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B2B

B2C

B2C
B2B

These are the results of the 2nd annual Webmarketing123 State of Digital Marketing Survey. Over 500 U.S. marketing professionals two-thirds B2B, one-third B2Canswered questions about their objectives, results and budgeting for three channels of digital marketing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), and Social Media Marketing (SMM). The results show that generating leads and sales, as well as increasing brand awareness, are the top objectives for digital marketers. Across company size and industry, digital marketers are adopting more sophisticated systems for measurement and attribution, boosting confidence to increase or maintain budgets.

Each year, brands increase their level of engagement with social media.
B2C leads the way, with 42% very or fully engaged with social media, compared to 27% for B2B. By a more broad measure, a full two-thirds of marketers now describe themselves as moderately to fully engaged with social media. That said, 1 in 10 marketers still have no social media presence at all.

F  ollow the Money: 9 out of 10 digital marketers are spending money on Social Media, and 8 out of 10 have reported leads or sales from their efforts.

 B2C Marketers Discover LinkedIn: The number of B2C marketers generating leads or sales via LinkedIn has increased 75% since last year, while the number reporting sales from Facebook has declined nearly 20%.

 As more sophisticated attribution tools become available, the number of marketers able to attribute leads and sales to particular social channels more than doubled (leads from 15 to 31%, sales from 23% to 60%). But 4 in 10 B2Cs and 2 in 10 B2Bs continue to find attribution completely out of reach.

 For B2B, lead generation is the top objective, and SEO is twice as effective as PPC or SMM for this purpose.

 For B2C, boosting awareness and reputation of their brands and products has doubled in importance since 2011, overtaking online sales as the top objective for digital marketing.

TOP OBJECTIVES FOR DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAMS

Budgets: 90% of marketers will increase or maintain spending on SEO, PPC, and SMM.

B2B
Increase Awareness Generate Leads

 Still doing SEO in-house? Marketers using an agency are twice as likely to be highly satisfied with their campaign performance.

54%

 PPC: Only a quarter of marketers surveyed are highly satisfied with the performance of campaigns managed internally, compared to one-third who work with agencies.

28%

objectivE

#1

Increase Sales

10%

B2C
Increase Sales Increase Awareness

33%

26%

objectivE

#1

Generate Leads

22%

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Industry Demographics
SURVEY PARTICIPANTS
Is your company primarily B2B or B2C?

35%
B2C B2B

65%

COMPANY SIZE
How many employees does your company have?

<50

23% 21% 23% 32%

51-200 201-1,000
>1,000

Companies responding to the survey include: Sony, Olympus, Phillips, IBM, Hitatchi, Cisco, Agilent, Microsoft, Citrix, Medtronic, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Blue Shield, ADP, Pitney Bowes, Monster.com, Angies List, GE, John Deere, Aramark, Thomson Reuters, Federal Express, Bose, and Nestl.

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B2B

LEAD GENERATION IS THE #1 OBJECTIVE

Top objectives for digital marketing programs

GENERATE LEADS

54% 10% 28% 6% 0.3% 0.7%

objective

#1

INCREASE SALES INCREASE AWARENESS GENERATE SITE TRAFFIC BUILD ONLINE COMMUNITY OTHER

While lead generation is by far the most common objective for digital marketing campaigns, brand and product awareness has nearly doubled in importance since last year. As budgets continue to grow, marketers are expanding their focus to include earlier stages in the sales cycle.

B2C

INCREASING BRAND AND PRODUCT AWARENESS IS THE #1 OBJECTIVE

Top objectives for digital marketing programs

GENERATE LEADS

22% 26% 33% 11% 6% 3%

objective

INCREASE SALES INCREASE AWARENESS GENERATE SITE TRAFFIC BUILD ONLINE COMMUNITY OTHER

#1

Increasing brand and product awareness has become the #1 objective for B2Cs online. This is a marked change from last year, when online sales were the top priority.

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B2B engages more with Social, B2C discovers SEO

Compared to last year, nearly 50% more B2Bs now identify Social Media as having the most impact on lead generation (2011 vs 2012). In a similar vein, 20% more B2Cs now identify SEO as most impactful for lead generation (2011 vs 2012).

Which makes the biggest impact on lead generation?

20%
PPC

26%
PPC

59%

SEO

B2B

49%
SOCIAL MEDIA

SEO

B2C
SOCIAL MEDIA

21%

25%

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

B2B

GOT SEO?

B2C

84%
YES NO

80%
NO

YES

B2B

AGENCY OR IN-HOUSE?

B2C

16% 21% 63%

AGENCY

IN-HOUSE

NO SEO PROGRAM

20%

53%

27%

B2B

BUDGETING FOR 2013

INCREASE BUDGET MAINTAIN BUDGET DECREASE BUDGET

B2C

2%

5%

43% 55%

50%

45%

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SEO Campaign Measurement

Are marketers measuring the right things? The most common measures of SEO performance are the volume of traffic, organic traffic, and the number of keywords appearing on page 1, which give no insight into financial impact. Fewer marketers are employing more sophisticated measures of SEO performance, such as number of qualified leads or sales attributable to organic search.

NOT ALL MEASUREMENT IS CREATED EQUAL

How does your company measure the effectiveness of your SEO program? Check all that apply.

OVERALL VOLUME OF TRAFFIC

51% 49% 47% 36% 34% 10%

Basic: Easy to implement but no measure of financial impact

VOLUME OF ORGANIC TRAFFIC NUMBER OF KEYWORDS ON PAGE 1 NUMBER OF QUALIFIED LEADS

Advanced: More indicative of financial impact, more challenging to implement

LEADS OR SALES ATTRIBUTABLE TO ORGANIC SEARCH NOT SURE WHAT TO MEASURE

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MEASURING THE SUCCESS OF SEO PROGRAMS Remains A CHALLENGE

More than 3 in 10 respondents indicate that difficulty in measuring SEO results was their top frustration with SEO.

7 in 10 companies are unable to accurately attribute leads or sales to organic search. 1 in 10 companies have no measurement system in place.

THREE STAGES OF MEASUREMENT SOPHISTICATION

While there are many ways to measure

40%

40%

SEO performance, they can be broadly categorized as basic or advanced (see previous table, p.7). The survey results suggest that marketers are likely to be at one of three stages, with a measurement gap between the least and most sophisticated. This gap holds true regardless of company size, industry, and whether SEO is managed internally or through an agency. We believe this reflects a growing gap between companies with competence in analytics and attribution and those without.

20%

STAGE 1: MEASURES SEO BY MEANS OF 1-3 BASIC METRICS

STAGE 2: MEASURES SEO BY 1-3 METRICS, INCLUDING 1 ADVANCED METRIC

STAGE 3: MEASURES SEO BY 3-5 METRICS, INCLUDING 1 OR MORE ADVANCED METRICS

Without Sophisticated Measurement, Satisfaction and Investment are Lacking

5 in 10 measurement-challenged marketers feel neutral to negative about their SEO performance. Marketers who said that they dont know how to measure SEO performance are significantly less satisfied with their results, and less likely to increase their SEO investment.

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PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING

B2B

GOT PPC?

B2C

64%
YES NO

73%
YES NO

B2B

AGENCY OR IN-HOUSE?
AGENCY IN-HOUSE NO PPC PROGRAM

B2C

36%

27%

44% 20%

42% 31%

B2B

BUDGETING FOR 2013

INCREASE BUDGET MAINTAIN BUDGET DECREASE BUDGET

B2C

11%

8%

31% 58% 52%

40%

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Satisfaction levels consistently higher when working with agencies

AGENCY IN-HOUSE

21%
highly satisfied with SEO program performance

11%

SEO

20%
highly satisfied with PPC program performance

15%

PPC

21%
highly satisfied with Social Media program performance

10%

SOCIAL MEDIA
Marketers working with an agency (as opposed to in-house) are twice as likely to be highly satisfied with SEO and Social Media, and significantly more likely to be highly satisfied with PPC.

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Social media

B2B

GOT SOCIAL MEDIA?

B2C

90%
YES NO

91%
YES NO

B2B

AGENCY OR IN-HOUSE?

B2C

10%

5%

AGENCY

IN-HOUSE

NO SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

14% 13%

85%

83%

B2B

BUDGETING FOR 2013

INCREASE BUDGET MAINTAIN BUDGET DECREASE BUDGET

B2C

3%

2%

41% 56% 46%

52%

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SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

B2C marketers are ahead with 70% moderately to highly engaged (40% highly engaged), but B2B is catching up, with 63% at those levels of engagement (27% highly engaged), Overall, only 1 in 10 have no social media program.
B2B VS. B2C
How would you describe your companys engagement with Social Media?

