A recent article on MarketingSherpa discussed their latest survey report on marketing analytics, which indicates that 42% of marketers surveyed believe the ability to act on data to be the most significant challenge they face. Combining data from multiple sources and simply finding budget to acquire new resources ranked second and third, respectively.

B2B marketers have trouble absorbing the data that they actually have access to, making it difficult to create an informed and effective strategy from the data received. Further, this makes it difficult to validate initiatives to upper management and key decision makers. A recent survey of 1,200 CEO’s indicated that nearly 70% have lost trust in their marketers’ ability to deliver growth, in part because of the inability to show ROI on campaigns.

While I personally like to dig pretty deep to evaluate and understand changes in site performance, there are a number of much higher-level reports and dashboards that can provide any B2B marketer with actionable insights. From basic to more advanced, here are five key reports to look at for marketing analytics performance benchmarking.

Note that I am using Google Analytics (GA) information for example and screen grab purposes; but, similar information can be found in other reporting tools like Site Catalyst and Webtrends. The paths to the information are obviously different.

1. Year-Over-Year Comparison Reports

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> Search –> Organic

Regardless of the report type, I almost always recommend using period-to-period comparisons. This will typically mean year-over-year comparisons, but that can change depending on business type and objectives. The year-over-year organic search report gives a high-level view of whether or not SEO initiatives are generating results and improvements.

You will notice that above the date range, it is possible (and recommended) to change the view of this report to include e-commerce or conversion metrics (goals) as well as site usage, which is the default view.

2. Period-To-Period Traffic By Channel Reports

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> All Traffic (by Source / Medium, Source, Medium, etc.)

Why such a high-level report? Because once the B2B marketer understands the performance of a single channel (like organic search), he or she can compare it to and evaluate it against all other channels.

Is a 1% conversion rate in organic search good or bad? The key is knowing how that 1% compares to direct traffic, third-party referrals, and paid search.

3. Key Traffic Percentage Breakdown By Medium

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Overview

Google’s Avinash Kaushik recommends that a balanced portfolio of traffic sources would look somewhere in the range of 40 – 50% search, 20% referral traffic, 20% direct, and 10% campaign traffic (display, email, etc.).

B2B marketers need to periodically review their traffic balance to determine what areas of digital marketing are getting stronger or weaker.

This report, coupled with the traffic performance by channel report, provides solid insight on which digital marketing channels are strongest and which are in need of improvement.

4. Period-To-Period Page Performance

GA Location: Content –> Site Content –> All Pages (Include “Page” containing — or excluding — various Web address variables)

Period-by-period page performance reporting — by section, type, individual page, etc. — can help show the impact of the assets created for building organic search visibility. With content becoming such an important component of every B2B marketer’s strategy, this report is essential in demonstrating content performance.

5. Performance of “Not Provided” Search Traffic

GA Location: Traffic Sources –> Sources –> Search –> Organic –> “Not Provided” (filter by “Landing Page” as a secondary dimension)

Finally, for evaluating the impact of “not provided” referrals, we track the applicable individual landing page performance. This report gives a sense of what content logged-in searchers are landing on.

B2B SEO professionals in particular should use this report to demonstrate the additional impact that their content assets have as it pertains to “not provided” search referral information.

The Next Step: Custom Dashboards

Once you’re active enough in marketing analytics, the need for a few custom dashboards might make sense. The value of custom dashboards is that they aggregate a mix of (potentially) important information on a single screen, saving time in switching between report types or browser screens to make comparisons.

Here are four custom Google Analytics dashboards I recommend:

Anna Lewis of Koozai put together a great list of custom dashboards in her presentation at BrightonSEO last fall:

• SEO Dashboard – This dashboard does a great job of providing a comprehensive overview of useful SEO metrics such as total organic visits and total non-branded organic visits, as well as keyword and landing page-level statistics such as visits, bounce rate and conversions. It is also very easy to customized once integrated. Click here to get the SEO Dashboard.
• Brand Engagement Dashboard – This dashboard provides a bird’s eye view of brand engagement metrics, focusing specifically on users who visited the site as a result of brand awareness and brand-building marketing efforts (branded organic search queries, social media visits, etc.).  This dashboard is useful for B2B marketers who must illustrate the importance of brand development and the impact it can have on conversions and goals. Click here to get the Brand Engagement Dashboard.

Justin Cutroni’s social media dashboard is a little bit more complex, but provides a comprehensive way for marketers to help demonstrate the value of their social media programs. His blog post provides a great overview of the dashboard and each widget that powers it. Click here to get the Social Media Dashboard.

Finally, Michael Wiegand of Portent put together a very simple but effective “Perfect” Dashboard that provides top level data associated with leads (or revenue), traffic / traffic sources, and landing pages. It’s becoming one of the first places I go in Google Analytics, and it is very easy to customize to preference (yours or your clients). He created two versions — one for e-commerce sites and one for lead generation sites:

• Click here to get the “Perfect” Dashboard for e-commerce sites
• Click here to get the “Perfect” Dashboard for lead generation sites

Need more?

Google Analytics has a simple-to-use directory for marketers interested in exploring even more custom dashboards, filters, and reports. This solutions gallery allows you to search by business objective, marketing function, and/or analytics type.

Jill Whalen also created a forum, Custom Report Sharing, to share, collaborate, and discuss more advanced reporting functions in Google Analytics, specifically.

Final Thoughts & Considerations

At the end of the day, it is not necessarily how much data marketers have, but how effective they are at gleaning actionable insights from that data. What reporting functionality is essential in your B2B marketing mix? I would love to read your feedback and perspective via comments below.

This new keyword tool combines elements of two existing keyword tools, the Google Keyword Tool and the AdWords Traffic Estimator, adding a more structured and integrated workflow as well as all sorts of new bells and whistles.

If you’ve ever used the Google Keyword Tool and/or AdWords Traffic Estimator in the past, take note here – the new Keyword Planner will most certainly replace both tools in the near future, and your workflow will undoubtedly change as a result.

What’s A Keyword Planner, Anyway?

The Keyword Planner is a more focused version of the Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator tool, and the focus is on doing one thing only: to make it easier for advertisers to get through the process of creating new ad groups and ad campaigns, which is the key to getting your PPC accounts off to a good start.

It differs from the existing Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator tools in that the old tools were more general purpose, unstructured tools. They could be used for just about anything, including Keyword Research for SEO. This new tool, on the other hand, is more like an ultimate AdWords campaign building workshop.

