed 10,000 times (impressions) and received 200 clicks has a CTR of 2%. This means that 2% of the people who saw your ad ended up clicking on it. With this metric, you understand how well your ad copy or content is working for your audience on the platform.

4. Content-Assisted Demos

Content-assisted demos are the number of demos that were influenced by your content. 

This metric is part of the marketing funnel and helps you understand the effectiveness of your content in driving leads and sales. It's a powerful indicator of the quality and relevance of your content, as it shows how well your content is able to engage potential customers and lead them further down the sales funnel.

Let’s assume you've published a blog post about the benefits of your product and included a call-to-action (CTA) to schedule a demo. Of 10,000 people who visit the blog post, 500 book the demo. 

That gives you a CTR of 5%. However, attributing it to your content could be difficult. A tool like Factors can help you visualize the marketing funnel and tell you exactly how many of your leads came from your blog posts vs your website home page.

5. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who land on your website and exit your website without looking at other pages. In other words, they "bounce off” instead of continuing to other pages within your site. 

While this could indicate that your content solves the need that a user came in for, it also tells you that there’s more you can do to retain your visitors. The average bounce rate hovers around 50%. 

To calculate the bounce rate, you divide the total number of single-page visits by the total number of entries to a website. The resulting figure is then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.

Let’s assume one of your blog posts attracts 100 visitors a month. Of those, 40 left after reading just that one post. In this case, your bounce rate is 40% which means 40% of your visitors don’t interact with your site beyond the initial page they landed on. You can improve retention by looking at the time on the page, scroll depth, and tracking overall website behavior.

6. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost of resources and efforts a business allocates to gain new paying customers.

CAC is a critical business metric for determining the resources required to acquire and onboard new customers, and it helps assess your company’s overall health and profitability. It's calculated by dividing the total costs associated with acquisition by total new customers, within a specific time period.

Let's consider that you offer a project management tool. Your monthly marketing budget is $10,000, which includes costs for ad spend, content creation, and marketing software. In that month, you acquire 200 new customers. 

The CAC would be $10,000 divided by 200, which equals $50. 

This means you spend $50 on average, to acquire each new customer. This is an important number for understanding the efficiency of your marketing efforts and for planning future marketing budgets. 

7. Unique Visitors

Unique visitors are the number of individual people visiting your website over a certain period of time.

This metric is critical for understanding the size and reach of your website's audience. It's different from the number of visits, which counts the total number of times your website has been visited by both new and old visitors. Instead, the unique visitors metric tells you just the number of users that have visited your website — avoiding double-counting those who visited multiple times. 

Factors’ web sessions view

Suppose you recently started a blog to drive more organic traffic. A tool like Factors can measure that your website has received 3,000 visits in a month, but only from 2,000 individual users, some of whom may have visited multiple times. This means that your unique visitors for that month would be 2,000, indicating the size of your audience and the effectiveness of your user acquisition strategies.

8. SERP Ranking

SERP (Search Engine Results Page) ranking refers to the position of a website's content on the search engine results page.

The lower the number (for example, 1 is better than 7), the better your search visibility and the higher the chances of people visiting your site organically. It's a direct reflection of your SEO efforts, keyword relevance, backlink profile, and website quality that influences your ranking.

Suppose you offer a project management tool, and your blog post titled "Top 10 Project Management Tools in 2023" ranks 1st on the SERP for the keyword "project management tools 2023". You can view the SERP position by either directly searching on Google for your keyword or checking Google Search Console. Rank 1 means your SEO efforts have been successful in making your content highly visible to users searching for that specific keyword.

By employing a professional SEO tool like SE Ranking, you gain the ability to analyze the pages that currently hold top positions on the SERP. This valuable insight helps you understand the strategies and tactics that contribute to their success. Continuous monitoring of your competitors' rankings ensures that you stay informed about the dynamic landscape of search engine results.

9. Pages Per Session

Also known as page depth or depth of visit, pages per session reveal the average number of pages a user views during a single session on your website.

This metric tells you the effectiveness of your site content in keeping viewers engaged and navigating through your site. A higher number of pages per session indicates compelling content and an intuitive site design that encourages exploration. However, do note that most of your visitors will view a single page and leave. 

Factors pages per session report

Suppose your marketing analytics tool shows an average of 5 pages per session. This means that users, on average, visit 5 different pages on your website in a single session. This could be a result of effective internal linking, engaging content, or a user-friendly site layout that encourages navigation.

10. Average Time on Page

Average Time on Page measures the average time users spend on a specific page before moving on to another one or exiting your site.

This metric helps you understand your users’ engagement with your site content. A high average time on a page generally indicates that users find your content valuable and engaging. However, the ideal duration will vary depending on the type of content you're offering and the goals of your website.

Let's consider that you've published a comprehensive guide on "How to Use Your SaaS Product". A month after publishing, you note that the average time on this page is 7 minutes. 

Depending on the length of your guide, this may indicate that users are likely reading the entire guide or at least skimming through the important parts you may have highlighted. You can dive deeper into this by looking at click maps or scroll depth. 

This shows that users are finding value in your guide and you should continue producing similar assets for your business.

11. Traffic Source

Traffic Source is the origin or medium through which visitors arrive at your website or digital platform. Knowing your traffic sources helps businesses know exactly what channels the marketing team should double down on and what channels are not generating enough ROI to keep going.  

For instance, consider an e-commerce store that sells handmade home accessories. The store owner has implemented various marketing strategies like social media, paid advertising, organic search, and email marketing to drive traffic to the website. To evaluate the effectiveness of these promotional efforts, the store owner needs to analyze traffic sources to determine which is bringing the most visitors and which source results in the highest conversion rate.

Factors can indicate that 1,000 website visitors arrived from the following traffic sources—500 from social media, 200 from paid advertising, 200 from organic search, and 100 from email marketing campaigns. Based on this information, the marketing team can focus more on their social media strategy.

12. Scroll Depth

Scroll depth is a measure of how far down a webpage a user scrolls. It indicates how much of your content is being consumed and can provide insights into user engagement.

Scroll depth tracking in Factors allows you to see how much of a web page your visitors actually view. 

For example, if you have a blog post that is 2000 pixels long, and users on average scroll 1000 pixels, your average scroll depth would be 50%. 

This means that on average, users are viewing half of your content. If the scroll depth is low, it might indicate that users are not finding the content engaging or relevant, prompting you to optimize your content strategy. Along with this, you can create a custom report in Factors plotting how the scroll depth has improved as you update your site content and UX.

Unlock The Full Potential of Your Content Strategy

A data-driven content strategy is fundamental for any SaaS company seeking to maximize lead generation, website optimization, and business growth. A focus on metrics and KPIs paired with a comprehensive content analytics tool like Factors can help you gain deeper insights into your audience's behavior, content performance, and ROI. 

