SlideShare a Scribd company logo
1 of 38
Download to read offline
introduction to closed-loop marketing
1
Share This Ebook!
closed-loop
marketing
An introduction to
How to Close the
Loop Between
Marketing & Sales
A Publication of
CONVERTING TO AN AGILE STARTUP
introduction to closed-loop marketing
2
Share This Ebook!
An introduction to
closed-loop marketing
Edited by Magdalena Georgieva
Maggie Georgieva is an inbound marketing
manager at HubSpot, responsible for the
company’s marketing content offers, such as
ebooks and webinars (including the world’s
largest webinar).
Previously, Maggie was on HubSpot’s email
marketing team, managed the company’s
landing page creation and optimization, and
jump started the production of HubSpot’s
customer case studies.
Maggie is a regular blogger for the HubSpot
blog and has contributed to other sites and
publications, such as MarketingProfs, Brian
Solis’ blog, BostInnovation.com and The St.
Petersburg Times.
Follow me on twitter
@mgieva
introduction to closed-loop marketing
3
Share This Ebook!
COntents
how closed loop marketing works		 /8
what you need to set up closed-loop marketing 	 /19
become a better marketer by closing the loop		 /25
how to fix a broken loop	 /33
conclusion & additional resources 	 /38
introduction to closed-loop marketing
4
Share This Ebook!
Half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the trouble is
I don’t know which half.“
”
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t
know which half.” Almost a century after John Wanamaker spoke those
words, most online marketers can still feel his pain.
The irony is, today, marketers have the technology they need to
“close the loop” between marketing and revenue, but few are actually
taking advantage of it. To many, setting up closed-loop reporting has
remained too hard and confusing to implement.
Effective marketers, however, should be able to tie every single lead,
customer and dollar back to the marketing initiative that created them.
This is how marketers can prove their worth, and understand how to
more efficiently reach their audience.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
5
Share This Ebook!
It’s time that we changed the status quo. Marketers invest a lot of time
in their campaigns and are not always sure whether their efforts are
paying off. Social media is the classic case: businesses engage in social
media conversations without knowing how these interactions can
transform into new sales.
If you are unsure on where you should start to implement successful
closed-loop marketing, this is the right ebook for you. We will start by
demonstrating the value which comes with closed-loop marketing
data. Then, we will walk you through a step-by-step explanation of how
closed-loop marketing works and how it can help you become a better
marketer. Lastly, we will show you how you can fix your loop if you spot
something odd in it.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
6
Share This Ebook!
CHAPTER 1
how closed
loop marketing
works
introduction to closed-loop marketing
7
Share This Ebook!
Visualizing Closed-Loop
Marketing:
Cookie is set
on the visitor
and their source,
e.g. email, social
media, etc.
The cookie tracks
the visitor’s
actions on the
website
Submission of
a lead capture
form
Attributing
customer
acquisition to the
visitor’s original
source
visitor
arrives
on site
lead
becomes a
customer
visitor
converts
into a lead
visitor
browses
website
Visitor actions
Software actions
introduction to closed-loop marketing
8
Share This Ebook!
Cookie is set
on the visitor
and their source,
e.g. email, social
media, etc.
visitor
arrives
on site
Visitor actions
The easiest
way to close the loop
is to make your website the central
hub for all your marketing. Search engines,
social media, email marketing, referral links,
paid search, even offline campaigns should get
filtered to your website. Once someone visits
your website, you can cookie them and
start tracking their activity.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
9
Share This Ebook!
This is the entry point of your closed-loop system. As the lead progresses through your sales
and marketing stages, you’ll be able to attribute them back to the proper channel. If they came
into your site through a link from a trade show, an email marketing campaign or a search term,
for example, you’ll be able to trace them back to that original source.
For instance, here is what that data can look like. Below you see a screenshot of HubSpot’s
traffic by channel, brought to us by the marketing analytics tools of our software. By looking
at this data we are able to see trends and compare channels. We know which are our most
valuable sources of traffic and can work on optimizing the rest.
The drop down menu enables us to switch this chart for a view of leads and customers by
channel.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
10
Share This Ebook!
Most web analytics systems will allow you to track sources of traffic like search term or
referring website, but you’ll need to go a step further than this in order to make sure that you’re
accurately assigning your leads to the right marketing initiative.
To create a tracking URL, you just need to add a parameter to the end of your website’s link that
your analytics system can identify and associate with a particular campaign or initiative. This
will enable you to more accurately track visitors who otherwise look like they are coming from
direct search.
The tracking token is added to the end of a link, allowing your analytics tool to pool a certain
group of traffic. Different tools employ different tokens, but here is an example of what a visit
from Twitter could look like:
/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
By attaching this to your URL anyone who clicks that link is signaling to your analytics tool that
they are coming from Twitter. The same type of tracking tokens apply to different channels,
such as email, paid media and referral traffic. Investigate with your marketing or analytics
software to make sure you have tracking tokens in place and your data gets assigned to the
right categories.
You should assign a tracking
URL to every marketing
campaign that is sending
traffic to your website. !
introduction to closed-loop marketing
11
Share This Ebook!
The cookie
tracks the
visitor’s actions
on the website
visitor
browses
website
Visitor actions
Software actions
As you attract traffic and
identify where that traffic is coming
from, you need to track the behavior of your
visitors. Which pages are they viewing? What is
their trajectory of actions? Such intelligence will
illustrate a path that can, down the road, help you
optimize for faster visitor-to-lead or even visitor-
to-customer conversions.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
12
Share This Ebook!
This is the trickiest part of closed-loop reporting: making sure that you can connect a visitor’s
session with their lead information once they convert on a form. Without this piece, you’ll have
two separate databases, one with anonymous visitor history and one with lead information. As a
result, you won’t be able to connect those leads back to their respective marketing source.
In order to make this work for you, either do something very technical on the back end of your
analytics platform or you start using some software that does this for you. There are a few of
companies out there that have figured out how to do this and there is no point reinventing the
wheel--full disclosure, the HubSpot software allows you to do closed-loop reporting.
Here is a screenshot of HubSpot’s Prospects tool which tracks visitors’ activity (when they are
still anonymous) and provides some actionable next steps, such as social media following.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
13
Share This Ebook!
Submission of
a lead capture
form
visitor
converts
to a lead
Visitor actions
Software actions
In order to monetize the traffic you are getting
and send qualified prospects to your sales team,
you need to convert visitors into leads. You can make
this happen by sending incoming traffic to landing
pages which are going to make an information
exchange possible and collect more insights
from your visitors.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
14
Share This Ebook!
More than just knowing where your visitors are coming from, you’ll need to know who they are.
This is curtail to closing the loop and being able to associate closed customers back to their
entry source.
The way to capture this information is to direct website visitors to a landing page with a
submission form (or also known as a lead capture form). Once visitors fill out this from, you’ll have
whatever contact information you asked them for: name, email, phone number, etc. As a best
practice, you should be sending most of your traffic to landing pages and forms so that you can
grow your leads database. Learn more about building awesome landing pages in this ebook.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
15
Share This Ebook!
Attributing
customer
acquisition to the
visitor’s original
source
lead
becomes a
customer
Visitor actions
Software actions
Now it’s time to figure out how
these visits transformed into sales.
Which one of your marketing channels
contributed the most customers? Are there
ways you can optimize the process for other