The Keyword Planner has a “wizard” type interface. The first step in the process is to determine how you’re going to go about creating your ad campaigns and ad groups. You’re asked to pick one of 3 possible paths:

• Search for Keyword and Ad Group Ideas
• Enter or Upload Keywords to get Estimates
• Multiply keyword lists to get Estimates

Here’s what this looks like in AdWords:

Searching For Keyword & Ad Group Ideas

Most of the time when creating a new campaign in AdWords, you’ll need to rely on Google to provide you with keyword suggestions to pick from. Therefore, the primary flow through the Keyword Planner is to “Search for keyword and ad group ideas.”

Clicking on that option whisks you off to the next stage of the Keyword Planner, which provides a robust keyword workbench for researching and picking keywords to add to your AdWords account, illustrated below:

Using this interface, the Keyword Planner lets you brainstorm keywords using any or all of the following three methods:

• By Keyword:  you can type in a word or phrase relevant to your business
• By Landing Page: by entering a landing page on your site (or any competitor’s webpages, for that matter), the Keyword Planner will scan and infer keywords that are relevant to those pages
• By Product Category: you can select from one of thousands of pre-defined keyword categories

Filtering Keywords From Your Keyword Plan

Additionally, the Keyword Planner provides robust filtering capabilities so you can be super picky with what keywords you choose to add to your PPC account. For example, you can filter keywords based on the following ways:

• Average CPC: include or exclude keywords that fall above or below a desired Cost Per Click
• Estimated Search Volume: include or exclude keywords that fall above or below a desired monthly search volume
• Keyword Competition: you can narrow your list based on estimated advertiser competition
• Exclude Keywords Already In Your Account:  the Keyword Planner can automatically exclude keywords that are already in your own AdWords account to avoid having duplicate keywords
• Filter by Keyword: you can specify to include or exclude keywords containing specific terms

Setting Targeting Parameters

Because keyword research requires analyzing keyword statistics in order to determine whether or not a given keyword makes sense for your business, Google lets you customize the keyword stats and performance estimates so that they’re relevant to your campaigns. This means they let you specify targeting parameters such as language, country and search network.

List View Vs. Grouped View

One nice feature is the ability to view keywords in the Keyword Planner that appear either in list view or in grouped view – this is analogous to the concept of keyword niches and keyword lists.

Your “Keyword Plan”

As you discover promising terms looking at individual keywords or keyword groupings, you have the ability to add them to “Your Plan,” which is a temporary storage area for saving interesting-looking keywords and keyword groupings for later.

The Keyword Planner maintains state for the duration of your session – keywords that you add to “Your Plan” are saved while you’re in the process of looking for keywords.

This is a nice change — previously, when using the Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator separately, there was a bit of a disjointed workflow where you had to save the results of the Google Keyword Tool, then open the file and copy/paste it as input to the AdWords Traffic Estimator. These two separate processes are now integrated into a single, seamless one.

When you’re done picking keywords and adding them into “Your Plan,” click on the Get Estimates and Review Plan button.

Getting Estimates & Reviewing Your Plan

The next stage of the Keyword Plan process involves setting a keyword bid and daily budget for your portfolio of keywords and keyword groupings.

Since keyword volume and CPC bid estimates are based on your budget, bid, location and other competitive factors, you’ll need to provide Google with some information in order to customize your estimates.

For example, you could enter a bid of $50 and a daily budget of $2,000.00 and click on the Get Detailed Estimates button — the Keyword Planner will then generate daily estimates for Clicks, Impressions, Average ad position and costs, as shown below:

Once finalized, you can download your detailed keyword plan in a variety of different formats, such as Excel or AdWords Editor CSV, as shown below:

Enter Or Upload Your Own Keyword List

Another way of running though the Keyword Plan process is to start using your own keyword list. Sometimes, when creating a new campaigns, you may be fortunate enough to already be sitting on a treasure trove of keyword data (for example, several years of Web analytics data, including valuable keyword referral data).

If you’re in this enviable position, it may make sense to start the campaign creation process using your own keyword list rather than the generic keyword suggestions you get from the Keyword Suggestion Tool.  Here’s what that looks like:

When you press the Get Estimates button, you’ll be taken through the rest of the Keyword Plan process as described above — the only difference is that you’ll be looking at your own keyword list rather than the generic keywords suggested via the Google Keyword Tool.

Multiplying Keyword Lists Using Keyword Planner

A third and final way to work thorough the Keyword Planner is to mash-up and multiply keyword lists. For example, you might want to multiply a bunch of names of products with colors and word modifiers to come up with every imaginable keyword permutations, as shown below:

Note that you can have up to three lists to mash up, and clicking on the Get Estimates button brings you to the next stage of the Keyword Planner. The only difference between this and the other two methods is that you’ll be looking at your own keyword list based on the mash-up of the lists you provided.

I personally don’t like this option very much because your mashed-up keyword lists may bear little or no resemblance to how people naturally search for those words, though perhaps you could use this method if you absolutely don’t want to miss any possible keyword permutation.

Summary

The new Keyword Planner tool supports various workflows for building ad groups and campaigns either starting from scratch, or based on your existing lists, and provides more cohesive user experience by integrating the keyword selection, grouping, analysis and filtering aspects of the keyword selection workflow.

If you’re lucky, you can find the Keyword Planner tool in your AdWords account today. According to my contacts at Google, as of two weeks ago, it was enabled in only 5% of accounts. At that time, it took me 67 tries to finally find an account with the Keyword Planner; but as of today, I’m finding it in roughly one out of every 5 accounts. It appears that Google is opening up Keyword Planner access to a greater number of accounts over time, so hopefully you’ll see it in your account soon!

A recent news release, which summarized a comprehensive survey of B2B marketing professionals put together by BtoB Magazine and Bizo revealed that the sales cycle is lengthening for many B2B companies. This puts further pressure on marketing professionals to improve brand awareness and lead generation. At the same time, B2B marketers need to implement programs which nurture new and existing lead prospects through a prolonged buying process.

The challenges of a lengthy B2B sales cycle are not new to marketing professionals. In 2011, a MarketingSherpa article highlighting their B2B Marketing Benchmark Report revealed that the lengthening sales cycle was the third-most-pressing challenge for B2B marketers, behind lead generation (quality and quantity).