Along with the basic metrics, Factors also helps you discover anonymous accounts visiting your website. This data can help you further optimize your account-based marketing efforts giving you a list of customers with the highest potential for conversion. 

So, do not let valuable insights slip away—detect opportunities, gauge your success, and set your sights on new heights with Factors by your side.

Top 10 Content Marketing Metrics for SaaS Growth

Tracking key metrics ensures effective content marketing strategies and sustainable business growth.

1. Core Metrics: Organic traffic, conversion rate, and customer acquisition cost (CAC).

2. Engagement Indicators: Time on page, bounce rate, and click-through rate (CTR).

3. Strategic Impact: Backlinks, social shares, lead quality, and customer lifetime value (CLV).Monitoring these KPIs helps SaaS companies refine content strategies, boost engagement, and drive long-term success.

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Let’s say your ICP is VP of digital marketing, and she’s looking for a CRM. Her biggest challenges are maximizing ROI and ensuring consistency in leads, she reports to the CMO, and wants a platform that offers one-click integrations with various MarTech she and her team needs. And because this is a B2B purchase, you know she’s not the only decision maker. 

So, you gather this persona-specific information about all your target designations and individuals, and, then, create a marketing campaign. You have personalized content and ads, and you’re truly adding value in their buyer journey. Now, imagine a personalized campaign like that will have on their decision. 

This is where the importance of intent data in ABM becomes evident. By leveraging intent data, you can identify your "best-fit" accounts and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly. You gain insights into the challenges they face, their preferences, and their buying signals. Understanding their buyer intent allows you to align your messaging, content, and offers to precisely address their needs. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of capturing their attention, building trust, and ultimately influencing their decision-making process. 

A campaign with already-qualified ICP, targeted campaigns, and with the understanding they actually need the solution has a more probability of success as compared to the traditional marketing. This method has gained so much popularity in the recent past that approximately 98% of organizations currently use or plan to use ABM as a strategic tactic—and at the core of each successful campaign is understanding the intent of your ideal buyer. 

This guide breaks down everything you need to know about using intent data to supercharge your ABM strategy in 2025.

TL;DR

• Precision Targeting: Intent data reveals which accounts are actively searching for your solution, enabling smarter segmentation and prioritization.
• Personalized Campaigns: Tailor messaging to each stakeholder’s unique interest—whether it’s cost, time savings, or operational efficiency.
• Faster Conversions: Companies using buyer intent shorten sales cycles by 30% and see significantly higher conversion rates.
• Future-Ready Tech: By 2025, AI-powered models will automate and enhance the use of intent signals across CRM, ad platforms, and marketing automation tools.

But First, What Is Buyer Intent? 

Essentially, it is little clues and actions that help you understand your ‘best fit’ target audience actually needs the solution you’re selling, and it helps you engage with them on their terms. 

With buyer intent, your marketing and sales teams proactively engage with all contacts within a target account. By precisely targeting your marketing messages towards your ideal customers and utilizing the channels where your target audience are most likely to be noticed, such as social media, display advertising, video, or mobile, you can generate the continued momentum needed to close sales.

Engagement is a pivotal stage in account-based marketing, which encompasses a wide range of methods to interact with your prospects. Email outreach, webinars, ebooks, targeted advertisements, videos, events, programmatic or automated approaches, there are various methods by which you engage with your buyer. By collecting and leveraging buyer intent data, the entire engagement process becomes more personalized. 

For example, consider you’re selling talent acquisition software. And as we all know well, there’s never just one decision maker in B2B, so you need to engage and show value to all of the decision makers. So, for the chief human resources officer, you create campaigns regarding cost optimization; for hiring managers, you talk about time saving; and for talent managers, you mention the quality of candidates and reduction of repetitive tasks. This way, you’re systematically delivering value on each level, and also engaging with them in their terms. 

So, by incorporating buyer intent into your account-based marketing strategy, you can enhance your engagement efforts, personalize your messaging, and establish more meaningful connections with your target audience, which, in turn, maximizes your ROI on each campaign. 

How Intent Data Has Evolved in B2B Marketing

Since 2020, the role of intent data in B2B marketing has taken a giant leap. It started out as a simple tool for lead scoring but has now become the backbone of sophisticated Account Based Marketing (ABM) strategies. Did you know that 87% of buyers now prefer to navigate their buying journey independently? That's why picking up on intent signals early is incredibly important.

Here's how modern B2B companies are using buyer intent data:

• Spotting which accounts are actively on the hunt for solutions.
• Getting a handle on their specific pain points and challenges.
• Timing their outreach perfectly for the best impact.
• Tailoring content and communications to fit.
• Predicting buying behavior and preferences.

In a nutshell, if you want to stay ahead of the curve in today's marketing world, tapping into buyer intent data isn't just smart—it's essential.

How Buyer Intent Data Is Collected

As the ‘outside-in’ approach is absolutely fundamental to ABM, you need buyer intent data as a prerequisite to create a campaign. So, here’s what you should be collecting and evaluating:

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1. Website Tracking 

By tracking website behavior, businesses can gather intent signals such as:

• Visitor navigates to specific product pages, indicating interest in those offerings.
• Visitor spends a significant amount of time on the pricing or comparison page, signaling a potential purchase decision.
• Visitor fills out a form to request a demo, suggesting a strong intent to explore the product further.

2. Search Data

Examples of intent signals collected from search data include:

• For example, user searches for "best budget CRM," indicating an intent to purchase a CRM within a specific price range.
• User searches for "how to improve SEO ranking," showing an intent to learn about SEO strategies and techniques.
• User visits software comparison sites, such as G2 and software select, and searches for “best ABM tool”, indicating they are in need of an ABM partner.

3. Content Consumption

Intent signals extracted from content consumption may include:

• User spends five minutes reading an in-depth blog post about email marketing automation, indicating a strong interest in the topic.
• User watches a video tutorial on setting up a smart home system, suggesting an intent to implement the technology.
• User downloads an ebook on social media advertising strategies, indicating an intent to enhance their social media marketing efforts.

4. Social Media Listening 

Examples of intent signals gathered through social media listening include:

• User tweets, "Looking for recommendations for a reliable web hosting provider," indicating an intent to find a suitable hosting service.
• User comments on a Facebook post, asking for suggestions on the best CRM software for small businesses, showing an intent to explore CRM options.
• User shares an article about the latest digital marketing trends, signifying an interest in staying informed about industry developments.

5. Form Submissions

Intent signals obtained from form submissions can include:

• User fills out a contact form, providing details about their business and a specific inquiry, demonstrating an intent to engage with the company's offerings.
• User completes a form to register for a webinar on content marketing strategies, indicating an intent to gain knowledge in that area.
• User requests a quote by filling out a form, suggesting a potential intent to make a purchase.