sources? Closed-loop marketing enables you
to identify the activities that bring in the
most (and least) revenue.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
16
Share This Ebook!
Finally, you need to look at all of the leads that your sales team has closed and attribute them
back to their original marketing initiative. If you’ve setup everything in steps one through four,
this should be a relatively straightforward process. For most medium-sized business, the
easiest way to achieve this is through your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
For smaller businesses, you might do this more manually using a spreadsheet.
Here is a screenshot of HubSpot’s analytics providing us with insights on customer acquisition
from different marketing sources, such as email marketing, social media and referrals.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
17
Share This Ebook!
CHAPTER 2
what you
need to set up
closed-loop
marketing
introduction to closed-loop marketing
18
Share This Ebook!
In order to set up closed-loop marketing you need to map marketing activities to
sales. Such an integration requires connecting your marketing software to your
customer relationship management (CRM). In other words, you tie the intelligence
emerging from your marketing communication with prospective, current and former
customers to the intelligence your internal team has built with these same people.
In order to set up closed-loop
marketing you need to map
marketing activities to sales.“
”
promotion
content
seo
transactions
marketing
sales
customers
introduction to closed-loop marketing
19
Share This Ebook!
The purpose of a CRM system is to synchronize the activities
of your sales, marketing and customer support teams. A CRM
platform can support your business in a number of ways ranging
from selling and fulfillment to identifying and rewarding loyal
customers. SAP, Oracle, Salesforce and SugarCRM are some the
most commonly known CRM systems.
Marketing software, like HubSpot, keeps record of your
marketing data and makes it actionable--by optimizing
campaigns, enabling lead conversions and revealing results.
The CRM and the marketing software talk to each other
through an application programming interface (API).
crm solution
marketing softwareapi
marketing software
CRm solution
introduction to closed-loop marketing
20
Share This Ebook!
As a sophisticated marketer, you want the two systems to talk to each other. When one of your
sales representatives closes a deal, she can mark that sale as “won” in your CRM and that will
trigger an update in the marketing software. You will then be able to go backwards and see
where this new customer came from originally. What channel brought them to your website?
What pages did they view afterward? At what point did they convert into a lead?
Such intelligence will expose conversion assists, pages on your website that your visitors
viewed before they converted into leads or customers. Understanding a website’s conversion
assists can help marketers identify the most influential pages they own. In doing so, they can
learn a lot about why those pages are (or aren’t) effective and apply these insights to improve
poorly performing web pages and to enhance other components of their marketing.
We at HubSpot consider such conversion assists valuable in gaining a 360-degree view of the
sales cycle. That is why HubSpot’s software includes a tool called Conversion Assists:
introduction to closed-loop marketing
21
Share This Ebook!
As we demonstrated so far, closed-loop marketing offers data that is critical for successful
marketing. Yet tying your marketing software to your CRM impacts your business strategy in
even more positive ways.
Closed-loop marketing also enables you to achieve
alignment between sales and marketing and define
the operations between the two departments. Here are
some of the other benefits emerging from the integration
between your marketing software and CRM solutions:
Sales Assignment Rules
The type of campaign, lead grade or conversion event--all insights coming
from your marketing system--can trigger workflows in your CRM system. For
instance, specific leads (based on form submission, physical location, etc.)
can get assigned to specific members of your sales team.
Lead scoring
Once you mark a sale as “closed won” in your CRM, you can work backwards
to assign point values to the lead’s demographics or specific actions taken
on your website. These will all be indicators of the lead’s high probability
to become a customer. Once you’ve set point values for different lead
qualification categories, decide at which point a total score would validate
sending a lead to your sales team for a conversation.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
22
Share This Ebook!
Lead nurturing
As a result of your lead scoring mechanism, you will easily identify leads with
low lead grades. Now you can handle them in a more efficient way by sending
them to a lead nurturing campaign rather than a sales person. A series
of targeted email messages can invite the lead to sign up for a webinar,
download an ebook from your landing page, or take some other action that
will further engage them in your company.
custom lead scoring
You can also customize the way you assign high grades to your leads. For
instance, a grade could be boosted if the lead converted multiple times
on your website, thus indicating engagement. Or if it represents a desired
demographic profile. You could also use the qualifying questions on your lead
capture forms to calculate a custom lead score.
setting monetary goals
Tying your marketing software to your CRM system also allows you to set a
campaign goal with a dollar sign on it. Rather than measuring your impact
through traffic and leads only, you can focus on the actual customers certain
channels and initiatives brought in to your organization. This is especially
valuable if you are investing a ton of money and effort in a campaign. Trade
shows are a great example of the need for setting monetary goals.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
23
Share This Ebook!
CHAPTER 3
become
a better
marketer by
closing the
loop
introduction to closed-loop marketing
24
Share This Ebook!
Closed-loop marketing
enables us to do better
marketing.“ ”
Closed-loop reporting is one of the most powerful tools that
online marketers have at our disposal. Not only does it allow us
to demonstrate the work’s value to our bosses, organizations and
clients, but it also enables us to do better marketing.
Once you understand what marketing activities are generating leads, customers and
revenue, you can double down on what’s working, and cut out what’s not. At the end
of the day, marketing is about generating revenue. A good marketing team should be
like a money generating machine - you put a dollar in and you get two dollars out (or at
least $1.25).
In this section of the ebook we will review a few different ways in which closed-loop
reporting helps you attract more high-quality leads and become a smarter marketer.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
25
Share This Ebook!
focus on the right channels & offers
Closed-loop marketing directs your attention to the most powerful conversion events and
channels. By looking at the sources and offers that traditionally brought in new customers for
your organization, you will be able to identify the behavior you need to engage in to qualify
leads and push them down the sales funnel.
For instance, by looking at HubSpot’s Sources we are able to compare the efficiency of different
channels in respect to customer acquisition. In the screenshot below we are comparing the
number of sales from social media marketing to the number of sales from email marketing.
It becomes clear that email marketing has a higher lead-to-customer rate than social media.
This insight can then help us take action: nurture the social media leads with targeted email
messages.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
26
Share This Ebook!
Deliver clearer results to your boss
The data you can gather thanks to closed-loop marketing will also help you build your authority
and support the decisions you make in front of your boss. It shows that your strategy is driven
by evidence and doesn’t rely on abstract theories or assumptions. That will also help you build
powerful marketing presentations for company-wide meetings or when jumping in comarketing
partnerships.
The same type of intelligence will direct you to the content you can use to build your lead
nurturing communication. You can compare the efficiency of different offers in respect
to customer acquisition. In the screenshot below we have used HubSpot’s Landing Page
Dashboard to compare the performance of two ebooks in bringing up new customers. This
information will help us decide which of these ebooks to use as a call-to-action when we are
trying to push a lead down the sales funnel.
New customers:
introduction to closed-loop marketing
27
Share This Ebook!
gain insights about your target audience
By gaining a 360-degree view of your sales cycle--looking at an user’s first visit to your website,
browsing through their activities and identifying their last conversion event--you collect insights
about the ideal prospect. This information can help you build a target persona.