B2B B2C
27% 20%

36% 30% 31%

19%

10%

9%

8%

10%

NO INVOLVEMENT

SOMEWHAT INVOLVED

MODERATELY INVOLVED

VERY INVOLVED

FULLY INTEGRATED

B2B
B2B marketers are far less engaged than B2C in Social Media

B2C

PERCEPTION

B2Bs are closing the gap. 63% of B2Bs are engaged with social media, vs. 70% of B2Cs.

REALITY

% marketers who are moderately to highly engaged with social media

63%

70%

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Spending Money on Social Media

B2B

B2C

40% 39% 30% 14% 6%

MAKING MONEY from Social Media

65% 23% 39% 17% 14%

% of Marketers who Generated Leads from Social Media % of Marketers who Generated Sales from Social Media

B2B

B2C

39% 19% 44% 23% 30% 14% 7% 3% 3% 1% 19% 15% 7% 13% 6% 9% 43% 21% 39%

67%

Across the board, marketers social media expenditures are producing revenue opportunities.

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SOCIAL MEDIA: INVESTMENT CONTINUES, ATTRIBUTION STILL A CHALLENGE

9 out of 10 digital marketers are spending money on Social

Media, and 8 out of 10 have reported leads or sales from their efforts. As expectations rise, marketers are staffing up and 95% of Social Media engagers now manage their own Social Media campaigns (up from 85% last year).

Attribution challenges continue: 4 in 10 of marketers in our

survey are unable to attribute sales or deals specifically to Social Media marketing.

Despite the inability to directly attribute revenue to Social Media, 95% of companies intend to increase or maintain their spending on Social Media next year. B2C marketers are increasing their spending on Social Media faster than B2B, but no one is taking their foot off the gas (5 in 10 B2C marketers and 4 in 10 B2B marketers will increase budgets).

B2B

Social Media Analysis

B2C

Social Media Analysis

90% of B2Bs have some level of Social Media engagement, with 63% describing themselves as moderately to fully engaged, and 25% very to fully engaged. The majority of this group are seeing a return on their investment. Top areas of investment (for the 60% that spend) are Facebook & LinkedIn (where 40% are active), and Twitter (30%). On these platforms, nearly all advertisers are generating leads, and roughly half have closed deals. Its notable that 20% of the marketers active on Social Media arent sure if theyre generating leads, and a full 40% arent sure if theyve closed sales attributable to Social Media. Clearly, marketers are still struggling to measure and attribute the value of their investment. Despite the lack of consistent results and attribution challenges, 41% of marketers plan to increase their Social Media budgets, and another 56% will maintain their budgets.

90% of B2Cs have some level of Social Media engagement, with 70% describing themselves as moderately to fully engaged, and 40% very to fully engaged. Like their B2B counterparts, the vast majority of B2Cs (90%) are managing their Social Media in-house, and 70% are spending money on it. Two-thirds of B2Cs are active on Facebook and generate leads this way, and more than half of them see closed deals. Across the board, roughly half of Social Media efforts see measurable results (for example, 14% of B2C marketers are active on Pinterest and 6% get sales or deals from it.) The number of B2Cs generating leads via LinkedIn has increased 75% since last year, while the number reporting Facebook as a source of sales declined nearly 20% (from 48% to 39%). 50% of B2C marketers will increase their investment in Social Media and 47% will maintain spending.

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The second annual Webmarketing123 State of Digital Marketing Survey was conducted online in July of 2012. Over 500 U.S. participants completed the surveyall individuals who responded to an email invitation sent to marketing professionals. Participants answered questions using an online survey tool. For more information about the survey, please contact marketingteam@webmarketing123.com.

ABOUT Webmarketing123
Webmarketing123 is a digital marketing agency that helps clients convert online visibility into measurable business results. In 2012, Webmarketing123 was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. Our distinctive approach is to pair our metrics-rich methodology with an understanding of our clients unique business goals and challenges. We combine a deep expertise across industry verticals, smart use of automation, and efficient use of analytics to inform data-driven decisionmaking. At Webmarketing123, each client has a dedicated team employing Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, and/or Social Media Marketing to create remarkable, results-driven marketing programs.

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