However, not all data is relevant data. 

Say, a seemingly fit profile shares an article about CRM types, that doesn’t immediately mean they’re in the market to buy one. Which is why, you need buyer intent data measurement and qualification process, so you don’t end up chasing dead leads. And here’s a great way to start:

1. Scoring and Ranking: With buyer intent data, assign scores or rankings based on specific criteria. This will allow you to prioritize leads and prospects based on their level of intent—this essentially means prioritizing high-intent accounts so they’re addressed first, while you continue to nurture the less-intent accounts. Factors such as website engagement, content consumption, and online behavior are assessed to determine the strength of a visitor's intent. For instance, Factors.ai helps you engage with high-intent accounts with behavioral and firmographic (relating to the firm) filters.
   
   
2. Data Analytics: Advanced data analytics techniques can also be employed to analyze buyer intent data. These techniques involve examining patterns, trends, and correlations within the data to uncover insights about visitor behavior, interests, and potential buying intentions. 

Note: For the purpose of qualification, you can follow the BANT mechanism. It is an acronym of qualification questions, Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline, that can help you prioritize accounts. 

By now, we’ve talked plenty about how buyer intent can help you delineate your strategic ABM accounts, how you can measure those signals, and what parameters can help you prioritize accounts. But, how are ABM and intent signals related—let’s get into it now!

What Are The Different Types Of Intent Data Available for ABM

Imagine having a pair of super-powered glasses that let you see exactly what your potential customers are up to. Intent data does this for Account-Based Marketing (ABM). There are two main types, each offering its own set of insights.

First-Party Intent Signals 

These are the gems you gather straight from your own digital turf. Here’s what they include:

• How people move around your website.
• What content are they downloading and engaging with?
• Their interactions with your emails.
• Signing up for events.
• Requesting demos.
• Filling out forms.

Third-Party Intent Signals 

Now, let’s step outside your own bubble. Third-party data gives you a peek into:

• How folks interact with industry publications.
• Visits to review sites.
• Research on competitors.
• Engagement on social media.
• Forum chats.
• Browsing tech review platforms.

The Power of Combining Both First Party & Third Party Intent Signals

The real magic kicks in when you mix these two data sources. Picture this: a company checks out your competitor’s products (third-party) and then heads over to your pricing page (first-party). That’s a pretty strong hint they’re ready to buy.

By 2025, the most successful ABM strategies will not just use one type of data over the other. Instead, they will blend both to get a full picture of buyer behavior. This approach will lead to spot-on targeting and better conversion rates.

📊 Learn how to use buyer intent data for ABM — this video breaks it down step-by-step with real examples.

What’s The Connection Between Buyer Intent And Account Based Marketing?

Essentially, all marketing boils down to intent: whether it is following the traditional funnel or the inverted (ABM) funnel. This is because most buyers turn to online research to identify their problems, find suitable solutions, and choose the right vendors. This behavior provides valuable signals about their stage in the buying process, whether they're at the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel. 

Some of the ways buyer intent can directly impact your account based marketing practices are:

1. Identifying High-Intent Accounts 

Buyer intent data helps discover accounts that show strong indications of purchase intent. By analyzing intent signals, such as website interactions, content consumption, or form submissions, businesses can pinpoint the accounts that are actively researching or expressing interest in their products or services. These accounts become the primary focus of ABM initiatives.

2. Driving Conversion and Revenue 

The ultimate goal of ABM is to drive conversions and generate revenue from target accounts. Buyer intent data plays a critical role in this process by enabling businesses to identify accounts that are in the later stages of the buying journey and more likely to make a purchase. By aligning ABM strategies with buyer intent, companies can effectively nurture and convert high-intent accounts, leading to increased revenue and business growth.

By leveraging intent data, businesses can gain deeper insights into the needs and interests of their target accounts. This allows them to tailor their marketing efforts more effectively and engage with potential customers at the right stage of their purchasing journey. Intent data enhances the precision and relevance of ABM initiatives, ultimately improving the chances of success.

Pro tip: By identifying and delineating the right buyer for each account, you can reduce the margin of error and create an idiot-proof statement of work (SOW) on which products and services will be offered to the account during the nurture stage. 

Step-By-Step Guide To Leverage Intent data In Your ABM Strategy

Incorporating intent data into your account-based marketing (ABM) strategy can greatly enhance your targeting and engagement efforts. So, here is a step-by-step guide to help you effectively integrate intent data into your ABM approach:

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) 

Begin by clearly defining your ideal customer profile, including key attributes, characteristics, and firmographic data. This will serve as the foundation for your ABM strategy and help you align intent data with your target audience.

Step 2: Identify Relevant Intent Signals 

Determine the intent signals that are most relevant to your business and align with your ICP. These signals could include website visits, content consumption, search behavior, engagement with specific topics or keywords, or interactions with your marketing assets.

Step 3: Leverage Intent Data Providers 

Research and partner with intent data providers that offer reliable and accurate data relevant to your target audience. These providers can help you access and analyze intent data from various sources, such as IP-intelligence, behavioral tracking tools, or social listening platforms. 

Factors.ai, for example, helps you collect and analyze campaign, website, and funnel analytics and helps you add predictability in your campaigns. With customizable properties, dashboards, and dimensions, its proven to deliver better ROI on marketing campaigns. 

Step 4: Integrate Intent Data with Your CRM and Marketing Automation Tools 

Ensure seamless integration between your intent data provider and your CRM and marketing automation tools. This integration enables you to enrich your customer profiles with intent data and create personalized experiences based on individual buyer interests and behaviors.

Step 5: Analyze and Segment Intent Data

Analyze the intent data collected to identify patterns, trends, and commonalities among your target accounts. Segment your audience based on their intent signals, grouping them into specific clusters or categories that align with their buying stage, interests, or pain points.

Step 6: Tailor Content and Messaging 

Utilize the insights gained from intent data to create highly personalized and relevant content and messaging for each segment. Customize your marketing assets, such as emails, website content, ads, and social media campaigns, to address the specific needs and interests of different account segments.

Step 7: Implement Targeted Campaigns 

Develop targeted marketing campaigns that align with the intent signals exhibited by your identified account segments. Use intent data to determine the most appropriate channels, timing, and messaging to engage with your target accounts effectively.

Step 8: Track and Measure Results 

Continuously monitor and measure the impact of your ABM efforts fueled by intent data. Track key ABM metrics, such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated, to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and make data-driven adjustments as needed.

Step 9: Iterate and Optimize 

Use the insights gained from intent data and performance metrics to iterate and optimize your ABM strategy. Refine your targeting, content, and messaging based on the feedback and results obtained, ensuring ongoing improvement and success. 