A lengthening B2B sales cycle challenges marketers in the following ways:

• How to effectively keep the organization’s brand in front of a sales prospect bombarded with information
• How to differentiate the brand from competitive offerings and information
• How to reach multiple decision makers that might influence the buying process
• How to justify the value of marketing programs and tactics

Leveraging B2B SEO initiatives can be critical when tackling lengthy sales cycles. Here are four SEO recommendations designed to help alleviate the pressure of a lengthening sales cycle in a B2B organization.

Authorship

As daunting as it may seem to get invested in another tactical marketing initiative, Google+, in coordination with Google’s Authorship program, presents clear opportunities for brands to differentiate themselves within search engine results. A successful authorship initiative:

• Shows thought leadership in search engine results through name (and face) recognition
• Provides a new method for prospects to communicate to the organization individually or through Google+ Pages
• Helps branded content rank more prominently in search engine results based on the success of authored posts and social media shares associated with them

Search Engine Land has a comprehensive article with instructions on how to implement Google Authorship Markup, and I would recommend following articles in the Google Authorship category, since updates and changes to Google+ can be rather frequent (and often difficult to follow).

For B2B organizations concerned about brand development and thought leadership in search engine results, authorship tagging is a critical first step.

Social Media Network Analysis

Search engine marketers traditionally analyze social media profiles for target users that may generate links and improve the reach of an SEO program. Social media analysis also provides SEO professionals the ability to uncover related influencers and network associations that might impact the buying process within a target organization.

• Use FollowerWonk to uncover profiles Twitter users follow that have influence and are also associated to the organization. A good place to start is with company/brand profiles and associated social media managers. Another method is through coordinated PR efforts, uncovering industry influencers based on targeted trade publications.
• Once discovered, name-specific search queries in Google or Bing can uncover related social media profiles. We primarily look for LinkedIn and Google+ associations.
• If email information is known, the Rapportive browser add-on helps identify associated social media profiles.
• Explore LinkedIn profile information to uncover industry groups and professional connections.

By uncovering related social media connections in the organization, B2B SEO professionals provide the starting point for identifying the types of content assets that support multiple touch points in the buying cycle.

Content Marketing Optimization

Incorporate SEO tactics into all content marketing initiatives. As revealed in the 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks report, B2B content marketers are engaged in an average of twelve tactics for their organization. Tying these tactics together with keyword strategy and keyword optimization, and internal/external cross-linking, should significantly boost the long-term value of this material in organic search engine results.

Best practices to consider:

• Optimize key SEO page elements (HTML Titles, Meta Descriptions, Open Graph Tags, etc.
• Incorporate keyword strategy into on-page material
• Develop copy surrounding assets that search engines find more difficult to interpret, i.e., graphics, videos, PDF files, etc.
• Integrate social sharing elements and cross-links to related material
• Implement conversion opportunities or event tracking to measure performance

The concept of content marketing has become an essential component of the SEO campaign because of its importance in providing visibility for keywords and enabling link acquisition.

Utilize Reporting Data To Make More Informed Content Decisions

The impact that “not provided” keyword referrals, search personalization, and localization have on keyword monitoring has created the necessity for B2B SEO’s to better evaluate overall content performance. Web traffic and visitor reporting tools such as Google Analytics are essential in this endeavor.

Broad visibility and quality metrics help B2B marketers justify the investment in content marketing initiatives and SEO strategy.

Metrics to monitor include:

• Page views and entrance data associated with SEO landing pages and content marketing assets
• Downloads and page views traced back to sales prospects, often found in marketing automation tool reports
• Links acquired to content marketing assets, as uncovered in Google or Bing Webmaster Tools and link monitoring solutions such as Open Site Explorer
• Social mentions associated to content marketing assets — in particular, mentions from influencers, sales prospects, and link building efforts

The steps in this process can be applied across marketing channels to make more informed decisions on new content initiatives and their potential impact in lead nurturing programs.

Final Thoughts

B2B SEO professionals offer a range of tactics designed to improve lead nurturing programs and help establish brand awareness. Authorship helps differentiate the brand in search, social media analysis uncovers related personnel in prospect organizations, and the optimization of content marketing assets extends their life online, hopefully generating more leads, as well.

Traffic and visitor reporting and analysis ties everything together through the validation (hopefully) of content marketing and SEO strategy, helping B2B marketers better trace the leads created to sales and revenue.

How are SEO tactics evolving in your organization’s marketing strategy to support complex sales cycles regardless of whether they are getting longer or not? I would love to read your thoughts and perspective via comments below.

For B2B search, this is going to have a specific impact on your programs, and getting ready for the coming changes will require a bit of forethought into how you maximize the results of your campaigns.

In a realm like B2B, there is always the dual challenge of a diffuse customer base with ever changing needs and a limited pool of resources and time to comprehensively capture and engage this diverse host of potential customers.

While there may be some who contend the new enhanced campaigns are going to limit targeting potential, for B2Bs, there is a chance to jump the curve if they focus on the following platform changes that will benefit their marketplace.

The Impact Of Geo & Device

Among other implications, two key shifts in both focus and control for Enhanced Campaigns come down to the destinations and devices. With Enhanced Campaigns, Google will be enabling its platform to reach mobile users (sans tablet, which is bundled with desktop) in a more comprehensive manner.

In the past, Search Marketers would create duplicate campaigns for targeting and reporting on specific geos or mobile. Now, this can be accomplished within the same campaign, which could be considered a lifesaver for those with robust accounts where geo and device dimensions are a challenge. Although the number of campaigns will decrease for those wanting to target mobile users or specific geos, it is key to understand the new bidding structure.

Under the traditional way of targeting mobile users and geos (pre-EC), bids can be explicitly set, meaning a keyword in a desktop campaign can be set at a bid $5.26, and the same term can be set at $4.10 in the mobile campaign, and changes to one would not affect the other. With EC, bids will be based on multipliers and controlled within one campaign.

This presents challenges for advertisers that need to make frequent bid changes for a large number of keywords because bid changes will then impact both mobile and desktop or multiple geos that are selected based on their bid multiply settings.

How does this impact the B2B advertiser? Maybe the KPIs for mobile are different than those of desktops/tablets, or strategy and audience vary by geo.

The previous woes of managing duplicate campaigns for geos or multiple devices comes at the cost of speaking differently/directly to audiences to KPIs or interest in different locations.

Before jumping into Enhanced Campaigns, it is key to consider how best to control the message you deliver to your potential customers because moving toward general messaging for a large audience across multiple match types and geos may not be worth the newly saved manpower hours of managing duplicate campaigns.

The Google Display Network & Increased Bidding Options

You will, however, now have more bidding options with your GDN campaigns. Currently, there is a bidding hierarchy, and you can’t use multiple bids at one time in display.

Bid adjustments for display will be able to layer/stack across multiple targeting criteria types. If you set adjustments across placements, interests, and topics, and all three match for an impression, all of three adjustments can be used to determine the max CPC/CPM that can be used for this impression.

In essence, there will be three bid types to leverage in your display network:

• The Standard Default Bid – the dollar amount bids will work the same way as they do today. This bid type will be the system default when you don’t have a more specific (custom) bid set.
• Custom Bid – this bid type will allow more control in your choices in GDN. Essentially, it is a  dollar amount bid for individual placements, keywords, etc. Choosing this will help you manage more of your investment in GDN and allows more oversight than the default bids.
• Bid Adjustments – you can also control bids through bid adjustments (-90% to +900%) for individual Placements, Topics, Interests & Remarketing, Gender and Age. This allows for more granularity and control in your targets; which, for B2B, becomes very attractive to isolate and target only relevant customers.

One other interesting feature in the Google Enhanced Campaigns for GDN is the ability to target operating systems. This will allow a new dimension of targeting based on the technological profiles of both the system and the demographics associated with those operating systems.

More Capability With Call Extensions

For any B2B marketer who relies on inbound calls to generate leads and sales, there are going to be some improvements that will benefit your efforts through the call extensions in EC. Call tracking will become free on all devices within the countries where the campaign is launched. This will be a boon for desktops and tablets where there is currently a minimum $1 fee associated with the feature.

The Call Extension number will be displayed on all devices without requiring use of call tracking by advertiser, which might prove useful to help B2B campaigns where tracking has proved to be a challenging measure.

A few ways and means of leveraging Call Extensions include:

• Leveraging calls as a conversion measure: one key attribute for advertisers in B2B search will be the ability to track conversions for click- to-calls. Beyond simply being able to measure the appetite for talking to your company directly, you will also be able to specify the call length to qualify for what you deem a conversion. This added metric will be a new category of value to further optimize your overarching B2B search program. The call conversions will be reported in a new column in Campaign and Ad Group tabs, which can be monitored alongside other KPI’s.

• In addition, the call extensions aspect will now support scheduling in the campaign, using the same mechanism as other extensions. For example, if an advertiser’s call center is only open 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., they can use scheduling to only show their phone number in the ad at those times of the day. For any client where IVR or other call center efficiency programs are in place, this ability to control scheduling will enable companies to measure the impact and potentially decrease costs associated with driving calls. One idea would be to compare the click-to-call in search juxtapositioned with DTV or Direct Mail to assess efficiency. This opens up an entirely new business case budget opportunity.

• One added component to note is that call bid will be deprecated. Since Call Metrics are becoming free, even on desktops, call bid is no longer relevant and will be deprecated. Ad rank for ads with call extension will be based solely on the click bid (Max CPC).

No matter your opinion on Google Enhanced Campaigns, the fact remains they are a coming reality and represent an evolution in the AdWords platform. The changes will be rolled out in the coming months and every search marketer should take note and begin testing.

In search, the most effective approaches always include a healthy degree of testing, and this new AdWords platform is no different. As change is the only constant, being ready for the new AdWords Enhanced Campaigns is how you can jump the curve and capitalize in your B2B search program.

My two key takeaways were:

1. More Google-specific features, such as advertising and local results, are taking up real estate in Google search results pages.
2. Search marketers need to be looking beyond keyword visibility reports and what is actually displayed in search results for primary keyword targets.

The research was timely as it validated keyword search analysis we had performed (albeit much more manually) for a client  experiencing year-over-year declines in organic search traffic for the past few months.

Dr. Pete’s analysis is one method we used for addressing B2B SEO keyword challenges and identifying new recommendations and direction.

In this column, I want to walk the reader through a series of keyword analysis tactics we used to assess declines in organic search engine traffic for a client website. Through each tactic, we identified direction for SEO recommendations, as well.

Client Background

We were approached by an organization seeking to address declines in organic search engine referrals. The website in question receives in excess of 200,000 monthly organic referrals, but that number has declined significantly in recent months.

Their primary keyword targets all seemed to be performing relatively well, in terms of positions (rank) in search engine results. However because their primary keywords represented only a fraction of the total number of search phrases people used to find their website, further analysis of keyword information was a necessity.

Here is a snapshot of organic search referral data by month with changes (positive and negative) year-over-year:

The decline in year-over-year growth started to draw attention in August 2012, but really became an issue in November. As a result, our initial emphasis was to look at organic search data for the three month period between November 2012 and January 2013.

For keyword analysis to be effective, it is critical to evaluate trends in segments of data, seeking to identify patterns and anomalies. We used three methods of analysis, discussed below.

Breakout Search Engine Sources

The first step was to simply look at what search engine referral sources were experiencing the most significant declines. As illustrated in the screenshot below, it’s clear that Google is/was the clear loser. In fact, traffic from Yahoo/Bing increased in that same time period.

Google was the search referral channel we needed to dig deeper into for keyword analysis.

Key Takeaway: While broad search engine trends are important, it is equally important to evaluate the specific search engine referral sources, as well. As illustrated in the data below, you can see Google traffic was actually on the decline, in terms of year-over-year performance, several months before this issue became a red alert.

Breakout Keyword Themes

Once we identified it was a Google issue specifically, the next step was to identify how core keyword themes performed year-over-year. I equate keyword themes to the variations of primary keyword targets a client focuses on.

So, if your primary theme is “big data,” it means how often “big data” is used in all keyword queries generating traffic to the site. Here is a generic snapshot of how these themes performed.

You can use a simple filter to identify the volume of search referrals associated with a particular keyword or phrase.

With information in hand, we went about assessing the strength of content associated with each theme, re-optimizing material as appropriate, and making recommendations for new content strategies associated to related keyword targets.

Immediate actions that were undertaken:

• Revisit key SEO tagging elements (HTML Titles, Meta Descriptions, etc.) on primary SEO landing pages.
• Assess existing content for cross-linking opportunities.
• Pull together a short list of content ideas that could be executed, enabling cross-linking of updated materials and target new variations of keyword themes.

Supporting Resource: SEO Professional Jason Acidre recently wrote a good, step-by-step resource for doing something similar, based off of high-performing, long-tail keywords found via Google Analytics.

