Our mission is simple. We help people grow their businesses, whether it’s the users who come to our site to find the products and services they need to run their businesses or the >10k advertisers who turn to Business.com every year to connect with this premium audience. While we have some insights into what advertisers want and what buyers are looking for, we are continually looking for ways to better serve all of our customers including the users who come to our site as well as the advertisers.  We are taking it another step forward to figure out just what it is that will help small and medium-sized enterprises all over the country grow.  From visiting sole proprietors to Fortune 500 companies, Business.com is going on tour.

What We Want to Know

During the Business.com Growth Tour of America, we want to learn about the challenges businesses are currently facing as well as where they are seeing success. From what’s working to best practices, we want to gather and share information that other businesses can learn from. Business.com is interested in hearing what you have to say. Speak up and make your voice heard on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.

Where You Can Find Us

We’ll be visiting major cities from coast to coast including New York, Florida, Chicago, Austin,  San Francisco Los Angeles, and of course San Diego. We’ll be kicking off the tour this week in the big apple (stay tuned for more details) and next week our CEO, Tony Uphoff, will be speaking at ABM’s Annual Conference, themed “The B-to-B Company: A Fully Integrated Enterprise.” He’ll be moderating the conference kickoff panel to discuss and debate the emerging role and value proposition of B2B media when it comes to connecting buyers and sellers.

Stay tuned for the latest from The Business.com Growth Tour of America by following the tour tag on our blog.

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Digital advertising revenues climbed to a high of $36.6 billion in 2012, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for the full-year of 2012. That historic number marks a 15 percent rise over 2011’s full-year number, which itself had been the highest on record, at $31.7 billion. Digital advertising now surpasses newspapers and magazines and is bigger than any other media in the U.S. with the exception of broadcast TV, which hit $40 billion. Customers are moving to digital mediums at a greater pace than ever before and advertisers are taking note.

Display Advertising Makes a Dent

Display-related advertising revenues totaled $12 billion, up almost 9%. With display advertising, an advertiser pays an online company for space on one or more of the online company’s pages to display a static or linked banner or logo. Streaming digital video, one component of display-related advertising, continues to grow the breadth and quality of content online. As advertisers follow their customer to digital channels the increased spend on those channels should be expected. According to the IAB report, here’s how display advertising revenues break down.

• Display/Banner Ads (21% or $7.7 billion)
• Rich Media (3% or $1.1 billion)
• Digital Video (6% or $2.3 billion)
• Sponsorship (2% or $845 million).

The Leverage in Lead Generation

Lead generation is another area of the digital advertising sphere that is experiencing growth. IAB found that lead generation revenues accounted for 5% of FY 2012 revenues, or $1.7 billion, up 11% from the $1.5 billion (5% of total) reported in FY 2011. Lead generation is when fees are paid by advertisers to online companies that refer qualified potential customers or provide consumer information where the consumer opts in to being contacted by a marketer. These processes are priced on a performance basis (e.g., cost-per-action, -lead or –inquiry). Performance-based pricing is gaining interest from marketers. Approximately 66% of FY 2012 revenues were priced on a performance basis, up from the 65% reported in FY 2011. Another report, the 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report from Marketing Sherpa, discovered that the forms of online advertising used in correlation with lead generation are webinars, emails, search media, and whitepapers though most marketers are choosing to send their messages out across multiple channels. The top strategic priorities for lead generation in the next 12 months are:

• Achieving or increasing measurable ROI (52%)
• Optimizing the marketing-sales funnel (51%)
• Gaining greater insight of audience (51%)
• Maximizing the lifetime value of customers (47%)

Massive Mobile Moves

As mobile and tablet devices become more popular, they’ll continue to drive investment and strategies from businesses. Mobile marketing provides businesses with new ways to reach consumers IAB found that for the second year in a row, mobile achieved triple-digit growth year-over-year. The mobile category grew 111% to $3.4 billion and accounted for 9% of total internet ad revenue in 2012. Mobile app environment continues to grow and mature as business models develop and advertising budgets grow to support the market. From payment options to utilities and local services, the best apps are no longer concentrated to just one vertical. IAB suggests that the growth in mobile adversting comes from:

• Growth in device penetration (Smartphone and tablet), led by Apple and Google
• Faster connection speeds as infrastructure and device upgrades occur
• Improved screen resolutions that allow more ads onto the mobile screen
• Greater sophistication in incorporating ads into mobile apps and websites
• Social media consumed on mobile devices

Digital advertising budgets are shifting as the best places to find a customer does. Online marketing is a must for businesses looking to expand, reach new customers and cultivate current customer relationships. In the digital space, display advertising, mobile marketing and lead generation are three areas that continue to grow each year. Customers browse the web, are active on social networks and marketers want to reach them. As customers become more tech-savvy, businesses need to become more digital-friendly in their marketing strategies.

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In the midst of social media, email marketing and SEO, landing pages can get lost. Creating the best subject lines, attention-grabbing intros and fresh content are just a few of the tasks modern B2B marketers are tasked with. With all that going on, landing pages are sometimes forgetten about. However, they are crucial to the success of your website and business. In fact, HubSpot’s 2012 Marketing Benchmarks Report found that companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from just 10 to 15. More landing pages provide your business more opportunities to deliver a connected and continuous experience to customers. In order to create the best landing pages for your business, consider these best practices.

Integrate the Source with the Page

Landing pages are often the first step in a lead nurturing campaign. Don’t confuse your prospect right off the bat by having broken continuity from a link to a landing page. You want to keep a consistent experience for the user, using similar language, design, etc. Integrate the source of the landing page with the page itself. If your landing page is for a link sent out on a social network, you’ve got to make sure you have a more information built out on your landing page, since a tweet or status update isn’t going to give those clicking through as much information as an email or newsletter snippet might. You also want to give the prospect a sense of continuation. They should feel the brand extending from your email or tweet to the landing page in terms of design, copy and offers.

Keep Social Media in Mind

In the past, marketing professionals have had the idea to create landing pages specifically for those accessing the page through their mobile device. While some companies may still continue along this route, marketers need to consider streamlining all landing pages to accommodate those visitors who may be coming in from a friend’s “forward,” a mobile search or a social media post. One example would be to reduce the number of form fields for those visiting a landing page on a mobile device versus a laptop. Eloqua found that there is a significant drop-off in overall conversion rates after both three and seven fields in a landing page form. You can nurture those leads and gradually collect more information by directing them to other content that requires minimal, but additional information to be accessed such as related whitepaper or case study.

When it comes to social media traffic,  the share-ability of your landing page is important to keep in mind to generate future traffic. Having social share buttons is a must – you could even include social proof once a page is successful. One example is eye glasses and lens provider ACLens which experienced a 41% increase in conversions and 58% increase in value per transaction after incorporating customer testimonials in their landing page.

Don’t Lose Out on Layout

The layout of your landing page matters. While the source may be a factor, it isn’t the only thing to keep in mind with layout formatting and design. According to MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Optimization Benchmarks Report, page layout came out on top when analyzing which elements of a landing page had the greatest impact on overall website performance. The layout of a page can affect its load time,which can cause a business to lose conversions and customer satisfaction. According to the Aberdeen Group, a one-second delay in page-load time results in 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7% loss in conversions.

Different landing pages will be successful for different tests. The best practice your business can take is to ABT, or “Always Be Testing.” Test different layouts, form fields, and designs to determine what type of landing page will be the most successful for your business. Consider your customers and what they would be expecting when landing on a page. You want to leave a positive and lasting impact so that in the event a prospect chooses not to fill out a form, they keep your business in mind for when they are ready.

How many landing pages does your business currently optimize?

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From sponsored posts on Facebook and Twitter to display retargeting campaigns, businesses have to choose wisely in order to ensure positive ROI on their marketing campaigns. When there are a number of online advertising options available for businesses, it can be difficult to decide which is best. While some may be cautious about the potential impact of display advertising on their bottom line, a recent Harvard Business School study, found that display ads have a significant impact on search applications, as well as clicks, and search ads showed significant dynamic effects on search applications that made them very cost effective in the long run. Forrester expects interactive display marketing investment to grow at a compound annual rate of 17% in the United States between 2012 and 2017. Here’s how your display advertising campaigns can impact search.

Branded Search Queries

A small number of studies examine the interaction between paid search and display. However, these studies have found that display advertising has an overall positive impact on branded search queries. Online display advertising essentially spills over, leading to an increase in brand awareness and branded searches. For those businesses looking to build brand awareness, consider your current investment in display advertising. Have you seen any spikes in branded search terms that align with your display campaigns? You probably have, but here’s how display advertising can affect branded search queries by the numbers:

• A 2012 field experiment to explore the impact of display advertising on advertiser – and competitor – branded search queries found a 27%-45% lift in searches attributable to display advertising exposure within a very short time window (10 minutes).
• A recent study found keyword searches for the brand increased by an average of 94% for consumers exposed to a display ad compared with a group of similar consumers who were not exposed to display advertising.
• Another study found that combining display with search increases brand recall, by those who had been unaware of it before, by 6% and for aided brand recall, that rate jumped to 26% of participants.

Product Search Queries

Branded search queries aren’t the only searches impacted by display advertising. The combination of organic search plus display advertising leads to a lift in specific product search queries. If you’re launching a new product or set of products, display advertising can help generate buzz and boost searches for the release. Here’s how display advertising affects product search queries by the numbers:

• One study found that exposure to a display ad increases the number of relevant search queries submitted by 5-25% when conducting a field experiment to explore the impact of display exposure on search queries.
• A recent survey found that about 50% of all internet users react to a display ad by conducting a search related to the brand or product described in the ad and 14% of users make a purchase after conducting the search.
• Another study found a 14% change in search visits after a company activated its display advertising campaign. In the Harvard Business School’s, display ads improved search ad conversion by 15‐20%.

Search isn’t the only area impacted by display advertising.  Display advertising drives search applications through search impressions and clicks. The Harvard study found that display impressions move consumers through search media, whether it’s through search or direct click-throughs. Not only that, they discovered display ads have a significant impact on search applications, as well as clicks, though the majority of this spillover took effect after two weeks. Targeted display advertisers on Business.com experience average click-through rates that are over 250% of the industry average. These studies, as well as others, indicate that display advertising does affect search. For companies looking to increase the number of searches about their business or products they offer, display advertising is an option to consider.

What success has your business seen with display advertising? Is there something you would change in the display ad space?

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Early on in the week, ad:tech took over San Francisco with advertising experts, the latest in digital marketing and over 200 exhibitors. Of course, Business.com was there to be part of it. Advertising has evolved since its early days and has changed drastically over the past few years with various technological advancements that are becoming more widespread. Smartphones, Big Data and local search all play a significant role. The future of advertising changes as new technologies come to the center of the marketing stage. Ad:tech gave us the opportunity to look into the future of advertising and we’ve broken down the key points just for you.

Data Driven Decisions

Jim Yu of BrightEdge began with a shocking, and not well-known fact: 90% of global data has been produced in the last two years. New technologies allow advertisers and marketers to close the loop where it may have been difficult, or impossible, data in the past. Now, those running ads and marketing campaigns can measure and understand which experiences are really working. Marketers want data that can help them optimize campaigns for a greater ROI. As advertisers find ways to more accurately collect, analyze, and report on data, data-driven decisions will become more of a focus. Michael Hummel, co-founder and CEO of ParStream explained how businesses must be able to get real-time data to make optimization decisions with ease in order to outshine competitors.

Local and mobile search are more important than ever. Social media is impacting SEO. As we progress with new technologies and platforms, the advertising world will continue to shift. Data will impact how, when and which content is created as well as how and when it is distributed and across which networks. Advertisements will need to have more content that engages consumers. If you take away something from ad:tech, let it be that the nature of advertising is going through a revolution due to data, engagement and the shift in search. Advertising is about connecting with the consumer. Brian David Johnson, the “Chief Futurist” from Intel, left the room he was speaking in with one thought that we want to leave you with now, “”Change the story people tell themselves about the future they will live in. Figure out how to make people’s lives better.”

Engaging Ads

A keynote address during ad:tech San Francisco came from Susan Wojcicki, senior vice president of advertising for Google. Advertising is continuing to change as time progresses. We’ve moved from a push model, where the advertisements viewed by consumers were at the discretion of companies and agencies, to a model where users can choose to see and engage with their ads or not. “Have users say ‘these are the things I’m interested in,’” she said. “Have them raise their hand…When we give them control, they take it…For every one that opted out, two actually added interests.”

To develop a successful advertiser relationship with consumers, visitors must have choice about which ads they see – especially as they become more prominent on the web. Allowing users to identify their interests and wants produces a healthier relationship that will lead to greater loyalty and success. Engagement ads are the future.

Mobile and Local Optimization

Michael Lazerow, the CMO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud claims, “The computing revolution is really a customer revolution.” Over the recent years, a computing revolution has occurred but, it isn’t the only area of business that has evolved. There’s been social, cloud, mobile, community, local, experience and trust revolutions as well. There are more and more smartphones in the pockets of consumers, nearly half of all cell phone users, and they’re using them as more than a way to call or text a friend.

Research is conducted and buying decisions are made from mobile devices. Think it doesn’t impact your business by a whole lot? Think again! Approximately 20% of keywords in a given portfolio are impacted due to mobile and local search. Businesses need to be engaging with customers on every channel. Lazerow points out,”It’s not about where you want to be, it’s where your customers are…Every company has to build communities…how do you build communities where you engage and build assets?” In the future, marketing, sales and product development will become even more integrated.

Were you at ad:tech in San Francisco? What did you learn about advertising’s future?

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These past few days, members of the Business.com marketing team have been attending Social Media Marketing World 2013 in San Diego. With just about 1,000 social media and marketing professionals in attendance, Social Media Examiner was able to create a large-scale networking conference with special events such as a boat cruise in the bay and 45 minute learning sessions from industry experts. While some speakers spoke more to those in roles at B2C companies, many suggested tips and strategies that B2B marketers can use.

Lock On to LinkedIn

Sales and marketing professionals who are looking to generate new leads for their business or strengthen their relationships with those they’ve established a connection with, LinkedIn is the network you must be on. In the opening keynote, Social Media Examiner shared some stats from a study that has yet to be released. According to their survey, 49% of the 3,000 marketers responded saying Facebook is the most important social network they use followed by LinkedIn at 16%. While there were a number of presenters who spoke to LinkedIn directly, here are a few things B2B marketers can begin to use immediately to find greater success on the social network.

• Use banners – Your Products/Services section of your company page allows your business to upload three banners. This display advertising is often an untapped section of company pages.
• Add new audiences – It’s all about relevance and targeting your audience is one way you can deliver the great content your site has to offer to the right people.
• Choose keywords – On your personal page, in URLs and in product descriptions, use keywords so that people conducting searches on LinkedIn can find you and your business easily.

Cultivate Communities

B2B marketers are making a shift. As the behavior of buyers has altered, marketers are taking note and altering their strategies. B2B buyers are doing more and more research before ever getting in touch with a provider. Forums and online communities enable businesses to build their own social networks and target communities.  Technorati found that 54% of consumers say smaller communities are more influential. As this is the case, it makes sense that 29% of marketers plan to increase forums activity (Social Media Examiner). Social community marketing strategies are becoming more important as it’s yet another way for businesses to connect with their target audience on a more personal level. Your business can cultivate communities with:

• Forums or industry-specific communities hosted on your site or by your business on LinkedIn. These can create conversations, opportunities and leads for your business.
• FAQ podcasts and YouTube videos enable your business to address customers and audiences directly. Podcasts and videos show the people behind a business and encourage discussion.

Build Your Blog

Does your business want to be influential? Do you want people within your organization to be considered influencers in your industry? If you answered yes to either one of these questions, you need to be blogging. Technorati found that 86% of industry influencers blog. In the Social Media Examiner survey, 14% responded that blogging was the most important network for their business and 62% of marketers want to learn more about blogging. As different industry leaders and experts discussed their blogging, there were a few trends that kept appearing.

• Add value – Your blog should add value to its readers. Pay attention the demographics and actions of your audience to create content that will benefit them.
• Fascinate – In the closing keynote of Day 1, Sally Hogshead noted that the average attention span is now 9 second. In order to capture your audience’s attention in that time, you need to fascinate them with your blog’s content.

Some of the major points from Social Media Marketing World is that businesses who want to connect with customers need to realize that what those customers and buyers want are connections. It’s about the relationship and social media is how your B2B businesses can cultivate those relationships so that as a buyer moves closer to their purchase decision, they don’t just think of the business or brand, but the people behind it.

Did you attend SMMW? What did you take away from the events?

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Small businesses and major corporations are both constantly trying to generate new business. Lead generation can be done a number of ways: through lead generation services, online marketing, tradeshows and more. Social media is the talk of the town for B2C businesses, but B2B companies are just getting on board. Successful B2B online marketers are using social media and seeing a positive impact from doing so. Did you know that the companies who actively manage social media campaigns have seen comparatively high conversion rates as well as healthy engagement rates (Optify’s B2B Marketing Benchmark Report)? If you’re wondering how to nurture those leads you’ve generated on social networks, take these 3 steps for greater success.

Step One: Connect

You may have made contact with a lead once… or maybe you haven’t. Social networks are a great way to reach out leads directly through mediums other than email or the phone. Optify found that Twitter is the strongest social media channel for generating leads. It even outperforms Facebook and LinkedIn 9-to-1 with 82% of social media leads coming from Twitter. Lead generation and lead nurturing efforts can be improved as your sales and marketing teams connect with these people and business decision-makers on social networks.

• How to Find Them: You have their contact information. Use it to find and connect with these prospects on networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter.
• How to Connect: Personalize your connection requests, especially with LinkedIn. If you’re asking someone to become a fan of your company on Facebook, provide them with a valid reason they should.

Step Two: Engage

Engagement with prospects can mean different things for different businesses, but the often overall goal is to create a deeper relationship with those potential customers. Engagement involves your business providing value to these leads via social networks. According to Optify, website engagement from different social media channels varies, but LinkedIn leads the pack while Twitter shows the lowest page views per visit.

• Tweet prospects directly to let them know when an event is taking place in their industry.
• Aim to become a thought leader for your customers to turn to by providing content that can help them gain new insight into how to be more successful. Share your content and the content of others – you don’t want to be overly self-promotional.

Step 3: Convert

Conversion is the ultimate goal. Connecting and engaging a lead are necessary steps in order to convert a lead into a customer. Social media can be the final point of contact between a prospect and your business or brand, so make each touch point count. Facebook is the strongest driver of traffic among the three (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), but Twitter leads the way for lead generation.  While Facebook drove the highest percentage of visits from social media, Twitter outperforms it in terms of lead conversion by over a 9-to-1 ratio.

• The B2B buying process has changed and now customers are more likely to come to you when they are ready instead of responding to advertisements. Provide ways for prospects to become customers on your social networks such as with applications, social media specific discounts, etc.
• Optimize your landing pages so that as a customer comes to your pages via social networks, they don’t become lost and have a way to carry on the conversation, via live chat or easy social sharing.

Some may not see the value in lead nurturing via social media. However, it is time to open your eyes to the possibility of these expanding networks. The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, sponsored by Social Media Examiner, found that 58% of marketers who have been using social media for more than three years report it has helped them improve sales. Social media is where you business can truly become creative in how to attract, engage and convert leads you have generated. Lead nurturing isn’t restricted to follow-up calls and emails. Brand out and stand out with a social media nurturing campaign.

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Social business and an engaging social content strategy go hand in hand. The content you produce can incorporate a number of assets including checklists, images, videos, copy and social posts. Social media and the social content strategy approach have more in common with all other forms of content marketing than you might think. We know content marketing is on the rise for B2B businesses in 2013, but how is social media included in this number? As you develop your strategy, keep these three things in mind.

Talk Through Your Audience

It is easier to get your brand, content, and social posts in front of people who already connect with your business. What about the audience beyond your immediate fan base? B2B marketers, especially those on a budget, need to create ways to talk through their audience. The audience of your audience, and their audience, are potentially new customers for you. As you develop your social content strategy, consider the ways in which you can talk through your current audience to connect with new audiences.

• What do your customers want? Focus on the content that your customers want and what social networks are the best for sharing and promoting that type of content. For example, if you’re targeting IT professionals, LinkedIn may be a better place to start than Pinterest.
• What do they want to experience? Consider the type of experience someone will have when they encounter or share your content. The experience, whether it’s a phone conversation or the way in which they find information on your site, should be a consideration with everything you do.

For B2B buyers, their audience isn’t family and friends for the way it is for B2C buyers. A significant number of B2B buyers (38%) involve more team members in buying decisions, and around 30% do more detailed ROI/cost analyses of solutions than they did in the past (2012 Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey). This means, B2B marketers need to find a way to reach  all the decision makers involved in the purchasing process.

Understand Content Strategies are Social by Nature

Business may be about the numbers, but marketing and sales are all about the chains and the paths customers take to reach the end of it. There are the sales and marketing funnel, buyer journey and more. “What the customer wants you to know” equals understanding what your audience and their audience want you and other vendors to know. The social B2B buyer and buyers in general are affected by the opinions of their peers. As mentioned, business buying is a group decision. While this conversation may be offline, it often begins or ends online.

• Reach out to leads who are in the research phase of the buying cycle with whitepapers, case studies and infographics that not only educate the buyer, build thought leadership but are also easily shared on social networks.
• If possible, share the demographics of who else is buying from your business. Your prospects may be interested in knowing who, in their area or industry, has found success with your products or services.

Nearly all B2B buyers (94%) view multiple pieces of content from the company they ultimately select (2012 Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey). This is one indication that you need to be producing content that your audience will find relevant and useful in making a purchasing decision. The other key indicator in this passage that you should be focusing on is that of multiple pieces. For example, you can create calculators, webinars, case studies, eBooks and buyer guides. Each of these unique pieces of content helps elevate your business and brand.

Be Relevant to Address Needs

You may have been able to pick it up from the previous sections of this article or past blog posts, but the content your marketing and sales teams share needs to be relevant. What your customers and their audiences say should serve as inspiration for the content you create from a social perspective. Listening is the basis, while acting to drive action and sharing are the goals. Content is what brings these two together successfully.

• Start social listening, if you aren’t already, to discover the pain points of your audience and their audience. Then use content and social media to solve these problems. Note: add example of how they should do this.
• Segment, target, and personalize your content to be as relevant as possible. Social media is not for amplification, it’s for social conversations.

More than 37% of buyers say sellers fail to provide enough content tailored for their specific job roleor industry. Stand out from the crowd while nurturing a lead by providing relevant content that they’ll find valuable. Nearly 63% of the respondents said that case-study examples were at the top of their research content lists. Industry case studies that address the pain points are a sure way to encourage your content gets shared.

Social media networks are important platforms for every business. It provides you with the opportunity to connect on a more personal level with your audience. Don’t let the opportunity pass you by! Talk to and through your social audience by developing a content strategy that focuses on relevance and tailored content.

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Metrics matter. As marketers, there are multiple numbers and reports we need to validate our efforts.  After all, if a marketing team isn’t helping a business generate new customers and creating better relationships with current ones, they often won’t be considered as successful as they could be. A Hubspot cheat sheet shares the 6 of the most important marketing metrics. We’ve broken them down just for B2B marketers.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a metric used to determine the total average cost you spend to acquire a new customer or lead. Businesses want a low average.

Why You Should Care: An increase in CAC means that you are spending comparatively more for each new customer or lead, which suggests there’s a problem with your sales or marketing efficiency that needs to be resolved.

Marketing Percent of Customer Acquisitions Cost

The Marketing Percent of Customer Acquisition Cost is the marketing portion of your total CAC, calculated as a percentage of the overall CAC.  This number can show you how the marketing teams performance and spending impact your overall Customer Acquisition cost.

Why You Should Care: An increase here can mean a number of things: Your sales team could have underperformed (and consequently received) lower commissions and/or bonuses, your marketing team is spending too much or has too much overhead or you are in an investment phase, spending more on marketing to provide more high quality leads and improve your sales productivity

Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC (LTV:CAC)

The Ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to CAC is a way for you to estimate the total value that your company derives from each customer compared with what you spend to acquire that lead or new customer. While reaching new customers is always important, so is total company growth.

Why You Should Care: The higher this number, the more ROI your sales and marketing team is delivering to your bottom line. A ratio that is too high could indicate you aren’t reaching enough new customers or connecting with enough leads. Spending more on acquiring new customers or leads to reach out to will reduce your LTV:CAC ratio, but can help speed up total growth.

Time to Payback CAC

The Time to Payback CAC shows you the number of months it takes for your company to earn back the CAC it spent acquiring new customers. In industries where your customers pay a monthly or annual fee, which many B2B businesses do, you normally want your Payback Time to be under 12 months.

Why You Should Care: The less time it takes to payback your CAC, the sooner you can start profiting from the new customers. Most businesses aim to make each new customer profitable in less than a year, though new customers in the B2B industry can take 12-24 months to make a purchase.

Marketing Originated Customer Percent

The Marketing Originated Customer Percent is a ratio that shows what new business is driven by marketing, by determining which portion of your total customer acquisitions directly originated from marketing efforts. It’s based on your sales and marketing relationship and structure, so your ideal ratio will vary depending on your business model.

Why You Should Care: The impact of your marketing team’s lead generation efforts have on acquiring new customers is reflected in this percentage. A company with an outside sales team and inside sales support may be looking at 20-40%. A company with an inside sales team and lead focused marketing team might be at 40-80%.

Marketing Influenced Customer Percent

The Marketing Influenced Customer Percent takes into account all of the new customers that marketing interacted with while they were leads, anytime during the sales process. This percent takes into account the impact marketing has on a lead during their entire buying lifecycle.

Why You Should Care: This metric will indicate how effective marketing is at generating new leads, nurturing existing ones, and helping sales close the deal. It gives your CEO or CFO a big-picture look into the overall impact that marketing has on the entire sales process.

To find out how to calculate these numbers, visit the HubSpot cheat sheet.

Which of these metrics matters the most to your business?

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According to DemandGen reports, the B2B buyer behavior has been changing dramatically over the last few years as buyers find new ways to gather information online and via social media. In fact, 90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. A 2013 lead generation survey from Holger Schulze asked B2B marketers questions about their budgets, challenges and how they measure success and campaign ROI. Here are 3 key trends to take away from this research.

Generate High-Quality Leads

The number one challenge for B2B marketers is generating high-quality leads. The most effective lead generation tactics used by marketers are their company website, email marketing and SEO. Getting leads isn’t always a challenge, but getting a qualified lead is. A lead generation company, such as Business.com, can help small or medium-sized businesses connect with decision makers who are actively looking to make a purchase. Immediate and consistent follow up with emails and phone calls is critical for achieving optimal close rates.  Making 6 calls leads to a 90% increase in sales, but 78% of leads are contacted only once. Not all leads are ready to make a purchase, but studies (including one from Gartner) have shown that most will purchase within the next 12 to 24 months making these leads potential customers you can’t ignore. Nurturing leads with effective follow-up is a key factor in attaining high-quality leads. B2B email and lead nurturing success come from providing compelling content for each stage in the buying process to move buyers from first tough to purchase.

Break Down Lead Generation Barriers

According to a study conducted by Schulze, the greatest barrier to lead generation success is lack of resources, including staff, budget and time. Breaking down these barriers means making the most of the leads and resources your business has. Autoresponse emails can save your team time right off the bat. While many indicated budget as a barrier in their lead generation success, the survey also found that lead generation budgets are going up for nearly 50% of B2B marketers. Budgets are staying the same for 44%  of respondents. Lead generation programs receive the second biggest marketing budget allocation, second behind conferences and tradeshows. In order to break down the barrier of a lack of resources, reevaluate your marketing processes and whether money is being spent in the right place.

Measure Marketing Efforts

Businesses are about the data, the numbers and the ROI. Marketing departments are no different. B2B marketers’ top metrics to measure marketing ROI are lead volume, cost per lead, revenue and cost-per-acquisition. Marketing automation software is one way B2B marketers measure their efforts. The survey found that most B2B marketers (43%) use marketing automation software for reporting, analytics, and dashboard capabilities, followed by campaign tracking (42%).

Look for a marketing software solution that integrates with your CRM and campaign tracking easily. More and more, marketers in all industries want to see whether their efforts are yielding a positive ROI and are worth the time and investment they are dedicating to different channels and strategies. Measuring marketing efforts is one 2013 trend that isn’t going anywhere but up.

Lead generation is an area that many B2B businesses are familiar with. Many are having the same struggles when it comes to quality, allocation of resources and measuring their efforts. However, the increase in dedicated lead generation budget for nearly half of B2B marketers also indicates that businesses are seeing success with their lead generation efforts. According to this study, three trends B2B marketers need to pay attention to are how they can generate high-quality leads, break down barriers that arise due to a lack of resources, and measure their marketing efforts more effectively.

How does your business measure its lead generation success?

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