For instance, Factors.ai integrates seamlessly with ad platforms, CRMs, CDPs, and other popular martech platforms through no-code (O-Auth) integrations. We install a lightweight script on websites to automatically track visitor engagement, including page views, scroll depth, button clicks, and form submissions.

Using IP-lookup technology, we can identify and track anonymous companies visiting a website, providing information such as company name, industry, and employee headcount. This helps qualify accounts based on ideal customer profile (ICP) criteria. Further, by consolidating all this data in one place, we can map the entire customer journey, starting from ad clicks and web sessions, to creating or updating contacts in the CRM, and ultimately tracking pipeline and revenue generation.

Our proactive approach enables the identification of anonymous accounts and their intent, allowing for effective targeting of sales-ready buyers. Additionally, retrospective tracking of the entire customer journey helps optimize spending on touchpoints that drive conversions, leading to increased pipeline with reduced expenses and better overall return on investment (ROI).

How Buyer Intent Data Improves Targeting, Personalization, and ROI in ABM

Intent data isn't just another marketing buzzword—it's a game-changer for how B2B companies tackle Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Let's dive into how it's shaking things up:

Sharper Account Targeting 

Say goodbye to the old ‘spray-and-pray’ marketing tactics. With intent data, you can pinpoint which accounts are on the hunt for solutions like yours. This means you can zero in on the companies that are most likely to convert, making your efforts way more efficient.

Personalization at Scale 

Imagine knowing exactly what potential clients are curious about. Intent data lets you do just that, so you can customize your messaging to hit the nail on the head. A manufacturing firm checking out automation solutions gets a different pitch than a healthcare provider exploring compliance tools. It's all about speaking their language.

Sales and Marketing Alignment 

Intent data is like a translator between sales and marketing teams. Marketing can give sales a heads-up when target accounts show strong buying signals. In return, sales can share insights on which signals really mean "we're ready to buy."

Spotting Trends with Predictive Analytics 

By digging into intent patterns, you can catch industry trends before they become mainstream. This gives you the upper hand to tweak your strategies ahead of time. For instance, if you notice a bunch of companies in a sector are looking into similar solutions, you can roll out targeted campaigns before your competitors even realize what's happening.

This isn't just theory—it's happening now. Companies using intent-driven ABM strategies are seeing quicker sales cycles and better conversion rates. It's all about being ahead of the curve and making your marketing smarter.

Real-World Use Cases: How Intent Data Drives ABM Success

Let’s skip the jargon and dive into how companies are actually hitting it big with intent data in their Account-Based Marketing (ABM) programs.

Take SugarCRM, for instance. They didn’t just stumble upon success; they harnessed intent signals to zero in on high-potential accounts, racking up a whopping $9.9 million pipeline value. Their secret? Pinpointing accounts that were actively on the hunt to buy.

Over in the tech world, a mid-sized software company saw their conversion rates soar by keeping an eye on who was checking out the competition. The moment they noticed an account researching rival products, they swooped in with targeted content that spoke directly to those prospects' pain points. The result? A 40% jump in qualified opportunities.

And it's not just tech companies seeing these wins. Check out these industry-specific success stories:

• Manufacturing: An industrial equipment provider spotted companies digging into automation solutions and tripled their meaningful sales conversations.
• Financial Services: A fintech firm fast-tracked their deals by 60% by focusing on accounts interested in payment processing.
• Healthcare: A medical device company nailed its timing with intent signals, boosting meeting acceptance rates by 35%.

The numbers tell the story:

• Conversion rates more than doubled.
• Sales cycles shrank by 30%.
• The average deal size grew by 45%.
• Customer acquisition costs dropped by 20%.

These aren’t just stats—they’re proof that when intent data fuels your ABM strategy, you’re not just playing the game; you’re winning it.

The Future of Intent Data in ABM

Intent data in Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is rapidly changing, and it's an exciting time to be in the mix. By end-2025, AI and machine learning will be true differentiators, not just crunching numbers but actually predicting what buyers will do next.

We're seeing a big move toward hyper-personalization. Companies are digging deeper than ever, going beyond just basic intent signals to really get what the whole buying committee is up to online. Multi-channel intent tracking is becoming standard, picking up signals from social media, virtual events, and even voice searches.

Privacy is still a hot topic. With global regulations getting stricter, successful ABM programs are finding ways to balance personalization with privacy. Think of GDPR and similar rules not as hurdles but as chances to build trust through clear and honest data practices.

AI integration is the real differentiator here. Imagine:

• Predictive models that can tell you when someone’s ready to buy with 85% accuracy.
• Real-time processing of intent signals that automatically trigger responses.
• Smart algorithms that can pinpoint who’s on the buying committee and what their roles are.
• Natural language processing that gets the context, not just the keywords.
  

The future isn’t just about gathering more data—it’s about making that data smarter, more useful, and respectful of privacy concerns. It's an exciting time for ABM, and the possibilities are endless!

Best Practices and Recommendations For Using Intent Data In ABM

Getting the most out of intent data in your ABM strategy isn't just about having the right tools—it's about using them wisely. Here's how the pros are making it work:

Strategic Framework

• Before diving into intent data, nail down your goals and KPIs.
• Set up a scoring system that ranks different intent signals by importance.
• Regularly review and tweak your strategy to keep it sharp.

Tools and Technologies

• Invest in a solid CRM that can pull in data from various sources.
• Use AI-driven platforms for real-time insights into intent data.
• Implement marketing automation tools that can respond to intent signals.
• Opt for tools that offer detailed analytics and reporting features.

Team Training and Adoption

• Offer thorough training for both your sales and marketing teams.
• Develop straightforward playbooks for handling different intent scenarios.
• Hold regular cross-team meetings to share insights and celebrate wins.
• Encourage team feedback on the tools they're using.

Remember, the best tech is only as good as the folks using it. Focus on building a data-driven culture where your team gets the value of intent signals and knows how to act on them. Start small, see what works, and scale up from there.

By integrating these practices, you can ensure that your ABM strategy is not only effective but also adaptable to the ever-changing landscape of B2B marketing. For more insights on how to leverage intent data effectively, check out our Intent Capture and Workflow Automations pages.

Key Takeaways

1. Not all buyer intent is your buyer intent: While you may be tempted to look at all the data and figures before selecting your target accounts, messaging, and MarTech, it is best to keep your ICP and all the decision makers in mind.
2. ABM without intent data is just traditional marketing: ABM focuses on targeting the "best-fit" accounts rather than casting a wide net. By aligning marketing messages with the needs and challenges expressed by potential buyers, businesses can increase the probability of success compared to traditional marketing approaches.
3. With intent data, you know where to start: Intent data helps prioritize and rank leads based on their level of intent, allowing businesses to focus on high-intent accounts and allocate resources effectively. Scoring and ranking, along with data analytics techniques, can help you get to the low hanging fruit first.