Evaluate The Long-Tail

The volume of long-tail keyword traffic was the next place to look. What we realized was that the year-over-year trend in the number of unique phrases via Google traffic had gone down an average of 30%, when comparing monthly volumes.

Here is a snapshot of the data:

The information above led to two critical action items:

• Evaluate visitor performance of website activity associated with visits yielded from a single key phrase referral (i.e., one search query, one visit)
• Look for technical issues which may be creating broader search visibility issues across the site

Immediate actions that were undertaken:

• Based on a sample set of single visit/keyword queries, we realized that particular content type yielded the poorest visitor experience, as it pertained to bounce rates and pages per visit. Recommendations on layout and usability were delivered to improve visitor experience for that particular content type.
• The technical evaluation proved to be a bit more difficult investigation. A review of HTML code and site architecture SEO factors revealed only minor issues. But as we evaluated third-party referral reports and the search engine results for long-tail keywords, a duplicate content issue was uncovered.

Key Takeaway: Careful review of reporting data and search results needs to be undertaken to uncover less obvious but potentially serious issues. You probably won’t find the problem immediately. It’s also good to get a second set of eyes on the data as well, particularly when hitting a wall with analysis. 

Understand Changes In The Display Of Keyword Search Results

The final factor we looked at was how the search engine landscape had changed year-over-year, in association to top keyword referrals (as discussed at the start). We manually reviewed no less than the top 100 keyword referrals sending traffic each month, from November through January of the previous year, identifying blended search results, local results, and other factors impacting the page.

Here is a snapshot of how our spreadsheet of data was organized:

What we realized was that as much as 20% of primary keyword referrals were impacted by local listings (we used the Yoast Firefox plugin to help filter personalization out of results). News, video, images, and Knowledge Graph results were also having an impact.

• Key Takeaway: A strong data set needs to be built out to support strategic SEO recommendations. In this case, the growing suspicion that there was a need for further site emphasis on regional and local distribution efforts was confirmed. The next step was/is putting a tactical plan together for execution.

Factor The Influence Of “Not Provided” Search Volumes

While all of this data can be powerful, SEO professionals must also factor the influence of “not provided” traffic percentages from Google, as well. This involved two key measurements:

• Graphing the overall percentage of “not provided” search volume each month.
• Making estimates based on historical averages of top landing pages accessed via organic search on what type of keywords could be getting used via “not provided” results.

We felt like we had enough of a compelling case in our first three analytical points to keep our estimates of impact at a high level. That might not be the case in all situations, so putting together more stringent impact assumptions is something to always consider.

One Final Tip: Remember Who You’re Presenting To

Don’t forget taking into account the audience in review. While this data might be significant, it may also be overwhelming to those not in the trenches.

If you’re talking to management, charts and graphs illustrating and validating trends tend to work better than rows of excel data. Don’t overload them with data. Focus on how the data shows action that will improve business results.

Final Thoughts

Will their keyword referral traffic fully rebound? We can’t say for certain. What we do know is the specific aspects of organic keyword performance that need to be addressed and what the first steps are in the process, both short and long term.

What are your thoughts in this process and what steps are missing? I would love to read your feedback and thoughts via comments below.

Developing B2B buyer personas can be an essential part of this, since understanding the goals, needs, and limits of a buyer are important to crafting the right content needed for SEO and social media marketing. This column takes a look the development of buyer personas for B2B marketing and the impact SEO professionals should have on the process.

What Are Buyer Personas?

My quick, interpretative definition of a “buyer persona” is a representative profile of a particular target audience segment. However, several more experienced B2B marketing professionals have paved the way for the understanding I have in B2B buyer personas. Here are some of their definitions:

• Ardath Albee & MLT Creative: “A buyer persona is a composite of different factors that affect your buyer and motivate him/her to buy. Your prospect’s buying cycle and buying decisions are situated within a larger context that must be understood in order to motivate his/her buyer behavior.” (source)
• Tony Zambito: “We define buyer personas as the process of not only developing archetypal representations of buyers, but also the process of gathering insights, developing buyer scenarios, tapping into mental models, and mapping to the buying process.” (source)
• Adele Revella: “A buyer persona as an archetype; a composite picture of the real people who buy, or might buy, products like the ones you market, based on what you’ve learned in direct interviews with real buyers.” (source)

As Albee indicates in an interview with the Content Marketing Institute, what makes B2B buyer personas different than general user personas is the complex sales cycle of B2B solutions. There are usually multiple decision makers involved in the process. B2B Internet marketers need to think about SEO, social media, and content marketing efforts meant to satisfy a more diverse set of requirements across multiple personas.

How Do B2B Marketers Develop Buyer Personas?

About a year ago, MarketingSherpa highlighted survey data from their B2B Marketing Benchmark report, asking what the most effective tactics were in developing buyer personas. Here is a screenshot of survey responses.

Survey results support the hypothesis that effective persona development requires a combination of qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (research and tools) measurements. Interviews to key sales personnel and customers, the most effective types of tactics, are supported by analysis through survey development, site traffic reports, and keyword research.

There are several good resources for developing effective questions to ask in the interviews with sales personnel and customers in B2B buyer persona development. Here are a few:

• Up Close & Persona Interactive Buyer Persona Template
• Core Buyer and Product-Based Buyer Persona Templates
• Building Buyer Personas: A Checklist For High-Tech Marketers

What Challenges Do Marketers Face With Buyer Personas?

Unfortunately, building effective buyer personas is not as easy as one might believe. I find two specific challenges consistently appear when B2B marketers discuss obstacles in effective buyer persona development.

1. Building The Unusable (Or getting stuck in the semantics). In a recent article from Ardath Albee, she explains how B2B marketers based persona creation off of traditional information gathering techniques (how someone gets to know an individual) instead of truly “buyer-centric” exploration. In other words, personal information and interests (like “does my buyer have a jack russell terrier”) would rarely come into the equation.
2. Failing To Remain Objective Another common problem is in creating buyer personas which reflect the creator’s interest and not the buyer’s. As discussed in a blog post from Dayna Rothman of Marketo, the best way to overcome this obstacle is in solid quantitative research.

5 Ways B2B SEO Impacts Buyer Persona Development

As our organization learns more about buyer personas, how and why they are developed, and how they impact B2B marketing strategy, ties to the SEO process (and vice versa) emerge. Here are five initial points of connectivity.

