Dreamdata launches new ROI report to better track marketing spend on physical events
Face-to-face events are back! Whether it’s SaaStock, SaaStr, INBOUND, Dreamforce, Slush, you name it, many businesses are falling over each other to meet and schmooze with prospects in person once more!
But in the rush to re-engage with customers, it's essential not to forget to track these activities and measure their return on investment (ROI).
That's where Dreamdata's new ROI dashboard comes in, allowing businesses to connect cost data from all their activities and measure their return.
In this post, we’ll be presenting the all-new Dreamdata ROI dashboard and covering the basics of ROI in B2B marketing.
Measuring B2B Marketing ROI made easy with Dreamdata
Dreamdata ROI dashboard use cases
What is ROI in B2B marketing?
What are the benefits of using ROI as a metric in your B2B go-to-market?
What are the main challenges of measuring ROI for B2Bs?
How can B2Bs solve the challenge of easily calculating ROI?
Measuring B2B Marketing ROI made easy with Dreamdata
As existing Dreamdata users will know, Dreamdata has been helping B2B businesses accurately track the ROI of their paid activities since our founding. (did you know this is part of our Free plan offering?)
But with so many B2Bs now on the tradeshow, conference, you name it, bandwagon, we’ve released a brand new ROI report to cater for all your marketing investments.
With the ROI report, businesses can add three new cost streams as well as the pre-existing ad network cost.
These include:
Physical activities like tradeshows, conferences, webinars, affiliates, etc.
Spend from unsupported ad platforms such as 6sense, TikTok, or Reddit.
Additional managing costs from existing ad-platform integrations they may wish to include.
The ROI report provides greater granularity and accuracy in ROI and cost-per-acquisition measures. But that's not all; it also saves businesses time in gathering and processing data manually, ensuring all marketing data and reporting are kept under one roof.
How does Dreamdata’s ROI report work?
So how do you get your extra costs into the ROI report?
As a Business Plan customer, you first need to download Dreamdata's specifically designed Import Cost Data Google Sheet template. Which you find in the app, under the Data Platform, Sources tab.
Then just click on the ‘template’ link.
Simply insert cost data as per the instructions.
When done, share the sheet with google-sheets@dreamdata.io
Then head over to Import ROI Cost Data in the Dreamdata App, under Data Platform Sources.
Paste the sharing link of the Google Sheet into the empty field and click Save. And see the Dreamdata magic happen!
With Dreamdata, businesses can then easily filter by pipeline stage and attribution model to see where their new and old channels are making their impact.
A word about connecting these to revenue.
The ‘Import Cost Data’ sheet will, as you’d expect, only add cost data to the process.
Which means that no revenue can be attributed to it unless this connection is made in your data.
If, or rather, when leads are generated at these events, the deal source data must be added to your CRM (fx through things like Salesforce campaigns), marketing automation platform - or alternatively, directly to Dreamdata using the following sheet (following these instructions)
Dreamdata will then be able to attribute revenue towards those touches and offer an accurate ROI measure.
The benefits of using B2B marketing ROI
The ROI report provides businesses with insights into where their marketing dollars are best spent, allowing them to make informed decisions on future spending.
The report not only saves businesses time in gathering and processing data manually, but it also ensures all marketing data and reporting are kept under one roof. This centralised approach to tracking marketing spend helps businesses make informed decisions on future spending, maximizing the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.
So next time you spend a ton on a tradeshow booth or newsletter sponsorship, you'll be able to determine whether or not it paid off. With Dreamdata's new ROI report, businesses can track their return on investment with greater accuracy and ease than ever before.
Still unsure about ROI and what it means for your business?
Here’s all you need to know about ROI in B2B marketing 👇
What is ROI in B2B marketing?
Most readers will no doubt be well acquainted with the ROI metric. However, to make sure we’re all on the same page here’s a quick definition of ROI:
In B2B marketing, ROI (return on investment) is a measure used to evaluate the financial return on investment generated by B2B marketing efforts. It is the ratio of the revenue generated from a B2B marketing activity, e.g. ad campaigns, content marketing, email marketing, etc. to the cost of those activities.