How Buyer Intent Data Is Revolutionizing ABM in 2025

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has long promised precision targeting, but without buyer intent data, it’s a shot in the dark. This guide explores how marketing teams can now use intent signals to not only find in-market accounts but also tailor campaigns with sharper precision and higher return. With 98% of B2B organizations adopting ABM, the competitive edge now lies in how effectively intent data is used—across platforms, teams, and the entire buyer journey.

Marketers are no longer guessing who might be interested. Instead, they’re integrating real-time behavioral cues—form fills, content engagement, review site visits—into CRM systems and campaign workflows. From first-party site activity to third-party digital footprints, the combination offers a 360º view of account readiness. By aligning messaging to each decision-maker and customizing content across preferred channels, businesses are closing deals faster, with less wasted spend.

With predictive analytics, segmentation, and automated triggers, intent data isn’t just informing campaigns—it’s shaping them. And when integrated with tools like Factors.ai, marketers can track influence across touchpoints, proving marketing’s role in pipeline creation and revenue.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is Buyer Intent important? 

Buyer intent is crucial because it provides valuable insights into the mindset and readiness of potential customers. Understanding this intent allows businesses to create custom marketing campaigns with the specific needs and interests of their target audience. Creating campaigns with buyer intent in mind results in more targeted and effective communication, higher engagement rates, and increased ROI. 

2. What is an example of buying intent?

Let's say a business owner searches for "best project management software for remote teams" on a search engine. This search query shows their buying intent as they are actively seeking a solution to address their specific need: managing projects for remote teams. By searching for the "best" software, they are indicating their intention to evaluate and potentially make a decision. This search query provides an opportunity for SaaS companies offering project management solutions to target and engage this potential customer with relevant marketing messages and compelling offers.

3. How do you identify buying intent?

You can identify buying intent by partnering with tools like Factors.ai. This platform helps you discover, qualify, and convert anonymous companies visiting your website, measure engagement trends, and helps you deliver objectively better ROI on marketing campaigns. Factors.ai also offers seamless integrations with 30+ marketing tech stack so all your data can be consolidated in one place. 

Remember the days when the role of marketing was limited to promotions, campaigns, and branding? Because we…don't 😅. Marketing has evolved into an all-encompassing function that covers everything from demand generation and sales enablement to CX and pipeline growth. 

And at the helm of all this? The Chief Marketing Officer.

CMOs today are responsible for far more than just creative strategy. In addition to leading traditional marketing functions, It’s essential for CMOs to stay on top of product-market fit, consumer trends, competitive landscapes, and marketing’s bottom-line impact on revenue. 

And none of this would be possible without data. 

In fact, 64% of marketing executives strongly agree that data-driven marketing is crucial to business success. But how exactly is data, analytics and visualization influencing (and even improving!) the responsibilities of a CMO?

This article highlights everything you need to know about the evolution of CMO responsibilities and the profound impact of data and technology on the marketing function. 

Understanding The Current State Of CMO Responsibilities

Data and technology has transformed the current state of CMO roles and responsibilities. Here’s how:

Intuition can only take you so far

In the past, CMOs relied heavily on intuition and creative judgment to form strategies that may or may not work. These decisions were based on personal experience, high-level market trends, and subjective industry knowledge. 

Now, CMOs work with data-driven insights to guide their decision making process. No doubt, intuition and personal judgment still play an important role in successful marketing. But it certainly helps to back up a hypothesis with hard-hitting numbers. 

As businesses increasingly become digital-first, collecting relevant data across the customer journey has become far more accessible. Marketing leaders can leverage this data to drive results across brand strategy, customer acquisition, and retention by understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In addition to validating decisions, data-driven marketing also encourages dynamism and adaptability within various marketing functions. Experiments that would otherwise take months to produce results can be answered in a matter of days with journey analytics, heat maps, and A/B testing. This results in an agile, hyper-efficient marketing function that’s primed to optimize ROI and drive growth. 

Data delights marketers & customers alike

Just as data and analytics benefits marketers, so does it benefit buyers and the overall customer experience. Back in the day, marketing teams had very little information to work with. CMOs had no choice but to make broad assumptions and rely on spray & pray tactics to attract buyers. 

For one, targeting a wide audience with generic messaging can be expensive for smaller teams with limited budgets. Secondly, it can be ineffective (and annoying to customers) given that broad messaging that tries to appeal to everyone, generally appeals to no one. 

Today, CMOs can use cutting-edge visitor identification technology, account scoring, and intent data to specifically target sales-ready buyers with relevant marketing initiatives. This improves the buying experience for customers by swapping spammy email blasts and cold calls with personalized initiatives for the right accounts at the right time. Ultimately, this personalized marketing bolsters brand perception, improves conversions with fewer resources, and drives customer lifetime value — which is far more cost-effective than acquiring new customers.

The more things change, the more they stay the same 

Since the days of David Ogilvy, driving sales has been the north star for marketing. This, most definitely, hasn’t changed. That being said, the accuracy and granularity with which we can measure marketing's impact on revenue has improved dramatically in recent years.

Gone are the days of tedious, unintuitive marketing reporting. Several plug and play solutions can automatically consolidate marketing and revenue data across campaigns, content, website, CRM, and more under one roof. As we’ll see in later sections, this unified data can then be used for further analysis, visualization, and dashboarding. 

It’s also easier than ever to quantify the influence of every customer touchpoint on pipeline and revenue with sophisticated tools like multi-touch attribution. All this, to help CMOs’ prove and improve marketing’s impact on sales. 

How Is The Data Boom Shaping The World Of Marketing?

Now that we’ve established the importance of data and analytics, let’s explore a few data-based tools and techniques that CMOs can leverage to drive ROI and shape marketing strategy: 

1. Customer Segmentation & Personalization 

Customers, especially B2B ones, expect a personalized experience at every turn of the buyer journey. For instance, if you’re a CMO, you likely receive dozens of cold emails every week — but only respond to, if any, the well-researched, personalized mails that are actually relevant to you. It’s no different with any other buyer. 

Customer segmentation allows marketers to slice and dice their audience based on firmographics (revenue range, head count, etc), technographics (techstack), and intent data (engagement, page views, etc). This in turns allows marketers to personalize their efforts and target high-intent buyers with tailor-made efforts. Less spam, better conversions: win, win! 

2. Account Intelligence

B2B SaaS marketing teams invest heavily in driving relevant traffic to the company website. Unfortunately, even the most optimistic benchmarks find that only about 5% of website traffic actually convert through form submissions or sign ups. So is the remaining 95% of anonymous traffic simply taken to be potential pipeline down the drain? Well, until recently, yes 😳. 

Now, with IP-lookup technology, marketing teams can tap into databases with millions of companies to identify accounts that are already visiting the website but are yet to convert. 

How can CMOs and marketing teams use this?

• Optimize RoAS by retargeting accounts from paid ads who are yet to sign-up.
• Know in real-time when target accounts are live on the site, to strike while the iron’s hot
• Run relevant marketing efforts based on what target accounts are engaging with.

3. A/B Testing & Heatmaps 

“What would work better on this landing page: Headline A or Headline B?” 

Questions like this are exactly what A/B testing tools help answer with practical data. Rather than relying on individual judgment or biased surveys, A/B testing showcases multiple versions of a web page, creative, etc to a particular audience. Based on real-life performance, A/B testing can reveal what works better very quickly.

Heat maps are also valuable in identifying what visitors or users are engaging with within your website. This provides insight into points of resonance and friction for the target audience. 

4. Customer Journey Mapping

B2B customer journeys have always been lengthy, nonlinear, and complex. To solve for this, several solutions (including Factors.ai) can help unify and visualize various touchpoints along the journey in an intuitive manner. This helps CMOs achieve a bird’s eye view of the entire buying process from first visit, to sales engagement, all the way to deal closure. 

5. Multi-Touch Attribution

As businesses embrace digital transformation, CMOs and marketing teams are increasingly adopting multi/omni-channel marketing to deliver a consistent, persuasive experience to online buyers. Marketing channels range from search ads, email marketing, social media, organic blogs, marketplaces, and more. 

Without making sense of the numbers, it can be difficult to know which of these channels actually influenced conversions. Multi-touch attribution is a sophisticated analytics technique that collects and credits every touch point along a customer journey based on its relative influence on conversions. 

All the tools and analytics techniques discussed above rely crucially on data. The more voluminous and accurate your database, the more valuable the insights will be. The following section discusses a few practices for CMOs to make the most of their data.

Fulfilling CMO Responsibilities In The Age Of Data Analytics & Visualization

Here are a few key practices for CMOs to reap the benefits of data and analytics tools.

1. Build a culture around data 

As previously mentioned, none of the tools or techniques discussed in preceding sections would be possible without data. It’s essential for CMOs to create a strong, unequivocal culture around data-driven marketing — whether it be maintaining hygienic CRMs or qualifying a hypothesis with data-backed experiments.

It’s also just as important to eliminate siloed data by unifying numbers and KPIs under one roof. This ensures that the entire department, if not organization, is on the same page.

2. Pick the right tools

Every marketing department is built different. CMOs must invest in appropriate tools and marketing technologies to support their team based on size, scale, and objectives. For example,  heatmaps or attribution tools may not be essential to a smaller team that are just starting out. On the other hand, visitor identification, customer segmentation, and dashboarding tools can provide significant ROI for early-stage teams with limited budgets. 

In addition to functionality, here are a few more aspects to consider when investing in a martech tool:

• Pricing
• Customer success
• Integration with existing techstack 
• Ease of use
• Reliability
• Security

3. Create relevant dashboards

It’s definitely not feasible (or recommended) for CMOs to stay on top of every little marketing effort that the team’s working on. Instead, CMOs may rely on a bird eye’s view to guide strategy and improve performance at a higher level. CMO dashboards offer an intuitive view of all things marketing at a quick glance. 

Suggested reading: The complete guide to building a SaaS CMO dashboard

Based on the nature of your business, your CMO dashboard may reflect marketing spends, marketing sourced-pipeline by channel, MQLs generated by campaign, and other high-level marketing KPIs. You definitely don’t need to be bogged down by CTRs and likes, unless otherwise there’s a true anomaly in performance.  

4. Ensure privacy compliance

Lastly, in an increasingly privacy-first digital ecosystem, it’s important to ensure privacy compliance with all the tools and technologies that associate with customer data. SOC2 Type II and GDPR are industry-standard security frameworks that you should look for in every data-based product you’re considering investing in. (Psst…Factors is SOC2 Type II, GDPR, PECR, and CCPA compliant) 

How CMOs Can Take Marketing Data From Insights To Impact

Before concluding this article, here’s a quick highlight of the profound value that data can have on influencing and improving CMO responsibilities in this digital age.

• Optimize spends: Rather than relying on guestwork, CMOs can confidently allocate spend towards initiatives that work. This results in less marketing leakage all around. 
• Real-time decision-making: Rather than relying on intuition alone or waiting several weeks, CMOs can take a glance at a dashboard to make quick, data-driven decisions. 
• Drive marketing ROI: CMOs may adopt powerful tools like attribution to understand what works when. This results in the efficient allocation of resources and maximum ROI. 
• Reduce CAC: With the right set of data, marketers can personalize targeting and improve conversion rates with less spend. This, in turn, reduces the cost of acquiring customers and even improves the overall LTV of customers. 
• Prove marketing impact: Finally, marketing data and data-leveraging tools help CMOs quantify the impact of marketing on bottom-line business objectives like pipeline & growth. 

And there you have it. We’ve seen how data has well and truly disrupted the role and responsibilities of a CMOs. Luckily, it's only for the better. CMO responsibilities have transcended creative strategy to encompass a wide range of bottom-line objectives — all of which can be turbocharged with the right data analytics tools and technologies. 

Curious to see how Factors help CMOs drive marketing results and business growth? We’d be happy to have a quick chat! 

Do you remember Takeshi’s castle and the historic skipping stones? 

You jump on the right stones, and there you go, easy to reach the next level of the game. But what if you landed on the wrong stone? Everyone laughed! But that will not happen when you lose your prospect. 

Your prospect is that smiling champ getting ready to play the skipping stones of landing on the right marketing touchpoints to reach the happy destination of having a product that solves their problem. 

Fret not about the wrong stones, because in this post, we’ll help you pick the perfect 15 marketing touchpoints to help you guide your prospect to book a demo. 

What Exactly Is a Marketing Touchpoint?

Marketing touchpoints or digital touchpoints are any form of customer interaction or point of contact that a potential customer has with your brand or company. Every time a potential customer engages with your brand, they're experiencing a marketing touchpoint. Marketing touchpoints can occur through various channels, such as advertising, social media post, email campaigns, events, customer loyalty programs, customer service, or even in-store experiences. 

Role of Marketing Touchpoints in a Buyer's Journey

When it comes to marketing touchpoints, it's important for marketing teams to understand that they go beyond just providing information. Each touchpoint should evoke a certain emotion in the customer, whether it's excitement, trust, or happiness. These emotions can influence how the person feels about your brand or product, ultimately leading them towards making a purchase decision. The key here is to have a strong understanding of your customer preferences. 