• Build Keyword Research Into The Interview Process Ask sales personnel what keywords (terminology) often come up in the sales discussions and prospecting calls. Ask customers what keywords they used to find the organization, industry information, and research. If possible, breakout keyword information based on the roles and titles of customers and prospects interviewed as well.
• Segment & Extend Keyword Research Breakout existing keyword research into the various buyer persona segments. In the interview process, provide an initial set of keywords to interviewees for establishing relevance, that can be, in turn, used for further keyword exploration. Evaluate associated search engine results (based on interview feedback and keyword research) to determine related  content marketing opportunities.
• Evaluate Landing Page Activity Provide B2B marketing teams visitor activity associated with search engine referral traffic. In Google Analytics, use advanced segments and secondary dimensions to isolate search engine referrals associated with landing pages for all search traffic, important keywords, and “not provided” data.

This data should help support and augment content marketing development through the identification of website assets that perform better, in terms of visit duration, exit rates, and conversion rates, etc.

• Merge SEO Trends With Prospect Activity Reports Popular marketing automation tools integrate prospect activity with referral source information. These reports provide a compelling story for validating (or adjusting) buyer persona projections. Cross-reference related visitor activity — comparable keyword referrals and associated visitor performance — to known prospect behavior in marketing automation reports, to determine whether website traffic patterns accurately support interview responses.
• Build Better Keyword-Oriented Content Input from sales and customer interviews coupled with existing traffic reporting data should help B2B SEO’s find a wider range of keyword targets and provide opportunity for creating more targeted, appropriate content marketing assets.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, buyer persona creation is not integrated into the majority of B2B organizations. In the MarketingSherpa report referenced above, only 41% of organizations polled had established personas. The rapid growth in technological innovation and digital content consumption necessitates B2B buyer persona development in order to overcome the “digital noise” online.

Furthermore, as case studies illustrating the success of B2B marketing tactics initiated through the use of buyer personas are realized, adoption will certainly increase.

B2B SEO stands to be improved through tighter integration in buyer persona development and vice versa. This connection is similar to why SEO professionals are involved in site development, marketing communications, and content strategy.

What do you think? Is your organization building buyer personas in their B2B marketing strategy? I would love to read your perspective and feedback via comments below.

John Battelle has called a search engine a “database of intentions,” but that database is often fuzzy, to say the least.

In many cases, it would be much easier for marketers to know who the user doing the search was, as opposed to for what they were searching. Take the two examples above: if you knew that the searcher was a 19-year-old college student whose favorite brands were [Axe deodorant] and [Bud Light], you could probably determine quite quickly whether either query was right for your advertising budget.

But, with the exception of the limited use cases of Google’s RLSA (retargeting lists for search ads), the ability to fuse demographic or behavioral intent with query data does not exist on search engines.

In the last few months, however, social networks – led by Facebook and LinkedIn – have rolled out targeting features that enable advertisers to get very close to answering the “who” question. Importantly, these tools work especially well for B2B marketers, simply because they enable advertisers to exclude consumers (or just include businesses).

While still in their infancy, these new targeting tools are opening up big B2B opportunities online. If you’ve been frustrated by too many double-entendre keywords in your SEM campaigns, social media could be a better use of marketing dollars.

LinkedIn: Using Endorsements, Groups & Demographics For Fun & Profit

With over 200 million users, the odds are pretty high that if you are trying to reach a business professional, you can probably find him or her on LinkedIn. When LinkedIn’s self-service advertising platform was originally launched, advertisers could only target based on a LinkedIn user’s self-identified data. I say only because even this data is quite robust. Fields include:

• Languages spoken (I put “Old French – 842-ca.1400” on my profile, but no one has targeted me in that yet)
• Company or type of company
• School(s) attended
• Seniority
• Gender
• Age
• Geography (down to a city)

LinkedIn then upped the ante by allowing advertisers to target users based on their LinkedIn group membership as well. Since many groups are narrowly focused around specific business issues and needs, targeting groups (in combination with demographics) is a great way to find users specifically looking for what you might be selling.

As example, I typed in [data warehouse] into the groups search box on LinkedIn and found more than 250 groups, some of which had over 20,000 members:

In the last few months, LinkedIn introduced “endorsements,” whereby your peers can endorse you for a set of skills. Shortly after rolling out endorsements, this, too, was added to the self-serve ad tool (described in the tool as “skills”), effectively creating a crowd-sourced targeting tool.

Put these three elements – profile demographics, group membership and endorsements – together and you can get pretty darn granular (though note: you must target at least 1,000 LinkedIn users per campaign).

To show you an example of what this looks like, I recently created a LinkedIn campaign targeting PPC experts at marketing agencies in the US at a manager to VP level (as a way to try to recruit people to my agency). I got a list of about 1,200 perfect candidates to market to.

Facebook: Demographics + First Party Data + Search?

Facebook has also been busy adding more refined targeting options to its original ad platform. The first iteration of Facebook targeting allowed advertisers to target based on self-reported data about users, including:

• Geography
• Age
• Gender
• Languages spoken
• Marital status
• Sexual orientation
• School(s) attended and current education status
• Company
• Interests on Facebook
• Connections on Facebook

Again, not too shabby! Since that initial launch, however, Facebook has added two new powerful tools: FBX – which allows you to retarget your Web visitors on Facebook – and Custom Audiences, which enables advertisers to upload a list of email addresses to Facebook and market to anyone on Facebook who has used one of these email addresses to sign up for Facebook.

While you can’t currently fuse Facebook demographic data with FBX retargeting; with custom audiences, you can! So, if you only wanted to target folks that had signed up for your newsletter *and* are married, went to the University of Iowa and are men, voila! – custom audiences combined with self-reported demographic information gets you that deep!

And, let’s not forget the elephant in the room – Facebook’s recent launch of “Graph Search.” Graph Search allows users to run searches on Facebook and get results based on their social graph. So, doing a search for “sushi in San Francisco” would not only give you a list of sushi restaurants, but also tell you which of your friends visited them recently.

While you can’t currently advertise on graph search (and indeed, most users don’t even have access to the feature yet, anyway), most advertisers assume that Facebook will soon roll out “search ads” on Graph Search. Combine the 1^st-party data of Custom Audiences, the self-defined demographics of Facebook profiles, and the intent of a search query and, well, you just might have found the Holy Grail of online advertising!

And Don’t Forget Google

Of course, Google isn’t sitting idly by and letting LinkedIn and Facebook own “who-based” B2B marketing. Google Plus is already integrated into AdWords, RLSA allows for limited 1^st-party data, and there’s no doubt there are many more plans at the Googleplex to fuse behavioral data and search intent.