Personas are fictional representations of your ideal
customers, based on real data about customer
demographics and online behavior, along with educated
speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and
concerns.
Analyzing the path that prospects take on the journey to becoming a customer is a great way
to get insights about the needs and challenges of your target audience. If you use a marketing
platform like HubSpot, you can see which search terms brought prospects to your site, how
long they stayed on your site, which pieces of content they viewed, and which forms they’ve
filled out. Such lead intelligence will help you make better decisions when identifying the
characteristics of your ideal customers and ways to nurture your new prospects.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
28
Share This Ebook!
shorten your sales cycle
By learning more about your leads and targeting them with
smarter communication, you decrease the amount of time
that it takes them to convert into customers. If a prospect
with specific characteristics (e.g., a B2B company, with 100
employees, located in Northern America) follows a certain
trajectory of actions to turn into a customer, then you can
take that path and apply it to a larger segment of that
demographic profile.
As an example, let’s explore the lead intelligence of a company that became a HubSpot
customer.
We see that initially the prospect became interested in our ebook “101 Awesome Marketing
Quotes.” A few days after they downloaded that ebook and converted into a lead, they visited
HubSpot’s pricing page. That behavior, combined with the customer’s demographics data, could
dictate our behavior-based communications with similar type of companies. In other words,
we can encourage new leads of this type to visit our pricing page and get some information on
HubSpot’s plans.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
29
Share This Ebook!
set the right goals and expectations
By knowing precisely what your visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer conversion rates have
been historically, you can set the right goals and expectations in the future. To ensure that
you are moving in the right direction, you can also compare your current performance to last
month’s and create a daily or a monthly leads waterfall.
Wondering how to build a daily leads waterfall graph? First, set a goal for the total number of
leads. It might be a month or a quarter, but start with your sales goals and your conversion rates.
For instance, if 5% of your leads become customers and you need 7 new customers next month,
then you need 140 leads next month to hit your goal.
Then, take the total number of leads (in
this case, 140), divide by the number of
sales reps you have and the number of
days in the month to identify a goal for the
number of leads you need to provide each
sales rep with each day. Now you just have
to create the daily leads waterfall graph,
with the x-axis representing the day of the
month, and the y-axis - the percentage of
the leads goal you have attained.
If you are using the HubSpot software, you’re in luck! Your HubSpot dashboard will create this
graph for you automatically using either a custom goal that you can set, the last month, the
month a year ago, or a 3-month average as the goal you track against.
y axis:
% of leads goal
x axis:
day of month
goal %
actual
leads %
introduction to closed-loop marketing
30
Share This Ebook!
Keep your cost per lead low
As we already mentioned, closed-
loop gives you insights on your most
powerful inbound marketing offers
and enables you to set realistic goals
for both marketing and sales. These
two factors are key in determining how
you are going to spend your marketing
budget and they dictate where your
marketing dollars will go into.
For instance, if you were looking to host a trade show,
you can easily decide on the type of offer you are going
to promote at the event. You have already identified what
content helps you convert more leads into customers, now
you just have to think of a creative way to present it in front
of your audience.
Similarly, you can do paid advertising efficiently. Just take the ideal lead demographic
information that you discovered thanks to connecting your marketing software to your CRM,
combine that with your best performing offers, and you will be sure to attract some new sales
without wasting money.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
31
Share This Ebook!
CHAPTER 4
how to fix a
broken loop
introduction to closed-loop marketing
32
Share This Ebook!
There are plenty of areas
where the loop can break.
“ ”
Setting up closed-loop analytics
is not easy, and there are plenty of
areas where the loop can break. A
broken loop can directly hurt your
business results. In this section
we will cover some tips to fix your
reporting process if it does break.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
33
Share This Ebook!
set Tracking Code on Every website Page and on Subdomains
If any of your pages are missing tracking code, then you’ll break the loop. The same goes for all
of your sudomains. As we already mentioned in chapter one, a tracking token is the parameter
you add to the end of your link in order for your analytics to associate it with a particular
campaign. If you have a subdomain like blog.yoursite.com, then you should add the same
tracking code to that sudomain in order to track the entry point of your blog readers and the
content they have viewed on your blog.
Create Tracking URLs for Ads, Emails and Offline Events
Yes, this is a huge PITA, but it’s worth it. Get in the habit of
creating these URLs for any marketing event or campaign.
That will allow you to look at clean results and gain an
accurate picture of how your channels and campaigns
perform.
For instance, you don’t want to confuse your paid initiative
with your email marketing campaign, do you? Or count
social media traffic as direct traffic, thus not realizing that
you can invest more in certain marketing efforts that yield
good results.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
34
Share This Ebook!
Associating A Visitor’s Online Session with Their Lead Information
After a visitor first lands on your website and before they fill out a landing page, there is a key period
of browsing you need to be aware of. This is the place where most marketers stumble because it’s
technically difficult. To solve for this problem, you’ll need to find an integrated system that does this for
you. HubSpot’s marketing software, for instance, enables you to view your leads’ relevant social media
information and past browsing history.
EnSuring Your Sales Team is Properly Closing Leads
All the work that you’ve done to properly track visitors will go to
waste unless you can get your sales team on the same page.
Come up with a system that both you and your sales team can
agree upon, and make sure it’s easy for them to close business
in a way that will close the loop.
Once you’ve agreed on terminology, use common terms to develop a service-level agreement (SLA)
between sales and marketing. An SLA is a contract between the two groups that sets expectations for
the quantity and quality of leads that marketing will deliver to sales, and outlines the steps sales reps
will take to follow-up on those leads. If you are interested in learning more about sales and marketing
alignment, check out this HubSpot ebook.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
35
Share This Ebook!
Not nurturing your
low graded leads
If you haven’t set up lead nurturing to
follow up with your low graded leads, you
haven’t necessarily broken the loop, but
are certainly missing out on an opportunity
that can make your process much more
efficient. Shorten your buying cycle and
provide your most engaged leads to your
sales team using some type of behavior-
based communication that allows your
organization to stay top of mind for
contacts.
introduction to closed-loop marketing
36
Share This Ebook!
conclusion
& additional
resources
introduction to closed-loop marketing
37
Share This Ebook!
Closed-loop marketing cuts
through the widespread
vagueness of marketing myths
& assumptions.
“
Closed-loop reporting is one of the most sophisticated steps of
successful inbound marketing. Getting it right is an eye-opening
experience that reveals both strengths and weaknesses, and
cuts through the widespread vagueness of marketing myths and
assumptions. By reading this ebook you have taken the blindfolds off.
Now you are aware of the fundamentals of closed-loop marketing:
how it works and what you need to set it up. What is more, you know
about the tremendous growth potential you, as a marketer, have by
closing the sales and marketing loop. Now go ahead and put this
newly gained knowledge to practice!
”
introduction to closed-loop marketing
38
Share This Ebook!
Liked what you read? Why not sign up for a free Inbound
Marketing Assessment?
ABOUT US
Get your assessment with an
inbound marketing specialist
A Publication of CONVERTING TO AN AGILE STARTUP
Unfunnel.com is a network that exists to incentivize and reward
other like-minded web professionals for spreading awareness
about agile business strategies. We believe in working smarter
- not harder. By uniting top forward-thinking professionals, we
can educate startups and create a movement that can change
the world together.

More Related Content

More from unfunnel

2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]unfunnel
 
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]unfunnel
 
Niche Business Idea Decision Matrix
Niche Business Idea Decision MatrixNiche Business Idea Decision Matrix
Niche Business Idea Decision Matrixunfunnel
 
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018unfunnel
 
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]unfunnel
 
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Templateunfunnel
 
2016 Marketing Blog Post Template
2016 Marketing Blog Post Template2016 Marketing Blog Post Template
2016 Marketing Blog Post Templateunfunnel
 
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Templateunfunnel
 
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]unfunnel
 
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard Template
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard TemplateAffiliate Marketing Dashboard Template
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard Templateunfunnel
 
7 minute social media marketing audit
7 minute social media marketing audit7 minute social media marketing audit
7 minute social media marketing auditunfunnel
 
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)Monthly digital marketing report (free template)
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)unfunnel
 
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheet
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel WorksheetSocial Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheet
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheetunfunnel
 
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNS
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNSTHE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNS
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNSunfunnel
 
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOKHOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOKunfunnel
 
The Ultimate List of Press Contacts
The Ultimate List of Press ContactsThe Ultimate List of Press Contacts
The Ultimate List of Press Contactsunfunnel
 
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]unfunnel
 
Agile Promo Packages 2015
Agile Promo Packages 2015Agile Promo Packages 2015
Agile Promo Packages 2015unfunnel
 
Partner Lead Generation Proposal Template
Partner Lead Generation Proposal TemplatePartner Lead Generation Proposal Template
Partner Lead Generation Proposal Templateunfunnel
 
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy Template
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy TemplateBlogging SEO Keywords Strategy Template
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy Templateunfunnel
 

More from unfunnel (20)

2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Content Marketing Budget [Excel template]
 
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]
2018 Product Launch Marketing Budget [Excel template]
 
Niche Business Idea Decision Matrix
Niche Business Idea Decision MatrixNiche Business Idea Decision Matrix
Niche Business Idea Decision Matrix
 
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018
The Ultimate Niche Market Research Blueprint for 2018
 
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]
2018 Product Launch Campaign Planner Template [Excel Template]
 
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template
60 Second Content Marketing Plan Template
 
2016 Marketing Blog Post Template
2016 Marketing Blog Post Template2016 Marketing Blog Post Template
2016 Marketing Blog Post Template
 
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template
2016 Facebook Advertising Dashboard Template
 
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]
Customer Avatar Worksheet [Ebook + Template]
 
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard Template
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard TemplateAffiliate Marketing Dashboard Template
Affiliate Marketing Dashboard Template
 
7 minute social media marketing audit
7 minute social media marketing audit7 minute social media marketing audit
7 minute social media marketing audit
 
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)Monthly digital marketing report (free template)
Monthly digital marketing report (free template)
 
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheet
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel WorksheetSocial Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheet
Social Media Auditing - Free Excel Worksheet
 
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNS
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNSTHE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNS
THE SCIENCE BEHIND EFFECTIVE FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGNS
 
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOKHOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK
HOW TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK
 
The Ultimate List of Press Contacts
The Ultimate List of Press ContactsThe Ultimate List of Press Contacts
The Ultimate List of Press Contacts
 
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]
Inbound Selling Machine [How to Use Hubspot to Create An Invisible Sales Funnel]
 
Agile Promo Packages 2015
Agile Promo Packages 2015Agile Promo Packages 2015
Agile Promo Packages 2015
 
Partner Lead Generation Proposal Template
Partner Lead Generation Proposal TemplatePartner Lead Generation Proposal Template
Partner Lead Generation Proposal Template
 
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy Template
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy TemplateBlogging SEO Keywords Strategy Template
Blogging SEO Keywords Strategy Template
 

Recently uploaded

Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern World
Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern WorldTop 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern World
Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern WorldD Cloud Solutions
 
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch Deck
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch DeckPodvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch Deck
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch DeckNedko Nedkov
 
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)yaeyukimoto
 
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024Nedko Nedkov
 
Run more experiments with fewer resources
Run more experiments with fewer resourcesRun more experiments with fewer resources
Run more experiments with fewer resourcesVWO
 
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads Webinar
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads WebinarIncrease Your Website Sales & Leads Webinar
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads WebinarSEO Optimizers
 
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech Companies
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech CompaniesProduct Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech Companies
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech CompaniesKiwi Creative
 
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing Pages
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing PagesCrafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing Pages
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing PagesVWO
 
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.group
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.groupThe 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.group
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.groupLivewire
 
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdf
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdfSnapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdf
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdfEastern Online-iSURVEY
 
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptx
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptxFriends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptx
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptxGregory Edwards
 
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoad
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoadThe Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoad
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoadFabio Bin
 
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdf
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdfTAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdf
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdfSocial Samosa
 
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptx
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptxAmazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptx
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptxWill Haire
 
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to Succeed
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to SucceedSEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to Succeed
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to SucceedMumbai Pixels
 
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEM
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEMDigital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEM
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEMNazal Digital
 
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdf
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdfUnifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdf
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdfVWO
 
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdf
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdfThe best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdf
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdfShifali roy
 
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not Alone
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not AloneImposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not Alone
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not AloneHerd
 
Voltas turnaround strategy management case
Voltas turnaround strategy management caseVoltas turnaround strategy management case
Voltas turnaround strategy management caseAnkit Sarkar
 

Recently uploaded (20)

Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern World
Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern WorldTop 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern World
Top 15 Emerging Technologies for the Modern World
 
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch Deck
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch DeckPodvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch Deck
Podvertise.fm - Podcast Advertising Marketplace - Startup Pitch Deck
 
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)
Digital Marketing Analytics: Driving Hotel Success (2016 May report)
 
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024
Podvertise.fm - Founder.University - Pitch Deck 2024
 
Run more experiments with fewer resources
Run more experiments with fewer resourcesRun more experiments with fewer resources
Run more experiments with fewer resources
 
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads Webinar
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads WebinarIncrease Your Website Sales & Leads Webinar
Increase Your Website Sales & Leads Webinar
 
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech Companies
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech CompaniesProduct Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech Companies
Product Demo: HubSpot's Coolest AI Tools for B2B Tech Companies
 
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing Pages
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing PagesCrafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing Pages
Crafting High-Converting eCommerce Landing Pages
 
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.group
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.groupThe 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.group
The 2024 Next Gen Attention Study - www.livewire.group
 
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdf
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdfSnapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdf
Snapshot of Consumer Behaviors of February 2024-EOLiSurvey (EN).pdf
 
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptx
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptxFriends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptx
Friends of Search '24 - Scaling SEO_ Lessons for All Types of Sites.pptx
 
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoad
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoadThe Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoad
The Creative Marketing campaigns of WeRoad
 
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdf
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdfTAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdf
TAM AdEx-A Pixelated view into Digital Advertising Trends for Y 2023.pdf
 
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptx
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptxAmazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptx
Amazon Seller New Product Launch Guide - 2024.pptx
 
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to Succeed
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to SucceedSEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to Succeed
SEO Trends in 2024: What You Need to Know to Succeed
 
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEM
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEMDigital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEM
Digital Marketing Services like SEO, SMM, SEM
 
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdf
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdfUnifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdf
Unifying feature management with experiments - Server Side Webinar (1).pdf
 
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdf
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdfThe best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdf
The best Crypto Marketing Strategies pdf
 
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not Alone
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not AloneImposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not Alone
Imposter Syndrome in Marketing & Why You're Not Alone
 
Voltas turnaround strategy management case
Voltas turnaround strategy management caseVoltas turnaround strategy management case
Voltas turnaround strategy management case
 

Intro To Closed Loop Marketing Analytics

  • 1. introduction to closed-loop marketing 1 Share This Ebook! closed-loop marketing An introduction to How to Close the Loop Between Marketing & Sales A Publication of CONVERTING TO AN AGILE STARTUP
  • 2. introduction to closed-loop marketing 2 Share This Ebook! An introduction to closed-loop marketing Edited by Magdalena Georgieva Maggie Georgieva is an inbound marketing manager at HubSpot, responsible for the company’s marketing content offers, such as ebooks and webinars (including the world’s largest webinar). Previously, Maggie was on HubSpot’s email marketing team, managed the company’s landing page creation and optimization, and jump started the production of HubSpot’s customer case studies. Maggie is a regular blogger for the HubSpot blog and has contributed to other sites and publications, such as MarketingProfs, Brian Solis’ blog, BostInnovation.com and The St. Petersburg Times. Follow me on twitter @mgieva
  • 3. introduction to closed-loop marketing 3 Share This Ebook! COntents how closed loop marketing works /8 what you need to set up closed-loop marketing /19 become a better marketer by closing the loop /25 how to fix a broken loop /33 conclusion & additional resources /38
  • 4. introduction to closed-loop marketing 4 Share This Ebook! Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.“ ” “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Almost a century after John Wanamaker spoke those words, most online marketers can still feel his pain. The irony is, today, marketers have the technology they need to “close the loop” between marketing and revenue, but few are actually taking advantage of it. To many, setting up closed-loop reporting has remained too hard and confusing to implement. Effective marketers, however, should be able to tie every single lead, customer and dollar back to the marketing initiative that created them. This is how marketers can prove their worth, and understand how to more efficiently reach their audience.
  • 5. introduction to closed-loop marketing 5 Share This Ebook! It’s time that we changed the status quo. Marketers invest a lot of time in their campaigns and are not always sure whether their efforts are paying off. Social media is the classic case: businesses engage in social media conversations without knowing how these interactions can transform into new sales. If you are unsure on where you should start to implement successful closed-loop marketing, this is the right ebook for you. We will start by demonstrating the value which comes with closed-loop marketing data. Then, we will walk you through a step-by-step explanation of how closed-loop marketing works and how it can help you become a better marketer. Lastly, we will show you how you can fix your loop if you spot something odd in it.
  • 6. introduction to closed-loop marketing 6 Share This Ebook! CHAPTER 1 how closed loop marketing works
  • 7. introduction to closed-loop marketing 7 Share This Ebook! Visualizing Closed-Loop Marketing: Cookie is set on the visitor and their source, e.g. email, social media, etc. The cookie tracks the visitor’s actions on the website Submission of a lead capture form Attributing customer acquisition to the visitor’s original source visitor arrives on site lead becomes a customer visitor converts into a lead visitor browses website Visitor actions Software actions
  • 8. introduction to closed-loop marketing 8 Share This Ebook! Cookie is set on the visitor and their source, e.g. email, social media, etc. visitor arrives on site Visitor actions The easiest way to close the loop is to make your website the central hub for all your marketing. Search engines, social media, email marketing, referral links, paid search, even offline campaigns should get filtered to your website. Once someone visits your website, you can cookie them and start tracking their activity.
  • 9. introduction to closed-loop marketing 9 Share This Ebook! This is the entry point of your closed-loop system. As the lead progresses through your sales and marketing stages, you’ll be able to attribute them back to the proper channel. If they came into your site through a link from a trade show, an email marketing campaign or a search term, for example, you’ll be able to trace them back to that original source. For instance, here is what that data can look like. Below you see a screenshot of HubSpot’s traffic by channel, brought to us by the marketing analytics tools of our software. By looking at this data we are able to see trends and compare channels. We know which are our most valuable sources of traffic and can work on optimizing the rest. The drop down menu enables us to switch this chart for a view of leads and customers by channel.
  • 10. introduction to closed-loop marketing 10 Share This Ebook! Most web analytics systems will allow you to track sources of traffic like search term or referring website, but you’ll need to go a step further than this in order to make sure that you’re accurately assigning your leads to the right marketing initiative. To create a tracking URL, you just need to add a parameter to the end of your website’s link that your analytics system can identify and associate with a particular campaign or initiative. This will enable you to more accurately track visitors who otherwise look like they are coming from direct search. The tracking token is added to the end of a link, allowing your analytics tool to pool a certain group of traffic. Different tools employ different tokens, but here is an example of what a visit from Twitter could look like: /?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter By attaching this to your URL anyone who clicks that link is signaling to your analytics tool that they are coming from Twitter. The same type of tracking tokens apply to different channels, such as email, paid media and referral traffic. Investigate with your marketing or analytics software to make sure you have tracking tokens in place and your data gets assigned to the right categories. You should assign a tracking URL to every marketing campaign that is sending traffic to your website. !
  • 11. introduction to closed-loop marketing 11 Share This Ebook! The cookie tracks the visitor’s actions on the website visitor browses website Visitor actions Software actions As you attract traffic and identify where that traffic is coming from, you need to track the behavior of your visitors. Which pages are they viewing? What is their trajectory of actions? Such intelligence will illustrate a path that can, down the road, help you optimize for faster visitor-to-lead or even visitor- to-customer conversions.
  • 12. introduction to closed-loop marketing 12 Share This Ebook! This is the trickiest part of closed-loop reporting: making sure that you can connect a visitor’s session with their lead information once they convert on a form. Without this piece, you’ll have two separate databases, one with anonymous visitor history and one with lead information. As a result, you won’t be able to connect those leads back to their respective marketing source. In order to make this work for you, either do something very technical on the back end of your analytics platform or you start using some software that does this for you. There are a few of companies out there that have figured out how to do this and there is no point reinventing the wheel--full disclosure, the HubSpot software allows you to do closed-loop reporting. Here is a screenshot of HubSpot’s Prospects tool which tracks visitors’ activity (when they are still anonymous) and provides some actionable next steps, such as social media following.
  • 13. introduction to closed-loop marketing 13 Share This Ebook! Submission of a lead capture form visitor converts to a lead Visitor actions Software actions In order to monetize the traffic you are getting and send qualified prospects to your sales team, you need to convert visitors into leads. You can make this happen by sending incoming traffic to landing pages which are going to make an information exchange possible and collect more insights from your visitors.
  • 14. introduction to closed-loop marketing 14 Share This Ebook! More than just knowing where your visitors are coming from, you’ll need to know who they are. This is curtail to closing the loop and being able to associate closed customers back to their entry source. The way to capture this information is to direct website visitors to a landing page with a submission form (or also known as a lead capture form). Once visitors fill out this from, you’ll have whatever contact information you asked them for: name, email, phone number, etc. As a best practice, you should be sending most of your traffic to landing pages and forms so that you can grow your leads database. Learn more about building awesome landing pages in this ebook.
  • 15. introduction to closed-loop marketing 15 Share This Ebook! Attributing customer acquisition to the visitor’s original source lead becomes a customer Visitor actions Software actions Now it’s time to figure out how these visits transformed into sales. Which one of your marketing channels contributed the most customers? Are there ways you can optimize the process for other sources? Closed-loop marketing enables you to identify the activities that bring in the most (and least) revenue.