The buyer's journey goes through three important stages: awareness, consideration, and decision.

1. Awareness Stage

This is the first stage of the buyer journey. 

Here, the buyer is aware of a pain point that they have. Let's say your potential customer is browsing their LinkedIn feed and comes across an ad for a software company specializing in project management tools. They are already struggling with project management or thinking of switching to automation from manual management. 

The ad features an attention-grabbing headline and a compelling image and mentions a free trial offer. That's it! Your LinkedIn ad serves as a marketing touchpoint for the awareness stage, as you've captured their interest in your company and products.

2. Consideration Stage

Now that the buyer has identified a pain point and is sure of it, they will start to evaluate various solutions to their problem. Let’s say that the potential customer has clicked your LinkedIn ad.

They now get directed to your company's website, where they see an interactive product demo, one of the customer experience touchpoints embedded on your website that showcases your product in action and helps the buyer make an informed decision.

This makes a stronger case for the potential buyer to consider your product, as the product demos allow the buyer to see the features and benefits of your product and how it can solve their pain points. When they see your product in action and are convinced you might be a good fit, they shortlist you into their consideration set and move to the next stage.

You can also use other product-focused touchpoints during the consideration stage, such as product tours, product-focused blog posts that show your product in action, and product webinars. These touchpoints provide valuable insights into your product and help the buyer determine if it fits their needs well.

3. Decision Stage

Level three is the most important stage, where the buyer decides which product or service to purchase. 

They want to see proof that it's worked for other businesses. At this stage, the buyer goes to your company's website, wanting to find a case study about a similar business that successfully implemented the tool and saw positive results. But guess what? Since they already saw your product in action via product demos and product tours, they are already almost convinced about the purchase. 

But marketing touchpoints such as the case study gives that little nudge to build trust and reassure the business owner, ultimately leading them towards making a purchase.

15 Marketing Touchpoints to Motivate a Demo Booking

We’ll share 15 rewarding marketing touchpoints, real-time customer touchpoint examples from top brands, and how you can use them in different stages of the buyer’s journey.

1. Social Media Advertising

First in line - You can run social media ads targeting potential customers to create awareness about your product or service. For example, check out Hubspot’s ads on its social media channels targeting business owners to discover how their CRM platform transforms prospecting, connecting, reporting, and collaboration like never before. With bold graphics and clear visuals, their LinkedIn ad is designed for easy absorption while browsing.

Why Social Media Advertising Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Its highly targeted nature allows businesses to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.
• Allows creating campaigns tailored to your ideal customers' needs and preferences, increasing the likelihood that they will engage with your content.
• Potential to reach a large target market for promoting your products or services. 

2. Educational Blog Posts

Good old long form of content creates wonders. Nothing compensates for creating informative content that addresses the pain points of your target audience and provides solutions. 

For example, check out this Moosend’s blog post - What Is Email Marketing? A Beginner’s Guide For 2023. It has everything one needs to know to streamline a successful email marketing process, from definition to benefits and practices. Ultimately, they cleverly made the reader understand how Moosend can help them with everything mentioned in the blog. 

Why Blog Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Helps to drive traffic to your website and attract visitors who are interested in your offerings.
• An effective way to establish yourself as an authority in your industry. 
• A very interactive way to engage with your audience is by encouraging comments and if it interests your visitor, it also helps with qualified lead conversions. 

💡 Pro tip: In your product-based blog posts, embed product demos as GIFs to show your product in action

3. Webinars 

Hosting webinars can be an effective marketing touchpoint as it provides valuable insights and demonstrate your expertise to potential clients. 

Check out how ActiveCampaign developed a series of webinars dedicated to announcing its product updates as part of its customer touchpoint strategies. ActiveCampaign used these webinars to promote the company and communicate easily with its customers.

Why Webinars Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• By sharing valuable insights and expertise, you can build credibility with your audience and also increase brand awareness.
• Allow for interactive engagement and position you as an expert in the field with attendees, including live Q&A sessions, polls, and customer satisfaction surveys. 
• Can be accessed by attendees from anywhere in the world, making them a cost-effective way to reach a large audience

Customer Testimonials 

A very happy marketing touchpoint and no one can deny it. Share the success stories of your loyal customers to showcase the effectiveness and value of your product or service. Check out Notion’s testimonial that made social media cool again. It had the perfect balance of hook, story arc, visuals, takeaway, and music that led everyone to explore Notion’s features. 

Why Customer Testimonials Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• When potential customers see positive reviews from existing customers, they are more likely to trust your business and make a purchase.
• Creates an emotional connection with potential customers by sharing real-life experiences of how your product or service has helped solve a problem or meet a need. 
• Showcases newer use cases of how your existing customers are using your product, thereby motivating prospects to make a purchase.

5. Product Demos

Offer product demos to potential customers, with no strings attached. Allowing them to experience your product or service firsthand can be a good marketing touchpoint. Topylyne’s product tour is an excellent example. The very first pop-up explains what Topylyne does and how users can benefit from it. 

You can learn more about creating a product demo that converts here

Why Product Demos Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Helps prospects see your product firsthand with the right product placement, how it works, and how it can benefit them, which can be more persuasive than simply reading about it or watching a video. 
• Low-risk for potential customers because they can try your product or service without committing to a purchase. 
• Gives your business a competitive advantage by setting you apart from competitors who don't offer a similar experience. 

💡 Pro tip: Interactive demos can provide a hands-on experience of your product or service, which has better engagement than a static product demo

6. Chatbots or Live Chat on the Website

A crucial touchpoint that provides real-time support to potential customers through chatbots or live chat on the website. 

Check out Hubspot’s live chat and how they use it creatively. Live chat gives these communities an opportunity to have real-time discussions and help Hubspot’s potential customers. 

Why Live Chats Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Allows existing customers to get instant support and answers to their questions, which can help to build trust and confidence in your business so that they stick to your brand.
• Increases engagement by providing a convenient and accessible way for both prospects and customers to interact with your business. 
• Offers assistance and guidance to potential customers. In the process, also collects their contact information for follow-up. 

7. Referral Programs

It’s no secret that potential customers tend to trust recommendations from their peers more than any form of communication. In fact, a whopping 83% of customers consider friends and family as their most reliable sources of referrals. Check out Dropbox's referral program, which operates on a one-sided reward system. When you refer someone to Dropbox, you’ll both get extra storage.

