From Suspect to Customer : Using Marketing Analytics Data to Study the Effectiveness of Digital Marketing Channels in the B2b Sales Funnel

Abstract: The trend towards digitization initiates greater investment in digital marketing (DM) channels, requiring B2B firms to understand the effectiveness of these channels in generating sales. The study investigates this phenomenon by categorizing DM into firm-initiated and market-initiated channels and measuring their contribution to the B2B sales funnel. We use secondary data collected over 12 months from DM channels and sales activities of a large-scale multinational B2B firm consisting of 18,981 potential customers. We measure sales value during one financial year to evaluate the short-term effectiveness and pipeline value, which is the estimated sales value beyond the current financial year, to measure the long-term effectiveness of DM channels. We find no statistical difference between the effectiveness of firm-initiated and market-initiated DM channels in generating sales value. We do find that firm-initiated DM channels are more effective than market-initiated DM channels in generating pipeline value. Through these findings, this study advances the knowledge of the short-term and long-term impact of DM channels on the B2B sales funnel