GATHERING DATA VERSUS GATHERING INSIGHT:
A GUIDE FOR PERFORMANCEORIENTED B2B MARKETERS
How data visibility makes (or breaks) a clear picture of marketing success
In today’s digital age, most marketing teams use various technologies such as CRM systems, email automation platforms, and analytics tools to collect and analyze data, streamline communications, track customer interactions, and optimize marketing strategies.
But is all this technology actually enhancing performance or aiding in decision-making? Is it being used to its full functionality? Does it effectively communicate the impact of marketing’s activities to the C-suite? Perhaps most importantly, is it helping boost revenue?
Instead of simply collecting data, marketers must strive for insight into what the data reveals. That insight can help teams evaluate, assess, and design future campaigns that will continually drive positive results and close the sales loop.
Data visibility will help marketing teams answer questions like:
• What is the ROI of marketing?
• Do emails, events, or brochures help close deals? If not, could they?
• How should marketing budgets be allocated in the future based on what’s worked (and what hasn’t) in the past?
• What does a “successful” marketing campaign look like, and how is it defined and measured?
Using the technology already on hand—with a little added functionality—insight is easy to uncover. Read on to improve workflow and optimize marketing performance.
Yours in influence,
Zee Jeremic CEO + Founder MASS Engines
SHOWING YOUR WORK: WHY DOES DATA MATTER?
Marketing pioneer John Wanamaker (1838–1922) opened one of the first department stores in the U.S. A merchandising genius and proponent of the power of advertising, his shop became an empire of sixteen stores—unheard of at the time. Wanamaker coined the now-familiar phrase: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
A century later, this sentiment still resonates. Despite modern advancements, many marketing departments struggle to convey campaign performance well enough to quantify and report on what works. They may know how to generate data, but there’s one critical piece missing: data insight.
Data insight is at the heart of performance reporting, an approach now driving the technology-centric marketing landscape. While many organizations miss the mark when it comes to incorporating this game-changing approach, those who embrace it are gaining a clear competitive advantage.
Teams that put existing data to work effectively gain insights that can lead to:
• More fruitful collaboration among marketing, sales, and the C-suite
• Greater clarity on how to allocate budgets most effectively
• Evidence that ties marketing efforts directly to revenues
Here’s where to begin on a journey toward data insight and performance reporting: First, clarify the company’s marketing goals. What are the executives asking for? What metrics clearly demonstrate success? If the team were to achieve success beyond its current capabilities, what would be the keys to that story? Ideally, what data insight is needed that marketing doesn’t already have access to?
The right questions fuel the right reports, setting a strong foundation for marketing’s success story.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
JOHN WANAMAKER
A CHANGING LANDSCAPE
In the traditional baseline model, marketing departments report on their efforts based on these steps:
• Dollars are spent on advertising
• Advertising generates awareness
• Awareness generates leads
• Leads convert to sales
Technology has disrupted this traditional model, particularly in the B2B sector, shifting the power from sellers to buyers. Customers can now easily bypass carefully crafted advertising messages and gather information from other online sources that can influence buying decisions.
Brand and awareness still form the foundation of B2B marketing, but demand generation is the new focal point.
Looking at demand generation in the digital era, there are new metrics that must be considered and reported on. Three are most critical:
1. Return on marketing investment, or ROMI. This is attribution.
2. Conversion ratios, specifically funnel conversions. This is the seller’s ability to progress customers through the buying journey.
3. Velocity. This is the speed of the selling cycle.
The key to performance reporting is to determine what marketing reporting should look like in a B2B company that is embracing demand generation. Generating leads is one thing; converting them is another.
THE PERFORMANCE REPORTING FRAMEWORK
MASS Engines has created a revenue-focused framework to evaluate marketing activities, channels, and campaigns. This sixtiered framework provides deep insights into the business’s lead generation and revenue conversion capabilities. It offers a reliable foundation for planning demand generation and serves as a shared benchmark for sales and marketing performance assessment.
TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE, YOUR TACTICS MUST SHIFT—YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU CAN’T MEASURE.
The performance reporting framework connects high-level planning requirements with daily operational reporting to ensure revenue objectives can be effectively set and reached by marketing.
Assess
TAKING THE GUESSWORK OUT OF BUDGET ALLOCATION
What gets measured gets managed. Performance reporting is grounded in this idea. Measuring client, revenue, or company objectives enables the business to plan and budget what is required to achieve goals as well as hold accountable those responsible for acting on objectives.
When implemented and adopted, the recommended reporting process will enable a continuous improvement feedback loop, which ensures the right activities are prioritized in each planning cycle.
Planning & Budgeting
Identifying business objectives and priorities
PERFORMANCE REPORTING PROCESS
Actioning & Monitoring
Track the performance of activities that support priorities
REPORTING STAGES
Achieving performance targets requires alignment among key stakeholders in the planning process as to both the goals and objectives of marketing and overall priorities of the organization. For the process to be effective, the following stages require reporting for the associated responsibilities to be met:
Period & Frequency Quarterly / Yearly
Reporting
Responsibility
Business Performance Section of Reporting Dashboards
Marketing Performance Section of Reporting Dashboard
Set at Business Level, Usually by Senior Leadership (VP)
CMO / CFO
Marketing Performance View in Reporting Dashboards
See Marketing Performance Section of Reporting Dashboards
Marketing Managers
CMO / CFO
STAKEHOLDER RESPONSIBILITIES
Multiple marketing agents and stakeholders enable daily execution of marketing activities and generate reporting on outcomes. Key players may be:
VP / Division Manager
• Responsible for setting target revenue goals
• Responsible for approving the required budget to achieve the identified revenue goals
Director of Marketing
• Responsible for establishing investment required to meet target marketing revenue goals
• Responsible for establishing how investment should be spread across the identified activities responsible for meeting identified goals
Marketing Manager
• Responsible for monitoring the performance and identifying opportunities for improvement in website performance as well as email and social activities
• Responsible for brand identity as well as associated messaging and promotions across all marketing activities
• Responsible for the overall performance of the website in converting visitors into inquiries
Digital Marketing Manager
• Responsible for monitoring the performance and identifying opportunities for improvement in search marketing activities
• Responsible for the management of search partner
• Accountable for the cost and quality of paid media traffic (as measured by cost per click and cost per lead)
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Lead Generation Reporting
Daily Monitoring
• Visitor & Inquiry Volume
• Visitor Quality Indicators
• Effectiveness of Website in Converting Visitors to Leads
Sample KPIs
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REPORTING ROLES
A simplified version of the Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed (RACI) responsibility matrix helps to identify key reporting roles at each stage of the framework. Responsible and Accountable roles have been combined into a single Decision Maker role. Below are the associated responsibilities in the reporting process:
Decision Maker
The person(s) responsible for delivering on an objective and who will be held accountable if it is not met.
Decision makers determine the specific objectives and requirements. This requires not only accessing the associated reporting but interpreting what actions should be taken based on it.
Consulted
For a decision maker to be effectively held accountable, their dependencies need to be identified.
If a deliverable depends on the team member’s ability to achieve specific objectives, they should be consulted.
Informed
Those whose opinions are sought, typically subject-matter experts; and with whom there is two-way communication.
These team members are kept up-to-date on progress, often only on completion of the task or deliverable; and with whom there is just one-way communication.
A Performance Reporting Exercise
Access an editable framework template below and plug in your company’s data into the reporting model to generate powerful answers about marketing impact and opportunities.
Editable Performance Reporting Framework Template >
BUILD AN EXECUTIVE DASHBOARD
Using data derived from your Performance Reporting Framework, you can slice and dice the information to zero in on specific channels, products, or verticals.
An Executive Dashboard can help answer questions like:
• How many attendees made a purchase after last year’s regional event compared to the national event?
• What’s the year-over-year growth of a product for a particular market in a specific area? How does this compare with other markets in the same region?