What are the benefits of using ROI as a metric in your B2B go-to-market?
In the main, you can divide the value of tracking B2B Marketing ROI into four main categories.
1. Helps determine the effectiveness of marketing campaigns
First on the list is ROI’s utility as a marketing key performance indicator (KPI) that helps you assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. ROI enables you to track how much you spent on a particular channel, campaign, event, and the return generated from it.
2. Aids budget allocation
By tracking the ROI of different marketing channels, B2B marketers can better allocate the budget to those channels that generate the highest ROI. This in turn allows you to optimise your marketing budget and ensure that investments are delivering the highest possible returns.
3. Enables measurement of marketing success and determine the viability of financial investments
Conversely, ROI provides B2B marketers with a clear and quantifiable measure of marketing success. It allows them to compare the results of different campaigns, and make data-driven decisions based on the ROI of each campaign.
4. Facilitates data-based decision-making
B2B marketers can use ROI as a decision-making tool to prioritise marketing initiatives that deliver the highest ROI. They can also use it to determine the most effective marketing channels and strategies for their business, which can help them stay ahead of their competitors.
Challenges of measuring B2B Marketing ROI
Maximising the ROI of marketing spend is a top priority for businesses, especially in today's highly competitive market. However, tracking the ROI of marketing can be a complex and time-consuming process, especially when it comes to measuring the impact of offline activities such as tradeshows and conferences.
The challenges facing B2B marketing teams when it comes to accurate ROI measurement are well known.
1. Connecting cost data from across all your digital activities.
The average B2B marketer employs numerous marketing channels in their day-to-day. Each of these has its own tracking and analytics, which makes it difficult to get a complete view of all marketing spend. Without integrating all the tools on the martech stack it’s impossible to have a clear view of marketing spend, and by extension a handle on ROI.
2. Tying your cost to revenue - and overcoming the multi-touch, multi-device, multi-stakeholder, customer journey.
Another challenge in accurately reporting ROI on marketing is the complexity of the customer journey. With multiple touchpoints and devices involved over a prolonged period, it can be difficult to attribute revenue to specific marketing campaigns.
3. Incorporating physical (non-digital) activities into the ROI calculation
In some B2B industries, physical activities such as trade shows and conferences play a significant role in generating leads and revenue. However, it can be difficult to accurately measure the ROI of these activities.
How can B2Bs solve the challenge of easily calculating ROI?
To accurately overcome these challenges B2Bs need to be able to accurately track and connect digital and non-digital spend with revenue.
Based on the three challenges above, this means you need to be able to:
Integrate data from all the tools sitting on martech stack, including site tracking and the CRM for the revenue data. This ensures you can track every touch taking place on the B2B customer journey.
Incorporate cost (and revenue) data from ‘physical’ events such as tradeshows and conferences.
On top of this, you then need to apply multi-touch attribution modelling that takes into account all touchpoints in the customer journey and assigns credit to each one.
Now, this is evidently not a simple process. But to introduce the solution you have two options: build in-house, or buy an off-the-shelf tools like Dreamdata (see this post on building a revenue attribution solution).
Which brings us back to Dreamdata’s newly launched ROI dashboard.
Some parting thoughts
Measuring the ROI of marketing has become increasingly important as businesses look to optimise their marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition. The ability to accurately measure the impact of marketing activities - including those taking place physically - is crucial for businesses to understand where their marketing dollars are best spent.
That's why Dreamdata has launched a new ROI dashboard!
With Dreamdata's new ROI report, B2Bs can gain insights into where their marketing spend is generating the best return.
The ROI report allows businesses to not only connect cost data from their ad networks but also from including physical activities like tradeshows, conferences, webinars, affiliates, and spend from unsupported ad platforms such as 6sense, TikTok, or Reddit.
By leveraging the ROI report, B2Bs can now track the ROI of all their marketing spend with greater ease and accuracy than ever before. The result will be better (data-driven) decision-making on where to spend your marketing dollars.
Ready to start measuring the ROI of all your activities?
