connecting the dots dreamdata ebook

Get our e-book: Connecting the Dots

The E-book contains a collection of our best practices regarding B2B growth and attribution. 

By submitting your email you get a free digital copy of our E-book: Connecting the dots, a guide to B2B growth and attribution for the technical marketer.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

CHAPTER 2:

THE B2B COMPLEXITY

The nature of B2B transactions is a challenge. 

Some of the things that add to the B2B  complexity are:

Revenue

  • Most B2Bs do not have a cash register. There’s no way to complete a transaction on their websites.

  • This means there is no revenue component to send back to the ad platforms and spend money on ad campaigns that drive revenue

Time

  • B2B deals easily take 6, 12 or more months to complete. Going from early research to budget being available to agreeing on terms will take a while. This makes it hard to connect the dots.

  • Some activities start the customer journeys and others close the deals.

Stakeholders

  • Demand does not start when a transaction is completed.

  • In most B2B transactions multiple stakeholders will be involved.

  • We feel that everyday at Dreamdata. For us to close a deal we often need to work with a bunch of people. A marketing specialist wants to know if the ads work. A VP wants to know which channels drive growth. The CEO and CFO wants to allocate budget to the utmost effectiveness. All of them need to say yes, before we can send our order form.

  • Sounds familiar for your business?

Team

  • Traditionally attribution is de facto understood as marketing attribution. What are the activities that marketing do worth?

  • It’s a siloed way of thinking that does not reflect what moves the needle in B2B.

  • Yes, marketing initiates a lot of journeys, but customer success needs to reply to a ton Q&As and the sales people need to wiggle and wrestle their way to deals.

  • Knowing this, does it make sense to only appreciate marketing effort when judging B2B growth? No, obviously not.

Excerpt from the book

CHAPTER 3: A B2B COMPLEXITY EXAMPLE

Let’s elaborate that a bit with an example. Imagine that you’re selling hardware to a school.

The ACME school has a council that decides together what hardware to buy. The council consists of a teacher, an IT-admin, a principal and a CFO. 

The customer journey to get ACME school to buy could probably look like this:

  • The teacher is exposed to an ad on Facebook. Clicks it and finds your hardware interesting and decides to sign up for your newsletter.

  • The teacher then tells the IT admin about your hardware product and the IT admin does a branded search for your product, clicks the adwords, likes what he sees and books a demo call.

  • The IT admin, knowing he needs the ACME school principals backup to win over the hardware council, invites the principal to join the demo call.

  • The demo call showed that your hardware fit the exact needs of ACME school. The three together - the teacher, the IT admin and the principal - convinces the CFO to purchase the product during the hardware council meeting.

  • The CFO then goes directly to your website and ends up buying your product.

In B2B buying processes the torch switches multiple times.

If you’re following only one individual’s actions, you’re probably doing it wrong. When you sell B2B, you should think of attribution as following a company’s journey towards purchase. 

This means, when did we see this company the first time?

What are all the (digital measurable) actions that the company has taken on the road to becoming your customer? 

Feel like giving up on B2B tracking already? Don’t.

It is possible to deal with all these challenges. In this e-book we will tell you how.