  • 16. introduction to closed-loop marketing 16 Share This Ebook! Finally, you need to look at all of the leads that your sales team has closed and attribute them back to their original marketing initiative. If you’ve setup everything in steps one through four, this should be a relatively straightforward process. For most medium-sized business, the easiest way to achieve this is through your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. For smaller businesses, you might do this more manually using a spreadsheet. Here is a screenshot of HubSpot’s analytics providing us with insights on customer acquisition from different marketing sources, such as email marketing, social media and referrals.
  • 17. introduction to closed-loop marketing 17 Share This Ebook! CHAPTER 2 what you need to set up closed-loop marketing
  • 18. introduction to closed-loop marketing 18 Share This Ebook! In order to set up closed-loop marketing you need to map marketing activities to sales. Such an integration requires connecting your marketing software to your customer relationship management (CRM). In other words, you tie the intelligence emerging from your marketing communication with prospective, current and former customers to the intelligence your internal team has built with these same people. In order to set up closed-loop marketing you need to map marketing activities to sales.“ ” promotion content seo transactions marketing sales customers
  • 19. introduction to closed-loop marketing 19 Share This Ebook! The purpose of a CRM system is to synchronize the activities of your sales, marketing and customer support teams. A CRM platform can support your business in a number of ways ranging from selling and fulfillment to identifying and rewarding loyal customers. SAP, Oracle, Salesforce and SugarCRM are some the most commonly known CRM systems. Marketing software, like HubSpot, keeps record of your marketing data and makes it actionable--by optimizing campaigns, enabling lead conversions and revealing results. The CRM and the marketing software talk to each other through an application programming interface (API). crm solution marketing softwareapi marketing software CRm solution
  • 20. introduction to closed-loop marketing 20 Share This Ebook! As a sophisticated marketer, you want the two systems to talk to each other. When one of your sales representatives closes a deal, she can mark that sale as “won” in your CRM and that will trigger an update in the marketing software. You will then be able to go backwards and see where this new customer came from originally. What channel brought them to your website? What pages did they view afterward? At what point did they convert into a lead? Such intelligence will expose conversion assists, pages on your website that your visitors viewed before they converted into leads or customers. Understanding a website’s conversion assists can help marketers identify the most influential pages they own. In doing so, they can learn a lot about why those pages are (or aren’t) effective and apply these insights to improve poorly performing web pages and to enhance other components of their marketing. We at HubSpot consider such conversion assists valuable in gaining a 360-degree view of the sales cycle. That is why HubSpot’s software includes a tool called Conversion Assists:
  • 21. introduction to closed-loop marketing 21 Share This Ebook! As we demonstrated so far, closed-loop marketing offers data that is critical for successful marketing. Yet tying your marketing software to your CRM impacts your business strategy in even more positive ways. Closed-loop marketing also enables you to achieve alignment between sales and marketing and define the operations between the two departments. Here are some of the other benefits emerging from the integration between your marketing software and CRM solutions: Sales Assignment Rules The type of campaign, lead grade or conversion event--all insights coming from your marketing system--can trigger workflows in your CRM system. For instance, specific leads (based on form submission, physical location, etc.) can get assigned to specific members of your sales team. Lead scoring Once you mark a sale as “closed won” in your CRM, you can work backwards to assign point values to the lead’s demographics or specific actions taken on your website. These will all be indicators of the lead’s high probability to become a customer. Once you’ve set point values for different lead qualification categories, decide at which point a total score would validate sending a lead to your sales team for a conversation.
  • 22. introduction to closed-loop marketing 22 Share This Ebook! Lead nurturing As a result of your lead scoring mechanism, you will easily identify leads with low lead grades. Now you can handle them in a more efficient way by sending them to a lead nurturing campaign rather than a sales person. A series of targeted email messages can invite the lead to sign up for a webinar, download an ebook from your landing page, or take some other action that will further engage them in your company. custom lead scoring You can also customize the way you assign high grades to your leads. For instance, a grade could be boosted if the lead converted multiple times on your website, thus indicating engagement. Or if it represents a desired demographic profile. You could also use the qualifying questions on your lead capture forms to calculate a custom lead score. setting monetary goals Tying your marketing software to your CRM system also allows you to set a campaign goal with a dollar sign on it. Rather than measuring your impact through traffic and leads only, you can focus on the actual customers certain channels and initiatives brought in to your organization. This is especially valuable if you are investing a ton of money and effort in a campaign. Trade shows are a great example of the need for setting monetary goals.
  • 23. introduction to closed-loop marketing 23 Share This Ebook! CHAPTER 3 become a better marketer by closing the loop
  • 24. introduction to closed-loop marketing 24 Share This Ebook! Closed-loop marketing enables us to do better marketing.“ ” Closed-loop reporting is one of the most powerful tools that online marketers have at our disposal. Not only does it allow us to demonstrate the work’s value to our bosses, organizations and clients, but it also enables us to do better marketing. Once you understand what marketing activities are generating leads, customers and revenue, you can double down on what’s working, and cut out what’s not. At the end of the day, marketing is about generating revenue. A good marketing team should be like a money generating machine - you put a dollar in and you get two dollars out (or at least $1.25). In this section of the ebook we will review a few different ways in which closed-loop reporting helps you attract more high-quality leads and become a smarter marketer.
  • 25. introduction to closed-loop marketing 25 Share This Ebook! focus on the right channels & offers Closed-loop marketing directs your attention to the most powerful conversion events and channels. By looking at the sources and offers that traditionally brought in new customers for your organization, you will be able to identify the behavior you need to engage in to qualify leads and push them down the sales funnel. For instance, by looking at HubSpot’s Sources we are able to compare the efficiency of different channels in respect to customer acquisition. In the screenshot below we are comparing the number of sales from social media marketing to the number of sales from email marketing. It becomes clear that email marketing has a higher lead-to-customer rate than social media. This insight can then help us take action: nurture the social media leads with targeted email messages.
  • 26. introduction to closed-loop marketing 26 Share This Ebook! Deliver clearer results to your boss The data you can gather thanks to closed-loop marketing will also help you build your authority and support the decisions you make in front of your boss. It shows that your strategy is driven by evidence and doesn’t rely on abstract theories or assumptions. That will also help you build powerful marketing presentations for company-wide meetings or when jumping in comarketing partnerships. The same type of intelligence will direct you to the content you can use to build your lead nurturing communication. You can compare the efficiency of different offers in respect to customer acquisition. In the screenshot below we have used HubSpot’s Landing Page Dashboard to compare the performance of two ebooks in bringing up new customers. This information will help us decide which of these ebooks to use as a call-to-action when we are trying to push a lead down the sales funnel. New customers:
  • 27. introduction to closed-loop marketing 27 Share This Ebook! gain insights about your target audience By gaining a 360-degree view of your sales cycle--looking at an user’s first visit to your website, browsing through their activities and identifying their last conversion event--you collect insights about the ideal prospect. This information can help you build a target persona. Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers, based on real data about customer demographics and online behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns. Analyzing the path that prospects take on the journey to becoming a customer is a great way to get insights about the needs and challenges of your target audience. If you use a marketing platform like HubSpot, you can see which search terms brought prospects to your site, how long they stayed on your site, which pieces of content they viewed, and which forms they’ve filled out. Such lead intelligence will help you make better decisions when identifying the characteristics of your ideal customers and ways to nurture your new prospects.
  • 28. introduction to closed-loop marketing 28 Share This Ebook! shorten your sales cycle By learning more about your leads and targeting them with smarter communication, you decrease the amount of time that it takes them to convert into customers. If a prospect with specific characteristics (e.g., a B2B company, with 100 employees, located in Northern America) follows a certain trajectory of actions to turn into a customer, then you can take that path and apply it to a larger segment of that demographic profile. As an example, let’s explore the lead intelligence of a company that became a HubSpot customer. We see that initially the prospect became interested in our ebook “101 Awesome Marketing Quotes.” A few days after they downloaded that ebook and converted into a lead, they visited HubSpot’s pricing page. That behavior, combined with the customer’s demographics data, could dictate our behavior-based communications with similar type of companies. In other words, we can encourage new leads of this type to visit our pricing page and get some information on HubSpot’s plans.
  • 29. introduction to closed-loop marketing 29 Share This Ebook! set the right goals and expectations By knowing precisely what your visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer conversion rates have been historically, you can set the right goals and expectations in the future. To ensure that you are moving in the right direction, you can also compare your current performance to last month’s and create a daily or a monthly leads waterfall. Wondering how to build a daily leads waterfall graph? First, set a goal for the total number of leads. It might be a month or a quarter, but start with your sales goals and your conversion rates. For instance, if 5% of your leads become customers and you need 7 new customers next month, then you need 140 leads next month to hit your goal. Then, take the total number of leads (in this case, 140), divide by the number of sales reps you have and the number of days in the month to identify a goal for the number of leads you need to provide each sales rep with each day. Now you just have to create the daily leads waterfall graph, with the x-axis representing the day of the month, and the y-axis - the percentage of the leads goal you have attained. If you are using the HubSpot software, you’re in luck! Your HubSpot dashboard will create this graph for you automatically using either a custom goal that you can set, the last month, the month a year ago, or a 3-month average as the goal you track against. y axis: % of leads goal x axis: day of month goal % actual leads %
  • 30. introduction to closed-loop marketing 30 Share This Ebook! Keep your cost per lead low As we already mentioned, closed- loop gives you insights on your most powerful inbound marketing offers and enables you to set realistic goals for both marketing and sales. These two factors are key in determining how you are going to spend your marketing budget and they dictate where your marketing dollars will go into. For instance, if you were looking to host a trade show, you can easily decide on the type of offer you are going to promote at the event. You have already identified what content helps you convert more leads into customers, now you just have to think of a creative way to present it in front of your audience. Similarly, you can do paid advertising efficiently. Just take the ideal lead demographic information that you discovered thanks to connecting your marketing software to your CRM, combine that with your best performing offers, and you will be sure to attract some new sales without wasting money.
  • 31. introduction to closed-loop marketing 31 Share This Ebook! CHAPTER 4 how to fix a broken loop
  • 32. introduction to closed-loop marketing 32 Share This Ebook! There are plenty of areas where the loop can break. “ ” Setting up closed-loop analytics is not easy, and there are plenty of areas where the loop can break. A broken loop can directly hurt your business results. In this section we will cover some tips to fix your reporting process if it does break.
  • 33. introduction to closed-loop marketing 33 Share This Ebook! set Tracking Code on Every website Page and on Subdomains If any of your pages are missing tracking code, then you’ll break the loop. The same goes for all of your sudomains. As we already mentioned in chapter one, a tracking token is the parameter you add to the end of your link in order for your analytics to associate it with a particular campaign. If you have a subdomain like blog.yoursite.com, then you should add the same tracking code to that sudomain in order to track the entry point of your blog readers and the content they have viewed on your blog. Create Tracking URLs for Ads, Emails and Offline Events Yes, this is a huge PITA, but it’s worth it. Get in the habit of creating these URLs for any marketing event or campaign. That will allow you to look at clean results and gain an accurate picture of how your channels and campaigns perform. For instance, you don’t want to confuse your paid initiative with your email marketing campaign, do you? Or count social media traffic as direct traffic, thus not realizing that you can invest more in certain marketing efforts that yield good results.
  • 34. introduction to closed-loop marketing 34 Share This Ebook! Associating A Visitor’s Online Session with Their Lead Information After a visitor first lands on your website and before they fill out a landing page, there is a key period of browsing you need to be aware of. This is the place where most marketers stumble because it’s technically difficult. To solve for this problem, you’ll need to find an integrated system that does this for you. HubSpot’s marketing software, for instance, enables you to view your leads’ relevant social media information and past browsing history. EnSuring Your Sales Team is Properly Closing Leads All the work that you’ve done to properly track visitors will go to waste unless you can get your sales team on the same page. Come up with a system that both you and your sales team can agree upon, and make sure it’s easy for them to close business in a way that will close the loop. Once you’ve agreed on terminology, use common terms to develop a service-level agreement (SLA) between sales and marketing. An SLA is a contract between the two groups that sets expectations for the quantity and quality of leads that marketing will deliver to sales, and outlines the steps sales reps will take to follow-up on those leads. If you are interested in learning more about sales and marketing alignment, check out this HubSpot ebook.
  • 35. introduction to closed-loop marketing 35 Share This Ebook! Not nurturing your low graded leads If you haven’t set up lead nurturing to follow up with your low graded leads, you haven’t necessarily broken the loop, but are certainly missing out on an opportunity that can make your process much more efficient. Shorten your buying cycle and provide your most engaged leads to your sales team using some type of behavior- based communication that allows your organization to stay top of mind for contacts.
  • 36. introduction to closed-loop marketing 36 Share This Ebook! conclusion & additional resources
  • 37. introduction to closed-loop marketing 37 Share This Ebook! Closed-loop marketing cuts through the widespread vagueness of marketing myths & assumptions. “ Closed-loop reporting is one of the most sophisticated steps of successful inbound marketing. Getting it right is an eye-opening experience that reveals both strengths and weaknesses, and cuts through the widespread vagueness of marketing myths and assumptions. By reading this ebook you have taken the blindfolds off. Now you are aware of the fundamentals of closed-loop marketing: how it works and what you need to set it up. What is more, you know about the tremendous growth potential you, as a marketer, have by closing the sales and marketing loop. Now go ahead and put this newly gained knowledge to practice! ”
  • 38. introduction to closed-loop marketing 38 Share This Ebook! Liked what you read? Why not sign up for a free Inbound Marketing Assessment? ABOUT US Get your assessment with an inbound marketing specialist A Publication of CONVERTING TO AN AGILE STARTUP Unfunnel.com is a network that exists to incentivize and reward other like-minded web professionals for spreading awareness about agile business strategies. We believe in working smarter - not harder. By uniting top forward-thinking professionals, we can educate startups and create a movement that can change the world together.