ABM Benchmark Insights

Transcription

1 ABM Benchmark Insights Q3 2016

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 3 BrightFunnel Benchmark Insights - Q Analysis and Recommendations... 5 Insight #1: Organizations adopting ABM have a 10% higher win-rate... 5 Insight #2: Target account opportunities have a 15% higher win rate... 5 Insight #3: North American accounts require 100% more touches vs. Rest of World... 6 Insight #4: Accounts have 13 influential buyers vs. only 1 attached to the Oppty... 7 Insight #5: Event touches have 4X prevalence vs. PPC and Display touches... 8 About This Research... 9 About BrightFunnel... 9 ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

3 Executive Summary Insight #1: Organizations adopting ABM have a 10% higher win-rate We saw that companies that segment their prospects into target/non-target had a 10% higher win-rate on average than companies who did not segment and prioritize their target accounts. Specifically, the average win rate for ABM non-practitioners was 15.1% vs. 16.6% for ABM practitioners. Insight #2: Target account opportunities have 15% higher win rate We found that target accounts had an average of 15% higher win-rates compared to their non-target account win-rates. Specifically, ABM target accounts showed an 18.7% win rate vs. 16.3% for nontarget accounts. Insight #3: North American accounts require 100% more touches vs. Rest of World We saw that it took an average of 16 marketing touches to close a deal for new business in North America, whereas opportunities outside of NA required half as much only 8 touches. Insight #4: Accounts have 13 influential buyers vs. only 1 attached to the Oppty Buyers influencing an opportunity end up categorized in 3 buckets in Salesforce: orphan Lead, Contact-on-Account and Contact-on-Opportunity (the latter is a subset of the second). We found that there are 8.1 orphan Leads and 4.5 Contacts-on-Account, of which only 1 is attached to an Opportunity. Put another way, for every 1 Contact attached to an Account, there are another 1.8 Orphan Leads that belong to Account but are not associated. ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

4 Insight #5: Event touches have 4X prevalence vs. PPC and Display touches Online PPC and Display advertising are often valued as wide-reaching marketing channels, sometimes causing them to discount other marketing efforts. However, we were surprised to see a 4:1 ratio of Event touches (both trade shows and field marketing) to PPC / display. ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

5 BrightFunnel Benchmark Insights - Q Analysis and Recommendations Insight #1: Organizations adopting ABM have a 10% higher winrate Finding: We saw that companies that segment their prospects into target/nontarget had a 10% higher win-rate on average than companies who did not segment and prioritize their target accounts. Specifically, the average win rate for ABM non-practitioners was 15.1% vs. 16.6% for ABM practitioners. Why it matters: This is a significant finding. The data indicates that companies adopting target account strategies perform better. This should be reason enough to closely evaluate whether to invest in an ABM strategy. This finding could also indicates that the act of organizing an ABM effort, which requires investing time and resources to align Sales and Marketing, itself results in higher performance. Both are good reasons to adopt ABM. What you should do: We recommend that you start by evaluating past performance. Secondly, develop ABM strategies in parallel with your traditional demand generation efforts. Third, structure your ABM efforts so can split-test your target accounts vs. various tactics. For the vast majority of organizations, a hybrid strategy will make the most sense. Throwing out your marketing automation platform and years of historical data, probably isn t a good idea. Insight #2: Target account opportunities have a 15% higher win rate Finding: We found that target accounts had an average of 15% higher win-rates compared to their non-target account win-rates. Specifically, ABM target accounts showed an 18.7% win rate vs. 16.3% for non-target accounts. ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

6 Why it matters: In conjunction with the first metric, this suggests that taking an ABM approach does improve results for those specific accounts targeted. So it likely isn t just the effect of organizational alignment that results in higher performance. There is potential selection bias at play of course -- it may be the accounts would have had a higher win rate regardless. What you should do: As per the previous finding, we encourage B2B organizations to test this in their own data by split testing equivalent groups of accounts. Insight #3: North American accounts require 100% more touches vs. Rest of World Finding: We saw that it took an average of 16 marketing touches to close a deal for new business in North America, whereas opportunities outside of NA required half as many with only 8 touches. Why it matters: For global organizations, it is important not to take a one size fits all approach to the marketing mix. There are many factors to evaluate, but the most basic one, which we ve opted to start with, is that NA deals require more touches. Regional leaders will likely tell you that this is because their buyers don't behave the exact same way as in North America, and they are probably right. This may also be in part due to regional differences in marketing mixes, account profiles and deal sizes. For example, more rapid adoption of digital tactics in NA may account for a greater number of touches. There are also more stakeholders involved in NA deals, which tend to be larger and take longer. Field efforts are also likely to yield greater results in EMEA, APAC and LTAM because they ve come to rely on local events customized to their needs vs. global content. What you should do: The insights you draw from your ABM efforts are only as good as your segmentation. What works in mid-market North America may be very different than what works in enterprise EMEA. In fact, we ve heard anecdotally that the U.S. mid-western market is vastly different than the coasts. It simply makes sense to look at performance and optimal market mix in a manner that s filtered down. We don t think this is optional. Using universal metrics, if you re a mid to large sized company, is dangerous. At a minimum, we recommend you segment by region and size. For larger organizations, products and business ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

7 units come into play. Insight #4: Accounts have 13 influential buyers vs. only 1 attached to the Oppty Finding: Buyers influencing an opportunity end up categorized in 3 buckets in Salesforce: orphan Lead, Contact-on-Account and Contact-on-Opportunity (the latter is a subset of the second). We found that there are 8.1 orphan Leads and 4.5 Contacts-on-Account, of which only 1 is attached to an Opportunity. Put another way, for every 1 Contact attached to an Account, there are another 1.8 Orphan Leads that belong to Account but are not associated. Why it matters: There are a total of 13 people influencing an Account and interacting with your marketing efforts, but only 1 shows up on the opportunity. Many B2B organizations are still relying on single contact, single-touch attribution to evaluate their marketing performance. On average, this ignores 94% of marketing touches. This makes resulting marketing performance insights from CRM and Marketing Automation systems very unreliable. Salesforce and other CRM systems were architected for a previous era, when the volume of leads was much lower. It was expected that 1 lead would convert to an opportunity (or not). These systems were also not built with marketing performance in mind. In particular, the distinctions between Lead, Contact-on- Account and Contact-on-Opportunity result in a fragmentation of the marketing influence data and insights. Salesforce campaign reporting only considers the latter group. Marketing Automation Platforms such as Marketo and Eloqua have this identical limitation, as they were built to be compatible with Salesforce over a decade ago. What you should do: We recommend you take an Account-based view of your marketing results for both your ABM efforts and your traditional demand generation efforts. This enables you to measure marketing performance by looking at every channel and every touch on an account. This is account-based, multi-touch attribution. There are different ways to solve this problem. You can do this manually if need be, by exporting campaign data into a spreadsheet or database. In doing so, you must consider dark marketing influence on orphan ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

8 leads which need to be associated with an account before any conclusive analysis. But it s important that you do something, manual or otherwise, if you want to have a holistic view of marketing performance. That complete picture is what CMOs and Boards are typically looking for. Using a single-touch approach can lead to under-investment in critical tactics that accelerate your mid-funnel, which is often where winning organizations separate themselves from the losers. If you must rely on single-touch, then please use the data appropriately -- don t under-resource your mid-funnel campaigns because they aren t the first or last touch. Caution: The one tempting solution that you should not pursue too aggressively is changing sales rep behavior. Your sales reps are the most expensive part of the funnel. Sales management needs to be able to optimize their behavior as they see fit. If they save a few minutes by not attaching Contact Roles or converting Leads, I say Amen. The problem must be solved either through never-ending data quality efforts within your CRM and MAP, or by taking a more intelligent, algorithmic approach in your reporting platform (which we recommend). Insight #5: Event touches have 4X prevalence vs. PPC and Display touches Finding: Online PPC and Display advertising are often valued as a wide-reaching marketing channels, sometimes causing them to discount other marketing efforts. However, we were surprised to see a 4:1 ratio of Event touches (both trade shows and field marketing) to PPC / display. Why it matters: In person interactions still matter. Our hypothesis is that single touch measurement approaches have led to over-valuing and over-budgeting of digital tactics, such as PPC. Meanwhile, for target accounts, higher bandwidth communication channels such as events are doing the hard work of engaging ABM prospects throughout the buyers journey. With multiple stakeholders, this is especially important. CxOs aren't downloading white papers but may attend executive briefing events. What you should do: Evaluate your live event channel like any other kill off your poor performers and double down on your stars. But be sure to look for the ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.

9 impact of events in the context of ABM metrics, not just leads sourced. This means considering impact on deal velocity and probability of close, as well as specific titles in attendance that may be hard to reach otherwise. Events can be particularly effective with target accounts, later in the buying cycle, and with executives. But you should form your own hypotheses and test them in your own data. If it pans out for you, use Events as a critical ABM marketing channel. About This Research This research is based on primary data from a network of organizations using the BrightFunnel platform. We analyzed data from the full calendar year 2015 to account for any seasonal variation. We limited the dataset to the high tech vertical to normalize for any industry variations. About BrightFunnel BrightFunnel s mission is to connect marketing to revenue. We ve set out to create a new category B2B Marketing Intelligence that sits at the intersection of Marketing, Sales and Finance, to orchestrate predictable revenue growth. Our powerful marketing attribution and forecasting capabilities enable B2B marketers to be more data-driven, and turn campaigns into profits. BrightFunnel enables executives to understand the revenue impact of each decision and align marketing plans with business priorities. Companies like Nimble Storage have used BrightFunnel to understand campaign performance, optimize investments and increase Marketing s impact on bookings by over 100%. ABM Benchmark Insights (Q3 2016) BrightFunnel, Inc.