B2B marketing attribution is the process of monitoring and evaluating marketing touchpoints that contribute to converting a lead into a customer. It involves attributing conversion credits to each marketing interaction throughout the customer journey, aiding in the assessment of different marketing channels and campaigns' effectiveness.
Developing an effective B2B marketing attribution model includes several critical steps:
While both B2B and B2C marketing attribution aim to measure the impact of marketing efforts on conversions and revenue, there are notable differences between the two. B2B marketing attribution deals with a more complex sales cycle, involving multiple touchpoints and stakeholders, and focuses on the long-term value of customers.
In contrast, B2C marketing attribution typically involves shorter sales cycles, fewer touchpoints, and direct consumer actions.
Implementing B2B marketing attribution successfully requires a combination of best practices and overcoming common challenges. To optimize ROI and resource allocation, focus on understanding which campaigns, channels, and segments perform best. Gain end-to-end customer journey insights by connecting the dots between every touchpoint. Foster stronger alignment and synergy between sales and marketing teams by linking marketing efforts with sales metrics.
Create granular, personalized experiences by understanding each individual, account, or segment's marketing preferences. Lastly, justify marketing budgets and spends with data-driven evidence of marketing's influence on revenue and pipeline.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the market your business can realistically serve with its current products and sales channels.
Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a business strategy where the product itself drives user acquisition, conversion, and expansion.
Precision targeting is a marketing strategy that uses data to identify and reach a highly specific audience most likely to convert.
Sales and marketing analytics involves measuring and analyzing performance data to maximize effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI).
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
Load testing is a type of performance testing that determines how a system behaves under both normal and anticipated peak load conditions.
Pipeline coverage is a key sales metric. It's the ratio of your total open pipeline value to your sales quota for a specific period.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
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Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.
Buying criteria are the specific requirements and standards a customer uses to evaluate products or services before making a decision.
A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.
A messaging strategy defines what your brand says, how it says it, and where it says it to connect effectively with your target audience.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
A marketing automation platform is software that automates marketing actions. It helps manage tasks like email campaigns and lead nurturing.
“End of Quarter” (EOQ) refers to the final weeks of a business quarter when sales teams rush to meet quotas, often leading to a flurry of deals.
Order management is the end-to-end process of tracking customer orders from placement to fulfillment, ensuring a seamless customer experience.
Sales metrics are quantifiable data points that track and measure a sales team's performance against specific goals and objectives.
Triggers are predefined conditions that, when met, automatically launch a workflow or action, ensuring timely and relevant outreach.
Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost a business spends to gain a new customer. It includes all sales and marketing expenses.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is a key performance indicator that calculates the average revenue generated from each user or subscriber.
Network monitoring is the continuous process of tracking a computer network's performance and health to detect and resolve issues proactively.
Sales development is the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers to create a pipeline of sales-ready leads for closers.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.
"Smile and dial" is a high-volume sales tactic where reps make numerous cold calls from a list, often with little to no prior research.
Lead scraping is the process of automatically extracting contact information and other relevant data about potential customers from online sources.
Data security protects digital information from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft throughout its entire lifecycle.
Competitive intelligence (CI) is the ethical gathering and analysis of market data to inform strategic business decisions and gain an advantage.
A User Interface (UI) is the point where humans and computers interact. It encompasses all visual elements like screens, icons, and buttons.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
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Email verification is the process of confirming that an email address is valid and deliverable, which helps improve campaign performance.
Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.
Customer relationship marketing is a strategy for building lasting connections with customers to foster long-term loyalty and engagement.
A persona map visually outlines a target customer, detailing their goals, behaviors, and pain points to help your team build genuine empathy.
A product champion is an internal evangelist who drives a product's adoption and success by ensuring it solves real problems for their team.
Demand is the economic principle describing a consumer's desire and willingness to purchase a specific good or service at a particular price.
Intent data tracks a user's online behavior—like searches and site visits—to identify signals that they are ready to make a purchase.
Programmatic display campaigns use automation to buy and sell digital ad space in real-time, targeting specific audiences across the web.
Cold emailing is sending unsolicited emails to potential customers you haven't contacted before, aiming to start a business conversation.
Generic keywords are broad search terms that lack specific details like brand or location. They attract a wide audience with less specific intent.
Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.
Sales operations analytics is the practice of analyzing sales data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.
An Operational CRM is a system that automates and improves customer-facing business processes like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
Workflow automation uses rule-based logic to run a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual human effort to complete.
Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.
Site retargeting is a marketing strategy that shows ads to people who have previously visited your website but left without converting.
Account-Based Selling is a B2B strategy where sales and marketing treat high-value accounts as markets of one, using personalized outreach.
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process, from the first contact to the final sale.
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Demand generation is the process of creating awareness and interest in your products to build a pipeline of qualified leads for your sales team.
Outbound lead generation means proactively reaching out to potential customers who haven't yet expressed interest to introduce them to your brand.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process from a single dashboard.
A headless CMS is a back-end content repository that delivers content via API to any front-end, decoupling the content from its presentation layer.
Data appending is the process of adding new data fields to your existing database records to enrich and complete your information.
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other and exchange information.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.
Buying intent is the collection of online cues and behaviors that signal a prospect is actively researching and moving toward a purchase decision.
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation.
Outbound sales is when reps proactively contact potential customers through cold calls or emails to generate leads and build a sales pipeline.
Contact discovery is the process of finding accurate contact details for potential leads, including names, emails, phone numbers, and job titles.
A lead list is a curated database of potential customers (leads) with contact information and other key data for sales and marketing outreach.
Closed Won is a CRM status for a sales deal that has been successfully concluded, resulting in a signed contract and a new customer.
A sales call is a real-time conversation between a salesperson and a prospect, aiming to persuade them to purchase a product or service.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) software helps teams coordinate personalized marketing and sales efforts to land high-value customer accounts.
Intent-based leads are potential customers whose online actions—like searches or content engagement—signal a clear interest in buying a solution.
A buying signal is any action from a prospect that indicates they are interested in making a purchase, helping sales teams prioritize leads.
Sales acceleration refers to strategies and technologies designed to speed up the sales cycle, enabling reps to close more deals, faster.
Rollback procedures are a set of steps to restore a system to a previous, stable version after a failed update, ensuring minimal disruption.
A sales lead is a potential customer—an individual or organization that has shown interest in your company's products or services.
Responsive design is an approach where a website's layout adapts to the user's screen size, providing an optimal experience on any device.
Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.
Customer retention refers to the strategies and activities a company uses to prevent customer churn and encourage them to continue buying.
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Sales enablement technology refers to software and tools that equip sales teams with the resources they need to close more deals efficiently.
A Target Account List (TAL) is a focused list of high-value companies that a business specifically aims to convert into customers.
Warm outbound is a sales strategy for contacting prospects who've shown interest in your brand through prior engagement, like website visits.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
A demand generation framework is a strategic process for creating awareness and interest in your product, ultimately driving new business.
Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.
Firmographics are descriptive attributes of organizations, used to segment companies by characteristics like industry, size, and location.
A consumer is an individual or entity that buys products or services for personal use, not for resale. They are the final user in a supply chain.
Predictive lead generation uses data and AI to find prospects most likely to buy, helping teams focus their efforts on high-value leads.
A sales demo is a presentation where a sales rep shows a prospect how a product or service works and solves their specific problems.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
A custom API integration is a bespoke connection between software, enabling them to communicate and share data to meet unique business requirements.
Lead scoring is the process of assigning points to leads based on their attributes and actions to determine their sales-readiness.
Single Sign-On (SSO) is an authentication method allowing users to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials.
Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.
Stress testing is a type of software testing that determines a system's robustness by pushing it beyond its normal operational capacity.
An elevator pitch is a short, memorable summary of what you do, designed to be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
Sales automation uses software to streamline and automate repetitive, manual sales tasks, freeing up reps to focus on selling.
Intent leads are prospects who show buying signals through their online actions, indicating they're actively looking to make a purchase.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
Sales partnerships are strategic alliances where two companies co-sell products to expand their reach, generate new leads, and increase revenue.
Voice broadcasting is an automated system that delivers a pre-recorded voice message to a large list of phone numbers simultaneously.