Why Referral Programs Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• When customers receive recommendations from their peers, they are more likely to trust the recommended product or service
• By incentivizing existing customers to refer their friends and family, businesses can acquire new customers without spending large amounts on advertising
• Referral marketing leads to a higher conversion rate compared to other forms of marketing

8. Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are different from other email campaigns and newsletters. They are sent for one particular purpose and that is to convert more potential customers. One such email is the cart abandonment email that provides an opportunity to remind potential buyers about their interest in a product and include personalized incentives, such as a free demo or consultation, and encourage them to complete the purchase. Check out Away’s cart abandonment email that motivates the recipient to complete a purchase using short, sweet, and no-distraction content. 

Why Cart Abandonment Emails Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• It serves as a reminder to customers about the items they left behind in their cart, encouraging them to complete their purchase and increasing conversion rates.
• Can be personalized based on the items in the customer's cart, making the email more relevant and engaging. 
• Includes incentives such as discounts or free shipping, which can encourage customers to complete their purchases. These incentives can be a powerful motivator for customers who are on the fence about making a purchase.

9. Email Campaigns

Use email campaigns to send personalized messages and offers to potential customers. Check out this e-mail from Dropbox that strikes a professional and courteous tone while also providing clear instructions and links to template libraries. The call-to-action is prominently displayed, making it impossible to miss. 

Why Email Campaigns Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• By tailoring the message to the customer's interests and pain points, businesses can show how their product can solve their specific needs.
• Can include clear and prominent call-to-action buttons that encourage customers to book a demo. 
• By sending targeted and relevant follow-up emails, businesses can remind customers of the benefits of their product and encourage them to take action.

💡 Pro tip: Embed a personalized product demo video in your email campaign, inviting the recipient to explore your product more. 

10. Newsletters 

Newsletters are a great marketing touchpoint as they provide an ongoing way to stay in touch with customers, offer valuable content, and can be targeted to specific customer groups, all while being cost-effective. Check out Invsion’s weekly newsletter which includes a roundup of their best blog content, favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt!

Why Newsletters Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Allows businesses to stay in touch with their customers and build ongoing relationships. By providing valuable content, such as tips, insights, and promotions, businesses can establish themselves as a trusted resource and stay top-of-mind with their customers
• Can be tailored to specific segments of a business's audience, allowing them to deliver targeted messaging and promotions to different customer groups. 

11. Podcasts

Podcasts can be a highly engaging and informative way to showcase a product and its features. For example, The Customer Engagement Lab is a unique business-comedy video podcast that explores creative sales and marketing campaigns for customer attraction. With in-person interviews, round table discussions, and TikTok reaction customer segments, it offers a one-of-a-kind B2B experience.

Why Podcasts Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Through engaging conversations and storytelling, businesses can pique the interest of potential customers and motivate them to book a demo.
• Offers the convenience of on-the-go learning. So it can reach a wider audience and create awareness about your product. 
• Can increase their visibility and credibility and motivate potential customers to want to learn more about their product through a demo.

12. Offline Conferences

Offline conferences or Summits could be another one where companies can showcase their product, and everyone attendee can get a glimpse of the product. For example, Marketo's "Marketing Nation" community provides resources, events, and networking opportunities for marketers. By building a community around its product, Marketo effectively markets itself as a comprehensive and supportive solution for marketers.

Why Offline Conferences Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Provides an opportunity for businesses to interact with customers face-to-face, building personal connections and trust.
• Attracts a targeted audience, making it easier for businesses to find potential customers and tailor their product demos to their needs.
• Increases the pace of decision making such as booking a demo as offline events activates a part of the brain associated with active reflections on decision-making

Online Customer Reviews and Ratings

Online reviews and ratings on trusted platforms are a customer experience touchpoint that motivates your prospective customers to book your demo, acting as a marketing touchpoint. Check out this positive review of Storylane, an interactive demo platform that increases trust in that brand.

Why Online Reviews And Ratings Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Acts as social proof and help potential customers evaluate the quality and effectiveness of a product, which can motivate them to book a product demo.
• Increases a business's trust and credibility with potential customers, increasing the likelihood of booking a product demo.
• It provides insights into customers' needs and preferences, allowing businesses to tailor their product demos to meet those needs and preferences better.

💡 Pro tip: Drive user engagement and increase research time by embedding interactive videos on review platforms like TrustRadius and G2. Compared to video demos, interactive demos have 3 times more engagement and lead to an average research time of 40 minutes, while the average web user spends only 45-54 seconds on a website.

14. E-Books

E-books are a good marketing touchpoint as they provide value-added content that can help attract and engage potential customers. For example, The Social Media Trends Report by HubSpot shares insights from industry insiders and helps social media marketers how to adapt marketing strategies to take advantage of the ever-changing social media landscape.

Why E-books Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• By creating informative and valuable e-books, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry, thereby gaining the trust of their potential customers.
• Create an opportunity to collect email addresses and nurture the email list with valuable content, thereby staying on top of mind for your subscribers
• Encourages readers to learn more about their product and take the next step towards booking a demo.

15. Whitepapers

Whitepapers are a good marketing touchpoint as they establish thought leadership, provide valuable insights, and help generate leads. Check out Google’s Cloud Security and Compliance White paper. This explains the efficiency of Google Cloud products and services in keeping the data of any workspace safe and secure.

Why Whitepapers Is a Good Marketing Touchpoint? 

• Whitepapers are educational resources that provide valuable insights on industry trends and challenges, positioning your business as a thought leader and expert in your field.
• By offering whitepapers as gated content, you can collect contact information from interested readers and follow up with personalized outreach, increasing the likelihood of booking a demo.
• Whitepapers can be repurposed into other formats, such as blog content or social media content, expanding your reach and creating multiple touchpoints for potential customers.

Measuring the Success of Your Marketing Touchpoints 

Tracking successful marketing touchpoints is very important and is possible. But it isn’t always easy, as,

• Conversion types can vary widely. For example, some businesses rely on conversions like phone calls, live chat, and form fills to create leads that are then closed offline by sales teams. But it is quite a task to track the volume of these conversion types and attribute the closed revenue back to the marketing channels and campaigns that drove those conversions. 

• Customer journey mapping can be lengthy. 15 is just a start. There can be hundreds of touchpoints for some industries. While some insight can be gained into which channels drive conversions, it can be challenging to attribute closed revenue to the proper channels.

• Crediting the last-click conversion is not sufficient enough. It is important to credit all supporting touchpoints in the customer motivation journey. Without proper lead tracking, ensuring that marketing channels and campaigns receive fair credit for driving revenue is impossible.

Wrapping Up

Understanding the customer's entire journey, business outcomes, and business goals is very important in deciding which marketing touchpoint can be effective for you. By understanding the buyer's journey, finding your customer journey map, and aligning the effective touchpoints accordingly, you can create a seamless experience for your customers. Diversify the touchpoints and experiment with new ones to stay ahead of the competition. Focus on providing value and building trust with customers and successfully use these touchpoints to increase the number of product demos booked and achieve their marketing goals!