Google already offers B2B behavioral targeting opportunities on the Google Display Network (GDN) and has really improved the ease-of-use and granularity of their remarketing (retargeting) on GDN, as well.

Compared to the social networks, Google has always taken a much more conservative approach to user privacy, which may limit the amount of behavioral data they will share with marketers; but at the end of the day, if Google is losing wallet share to other channels and the cause of this loss is better targeting, you can expect Google to respond with rival products on search as a result.

And don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of highly-targeted B2B-only queries that get decent volume on AdWords, so this is definitely not a zero-sum game.

Assuming that all this data (and all of these channels) doesn’t either overwhelm marketers or freak out consumers, the combination of accurate behavioral and demographic data with search query intent is a pretty exciting opportunity for B2B marketers. Merging “who” with “what” and “where” on social networks enables advertisers to target business customers with incredible precision. It’s a very good time to be a B2B marketer!

Just in time for preparation in the new year, MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute launched their 2013 B2B Content Marketing Report, looking at budgets, benchmarks, and trends to watch for with B2B content marketing.

As I reviewed the report, a few key takeaways were important to me, as it pertains to B2B SEO programs we’re launching this year. After a recap of those takeaways, I’ve included my suggested checklist of questions to ask at every stage of a content marketing campaign.

Content Marketing Tactics Employed

B2B marketers use an average of 12 tactics for content marketing and 5 social media sites for distribution (LinkedIn & Twitter being the top two).

Establishing Performance Metrics

The top criteria for measuring the success of B2B content marketing initiatives were Web traffic, sales lead quality, and social media sharing. SEO was a distant seventh in priority. I would argue that SEO directly impacts or is impacted by the top three.

Evaluating Content Effectiveness

Only 36% of B2B marketers surveyed felt that their content marketing tactics were at least “effective” last year. Only 6% of the overall total felt they were “very effective.” This leads lots of room for improvement.

With such a range in tactics, content types, and ways to measure effectiveness, it can easily get overwhelming; particularly for B2B marketers just starting out. An important component of successful B2B content marketing (and B2B SEO) is in proper preparation and planning.

Here is a checklist of action items and questions we try to run through when launching B2B content marketing initiatives for SEO; pre launch, at campaign execution, and post launch.

25 Questions For Your Content Marketing Checklist

Prior To Campaign Launch:

• Target Audience: Do we understand and have we identified the specific target audiences we’re trying to reach (such as executives, technologists, industry professionals, etc)?
  • Have we considered what buyer personas our content marketing asset will address?
  • Is the conversion action for our content asset tied more closely to information seekers, sales-ready prospects, or somewhere in between?
• Content Strategy: What type of content marketing asset do we need to succeed, i.e., blog post, article, white paper, infographic, etc.?
  • Do we need to develop supporting assets such as landing pages, press release, etc. to drive traffic and lead acquisition?
• Keyword Research: Have we identified search result opportunities that could be improved through content being developed?
  • Is our content marketing asset designed to be more informational, transactional, or specific to brand development?
• Network Identification: Who are the key influencers we need to reach to help spread awareness?
  • What social media platforms and applications do they use most often?
  • Have we established a connection with these influencers or do we have secondary connections that can assist?
• Competitive Review: Did we identify whether our content initiatives exceed value of similar content found in the competitive landscape (if applicable and certainly subjective)?
• Message Collaboration: What team members will be part of the production of this content asset, from creation to execution?
• Measurement: Have we identified the measurement criteria to be evaluated and used to demonstrate content marketing effectiveness?

At Campaign Launch:

• Keyword Tagging: Did we optimize the content marketing asset’s HTML Title, Meta Tags, page copy, web address, etc.?
• Conversion Optimization: Is there a clear call-to-action that is trackable in existing reporting tools? (You might be surprised how many marketers forget the latter.)
• Message Execution: Is everyone responsible for communication (PR, Communications, Customer Service, Sales, etc.) aware that the content is live and ready to be distributed?
  • Have we placed our message in appropriate locations? Examples might include press release, email blasts, internal communications, website landing pages, other online assets (including social media, see next)?
• Social Media Execution – Initial Phase: Have we published notice of our content marketing asset in designated social media platforms?

After Campaign Launch:

• Influencer Outreach: Are we communicating to targeted influencers identified in the planning phase?
• Social Media Execution – Secondary Phase: Are we focusing on supporting the communication to influencers through mentions, retweets, and further interactions in targeted social media platforms?
  • If appropriate, are we able to contact identified targets as well?
• Cross-Linking Review: Have we identified and implemented cross-links from related website material, in order to facilitate better indexing of the new material?
• Reporting & Analysis: What are the results as they pertain to core B2B content marketing objectives?
  • What did we learn, regardless of success or failure?
  • Are we able to effectively communicate results to appropriate team members and organizational leaders?

Final Thoughts On B2B Content Marketing Challenges

I found it interesting that while the top two B2B content marketing challenges were still “producing enough content” and “producing the kind of content that engages,” there was a dramatic decline in the percentage of those B2B marketers emphasizing the latter (see chart below).

While there are other results in the survey that could support this reasoning, it seems strange given the concern about content marketing assets delivering effective results.

This seems like another opportunity for B2B search engine marketers to take the lead. As Knowledge Graph becomes a more prominent component of search relevance, in-depth search results analysis may lead to more effective content marketing execution over time, and perhaps a new action item for B2B marketers to consider.

What is on your B2B content marketing campaign action list? I would love to read your thoughts and perspective via comments below.

The tactics designed to support your B2B SEO plan most likely include content marketing, third-party link outreach, and social media development, as well as a few enhancements related to Web development. It’s one thing to know these are the important tactics to execute, but it is another to figure out where to find inspiration for execution.

Here are places within your own traffic reporting tools to look first, when crafting tactics for a B2B SEO strategy in 2013.

Keyword Referral Data

It seems obvious but is often overlooked; at least, the long-tail. What type of phrases are people searching with and clicking into your website? Did they stick around for a few pages but leave without fulfilling a particular goal(s)?

Keyword referral data unlocks better topics for blog content, SEO landing pages, and more comprehensive content marketing initiatives (white papers, viral marketing assets, etc).

In the above example, I am highlighting search phrases that people searched, found our website, and appeared to be of higher-quality, based on average visitor behavior. The topics behind these phrases might make better opportunities for further content development moving forward.

Getting a lot of irrelevant data? Use filters to restrict results based on certain performance criteria like maximum and minimum bounce rates or average visit duration. Here is a screenshot of how I used the filter in the previous example.

Visitor Activity In Coordination With Search Referral Data

Understanding the type of content searchers consume when accessing your website will hopefully uncover opportunities for building complementary or related material. Use keyword research tools to explore opportunities once potential assets are realized.

Unfortunately, you are going to have to do more digging to find this information. Select the Secondary Dimension, “Landing Page,” to see the webpages searches accessed when searching via encrypted search (see screenshot below).

Use filters similar to the ones above to restrict information based on performance criteria.

Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries

As “not provided” data associated to Google encrypted search becomes more prevalent, alternative resources, like the search query report in Google Webmaster Tools, need to be considered.

While I have never found this report accurate enough for setting client expectations, the data can be valuable for understanding the type of phrase searches used to find the site and an approximate search position where the site is typically found.

What I find interesting about this report are the keyword phrases which generate traffic but are in an average position “below the fold” (perhaps positions 3 and below). This could mean topics which resonate better than others and should be explored for alternative content ideas.

Third-Party Referral Reports

Building good content is one thing, finding the right audiences to share, like, and link to it is another. Referral reports in Google Analytics (or similar reporting tools) help B2B SEO’s understand why people link and mention your website and hopefully provide insight into how to gain additional exposure as well.

For this exercise,  I recommend looking for domains that are not social media platforms first, since marketing in popular platforms can become a tactical strategy in and of itself. That said, don’t ignore social media sites that are sending large percentages of traffic organically. This recommendation is meant to find key targets for more direct outreach.

When reviewing third-party referral reports, look for referring sources that tend to drive a higher quality visitor (more page views per visit, lower bounce rates, etc). Go directly to each referring URL and check for:

• The objective of the reference
• Whether the link (or reference) is SEO friendly.
• Contact information for the author(s)
• Social media profile information for the author(s)

If the reference is positive, then it’s not a bad idea to leave a comment of thanks (if a blog post) or send a quick email if possible (holidays and gratitude are great reasons to send this communication).

Note: Google Webmaster Tools inbound link report is another easy way to get this information as well, coming at it from the site URL-specific direction.

Social Media List Development

Social media has become an essential asset for SEO. The key to a good social media program is in having the right network. Building professional relationships through social media platforms helps secure links, develops earned media, and generates broader visibility for content marketing assets. I recommend the following resources for researching key targets in your industry.

• A premium subscription to LinkedIn provides visibility to Twitter profile information of users beyond 2nd degree connections
• FollowerWonk, part of the SEOmoz set of SEO tools, is a critical tool for researching Twitter networks
• For researching journalists, USNPL offers a database of US newspapers, broken down by state and city/town
• PR News has compiled a directory of Twitter handles of PR agencies/consultants, corporations, nonprofit organizations, PR professionals and media, which can be valuable for looking for specific industry expertise
• The Rapportive plugin for Firefox or Chrome provides social media profile information of those you email, which in turn can be used to uncover important users in applicable social networks

Remember to build out specific lists of users to better understand interests and important trends in conversation. For almost all of the social media platforms, I build out lists of profiles that include:

• Breakouts of journalists, analysts, bloggers, publishers, communication professionals
• Parties interested in certain industry publications and resources (this seems to be a good way to segment Google+ circles, in particular)
• Customers, partners, and prospects
• Active and friendly profiles (those that tend to support our social media initiatives more frequently than others)

Building A Better B2B SEO Strategy In 2013

Quality content and a comprehensive list of third-party locations where the businesses’ target markets actively participate in are critical components to B2B SEO. Planning, research, and organization are important for executing these two initiatives effectively. Hopefully, these recommendations provide further direction for your B2B SEO strategy, but I would love to read your thoughts and perspectives via comments below.

Wishing you the best of success in the New Year!

To increase the effectiveness of your efforts, I also recommend implementing remarketing. A short B2B remarketing success story is given below. First, what is remarketing?

Remarketing Defined

Remarketing is a search advertising feature that allows business marketers to reach prospects who have previously visited your site, and show them relevant ads as they visit other sites across the Google Display Network (GDN).

Specifically, when visitors leave your website without interacting, or registering, or purchasing — remarketing helps you connect with these potential customers while they browse other websites.

This keeps your brand “top of mind” and allows you to present a compelling message or offer to encourage them to return to your website.

B2B Remarketing

Retailers typically use remarketing to present an offer that motivates consumers to complete a transaction (or shopping cart purchase) that they previously abandoned. But, remarketing offers benefits that go way beyond consumer shopping…

For B2B companies, I have found that remarketing significantly improves brand awareness and recognition, market “buzz,” prospect interaction, and lead generation.

Example B2B Remarketing Campaign

I currently manage a remarketing campaign for Confio™ Software. Confio provides IT tools for database administrators and developers.

Confio’s remarketing campaigns is highly targeted and specifically designed to reach prospects based on the exact type of information they were looking for when they visited the site previously.

We have tagged the Confio website with specific remarketing code that is aligned to lists or specific audiences based on their interaction with the site. By interaction, I mean that they visited a specific section of the site and we are able to identify that activity and target them with unique messaging based on this, allowing ads to be served based on the visitors’ specific needs.

The customer feedback, and “market chatter” has been nothing but positive, and the remarketing campaign has driven a great deal of impressions at a lower cost than a display/banner campaign. I have found that cost-per-impression for remarketing campaigns can be up to 50% less expensive than general display campaigns.

Example Remarketing Ad

Confio’s remarketing campaign features “Monster Ads” which were used to highlight the common problems Database Administrators deal with. Here is an example of a Confio Monster remarketing banner ad:

Confio’s marketing team was very pleased with their remarketing results.

A quote from Confio CMO Don Bergal:

“Remarketing has become an important tool for us to create initial awareness in our focused target market, and we are able to get far more impressions in front of this audience than possible with other programs. For those who already know us but see Confio only occasionally,  it’s amazing the number of people who reach out and say they were surprised to see us show up on such a diverse range of sites. I think most people still don’t get it — they see us targeting websites, but really, we are targeting them.”   

Don’t Miss The B2B Remarketing Advantage

Remarketing can take your online marketing program to a whole new level. The cost-effective impressions you gain through targeting visitors who previously visited your website will increase brand awareness, recall and interaction.