• We have money to spend on banner ads online. What’s been the most effective social media channel for us in the B2B sector versus retail?
• How much pipeline have we generated for the product line over the last two quarters, particularly in a specific vertical, and how does that compare with last year and the year before?
On the following pages you find examples that illustrate how you can sort your data to visualize and understand the impact of your marketing activities.
Fig. 1: Funnel Reporting
A full comparison report that can be customized to specific years, quarters, products, verticals, channels, or other desired combinations.
Fig. 2: Key Metrics
This report shows the key metrics, such as time to close, average deal size, specific funnel stage conversion rates, or other desired combinations.
Fig. 3: Event Impact Analysis
This report shows how attending an event impacts velocity through the funnel and the average deal size.
Event Impact Analysis
Fig. 4: Opportunities by Channel
Channel reporting helps marketing departments understand what marketing channels are actually driving sales and helps with budgeting and allocation of resources.
Fig. 5: Vertical Impact
This report shows the pipeline and revenue generated for the year broken down by vertical, enabling marketing to focus on verticals/industries that are actively buying their products.
HOW TO IMPLEMENT A PERFORMANCE REPORTING PROTOCOL
Increased revenue is always the goal. Performance reporting can get you there, but it requires internal advocacy and planning. Foster curiosity, learning, and enthusiasm for your program by following these four steps:
Designate a Reporting Lead Who Will Be Accountable.
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Every new undertaking needs a champion. Before the performance reporting project starts, enlist a marketing executive with high-level buy-in from a sales executive. Build anticipation and understanding, setting intentions and expectations openly. Managers for different activities should join the build effort to help identify the most accurate metrics for measurement and design a sensible workflow.
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Get Early Alignment for Long-term Collaboration.
When making a change in any big company, expect road bumps and red tape. Start by understanding the approval chain and the sphere of influencers. Who signs off? Who do you need on board to help drive adoption? Sales reps will need to convert inquiries into opportunities the right way within Salesforce. IT and web teams will need to be on hand for support and troubleshooting. Be sure to consider any executives whose mandate would boost usage (or whose indifference would dampen it). To track, share, and act on all the data, you’ll need cooperation. Plugging in a new attribution tool is the most straightforward part of implementation, but to really make data shine, you’ll need everyone to follow through consistently.
Choose the Right Tech Implementation Partner.
To consolidate and process data, you’ll need to get the data model and the structure right, as well as the technical engine to churn the data. Furthermore, you’ll need new functionality to fit into your existing tech ecosystem. Find an implementation partner with experience managing all the moving parts.
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Select a Customizable Solution.
Some solution providers peddle one-size-fitsall, out-of-the-box attribution systems, which inevitably need heavy customization during implementation. Instead, choose a customizable platform at the outset. There is measurable value in tailored solutions.
Map Your Plan
Sketch out your possible next steps by plugging your own data points into our performance reporting framework chart.
Why MASS Engines?
WE’RE MORE THAN JUST TECH
Our team is comprised of change management agents, MarTech strategists and marketing automation technicians with 35+ years of consulting experience.
WE USE A PROVEN METHODOLOGY
Our 4 step framework is based on a proven academic model for technology adoption and is supported by a disciplined adoption pathway.
WE UNDERSTAND CHANGE
We help you motivate meaningful change in your organization by putting people and information at the center. Our process identifies challenges, communicates solutions and ensures long-term adoption across your organization.
WE KNOW MARTECH
We are laser focused on marketing automation & CRM as essential building blocks of the revenue engine. Our experienced team knows the ins and outs of key platforms and common adoption challenges.
WE BELIEVE IN EMPOWERMENT
We’re only as good as your ability to own the solutions we implement. We support your funnel revolution with change management, training and governance.
WE SEE THE SUM OF THE PARTS
We work across all critical departments to ensure they have a seat at the funnel transformation discussion table from day one.
We’ve built our business on referrals and are proud to have worked with:
