Leslie shares the example of a multibillion-dollar organization that sold its products via distributors and how it used conversion tracking: Stage 1: Track “micro goals” or small actions that don’t yet signal strong buying interest (e.g., page views and clicks). Stage 3: Assign values for each conversion to better understand which channels work best. As you can see, at the first stage, the organization is relatively blind to how customers are converting (e.g., finding distributors from whom to purchase). In addition to tracking macro conversions, Leslie recommends organizations track activity related to distributors. Here’s what she recommends doing: Track distributor searches on website. A conversion is a completed sale. In a B2B transaction, where numerous conversions lead to a sale, it can be challenging to assign values to each conversion (e.g., goal). According to a Google Analytics help page, “Cross-domain tracking makes it possible for Analytics to see sessions on two related sites (such as an e-commerce site and a separate shopping cart site) as a single session.” You may need the help of a web developer on your IT team to make this happen. Double tracking conversions Leslie gives the example of a B2B e-commerce company that inadvertently tracked conversions in both Google Ads and Google Analytics. Sales happened, but the marketing team doesn’t have the conversion data to set up for future success – to evaluate marketing efficiency, to maximize spending, and to improve profits.
Consider the following via research from Think with Google:
- 90% of B2B researchers who are online use search specifically to research business purchases.
- 71% of B2B researchers start with a generic search.
- B2B researchers average 12 searches prior to engaging on a brand’s site.
- B2B buying process influencers and decision-makers are over halfway down the path to a decision before they perform an action on your site.
These statistics tell me that your prospects are doing a lot of research online about products and solutions that can address their needs. With compelling content marketing and an SEO-optimized website, your aim is for them to discover your B2B brand during that research process.
In addition to getting prospects through the front door, it’s important to track them as they move toward the back door. Conversion tracking can show how many customers you acquired along with the marketing campaigns that played a part in the sale.
In a Content Marketing World presentation, A-Z Conversion Tracking Issues for B2B and How to Solve Them, Leslie Carruthers says conversion tracking for B2B:
- Helps evaluate your marketing efficiency
- Saves money from allocating budget to low-performing channels
- Improves profit by spending more on winning strategies
Conversion tracking can also be used to quantify your marketing team’s performance and secure future budget approvals from the C-suite.
According to Leslie, “We’re here to prove the website’s working so that you can benefit from it. With conversion tracking, you’ll be rewarded with the data you need to go get the budget to do all the amazing things that you have in mind.”
In her presentation, Leslie shares the top five B2B conversion tracking issues, along with ways to address those issues.
1. Sales made via distributors are hard to track
Instead of buying directly from the brand, many B2B customers buy from a reseller or distributor. B2B brands may have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of resellers and distributors in their channel network.
In this model, prospects visit the brand’s web properties to research and evaluate its products, then venture to a reseller’s website. While there, the prospect might engage with a sales professional, obtain pricing, and ultimately purchase the product.
Leslie shares the example of a multibillion-dollar organization that sold its products via distributors and how it used conversion tracking:
- Stage 1: Track “micro goals” or small actions that don’t yet signal strong buying interest (e.g., page views and clicks).
- Stage 2: Add “macro conversions,” actions that are stronger indicators of buying interest (e.g., contact form, downloads of catalogs, search for distributors).
- Stage 3: Assign values for each conversion to better understand which channels work best.
As you can see, at the first stage, the organization is relatively blind to how customers are converting (e.g., finding distributors from whom to purchase). In the third stage, the organization uses weighted values to determine which marketing channels lead to the most valuable conversions.
Here are the goal values that organization chose:
According to Leslie, it’s important that the marketing team regularly audit the assigned goal values and determine whether they should be updated.
In addition to tracking macro conversions, Leslie recommends organizations track activity related to distributors. While an organization may be blind to a product sale by distributor A, it can quantify website activity related to that distributor. Here’s what she recommends doing:
- Track distributor searches on website.
- Track phone calls from your website to distributors (e.g., following a “click to call” hyperlink to a distributor’s phone number).
- Use a marketing automation platform to track relevant or notable clicks.
2. Setting the wrong conversion goals
The “garbage-in, garbage-out” analogy can be made for conversion tracking. If your conversion goals don’t make sense or don’t connect with business goals, then conversion tracking is meaningless.
Leslie gives the example of a financial company that set goal values backwards:
- Click on pages: $500 (least important)
- Application start: $250 (less important)
- Application complete: $0 (most important)
The company was giving the highest goal value to a micro goal (clicks), with zero value given to the completion of an application (i.e., the most important macro conversion). These values create misleading indicators: 10 completed applications would trigger…
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