Transcript
The major advantage of B2B performance marketing lies in leveraging your CRM effectively. By filtering data within your CRM, you can identify which channels, campaigns, ad groups, and even specific targeting strategies are generating your best leads and clients. This is the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Web Marketer. Our goal is to provide honest insights from the advertising frontline, free of spin or smoke and mirrors.
Welcome to episode one! I’m Maelien, and I’m joined by Louis. Today, we’re diving into one of the most challenging aspects of B2B marketing: measurement. It’s a common saying that you can only improve what you can measure, but in B2B, measuring performance often feels like solving a puzzle with missing pieces. To highlight this, we’ll compare B2B marketing to e-commerce, which has a much simpler measurement process.
E-commerce businesses have a clear advantage with their return on ad spend, or ROAS, metric. ROAS shows how profitable ads are by measuring how many pounds in sales are generated for each pound spent on advertising. For example, a ROAS of 5.0 means £5 in sales for every £1 spent on ads. In e-commerce, calculating ROAS is straightforward because you can connect your website to your ad account, and everything is measured automatically. Ad agencies often pitch prospective clients based on the ROAS they can achieve, and this single metric becomes central to client reports and conversations. In contrast, B2B marketing lacks a direct equivalent to ROAS, making measurement far more complex.
The complexity in B2B stems from the nature of the process. B2B marketing focuses on building relationships, which requires more time, multiple touchpoints across various channels, and different software tools. Setting up a system to measure return is incredibly challenging and, frankly, not done nearly enough. While ROAS is e-commerce’s superpower, B2B marketers must create custom tracking and metrics to achieve anything remotely as useful.
E-commerce tracking is streamlined because it typically involves one dataset, one customer journey, and one platform. Platforms like WooCommerce or Shopify use standard events, such as viewing a product, adding to cart, initiating checkout, and completing a purchase. Google Analytics even dedicates a section to this process, making it easy to track how customers move through the funnel and identify where they drop off. This clean, linear sales funnel is a stark contrast to B2B, where the customer journey is far less predictable.
In B2B, there’s no standard journey or plug-and-play solution. Potential clients might book demos, join webinars, download lead magnets, email, or call, and these actions don’t follow a specific order. Each interaction is a nudge toward a sales inquiry rather than a step in a linear process. Some actions might trigger the start of the sales process, while others serve as the final piece. Compiling all this information into a standardised report requires significant specialised work.
This brings us to the CRM, one of the most powerful tools in B2B performance marketing. The CRM houses all customer interactions and is likely already used to track sales. However, many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) don’t realise they can connect their CRM to their ads. By doing so, they can track which channels, campaigns, ad groups, and targeting strategies lead to specific deals. Shockingly, many agencies fail to inform clients about this possibility or recommend it.
When B2B performance marketing is done right, it’s not just about generating the most leads at the lowest cost—it’s about securing the right leads with the highest value. Connecting ads to your CRM allows you to measure lead quality and value, not just quantity and cost, which is what ad platforms typically emphasise. Focusing solely on reducing cost per lead can seem appealing when you check your ad account, but it often lowers lead quality. This can lead to serious issues: more time spent qualifying leads, less time closing deals, complaints from sales teams, and potentially worse returns.
The truth is, businesses don’t want leads; they want sales. By connecting your CRM to your ads, you ensure you’re driving leads that are most likely to convert into sales, not just the cheapest ones that may cause problems. Let’s look at how to implement this in practice. A quick warning: this section gets technical, so you might want to grab a pen and paper or check out the video version for visuals.
For HubSpot users, the process is straightforward, with clear instructions available in their knowledge base. For other CRMs, a more custom approach is needed. There are three main steps. First, add extra data to your ad URLs using UTM tracking. This typically includes the source (e.g., google.com, facebook.com, linkedin.com), medium (e.g., paid search, paid social), term (for keywords or targeting), and content (for ad group ID or ad description). If your Google Ads are linked to Google Analytics with auto-tagging enabled, additional steps are required, which we’ll cover in a blog post on our website.
The second step is setting up your website and landing pages to capture this data. Add hidden fields to your website forms to pull data from the URLs when submitted. With the ads and forms configured, the third step is ensuring this data updates the deals in your CRM. Tools like Zapier can help with this integration.
However, this approach only works if someone fills out a form on the landing page immediately after clicking an ad. If they navigate to another page, the extra URL data is lost, breaking the process. To solve this, use link decoration, which can be set up in Google Tag Manager. Link decoration ensures the extra URL data persists across pages, so it’s captured even if a form is filled out later.
In summary, to measure lead quality from your ads, ensure your ads pass data to your landing pages, your forms capture that data, and the data is sent to your CRM. By applying e-commerce logic to B2B, you can filter your CRM to see which channels, campaigns, ad groups, and targeting deliver your best leads and clients. While this isn’t as simple as ROAS in e-commerce, with some custom work, you’ll gain clear insights into what’s driving results. This setup also lays the foundation for measuring ROI, which we’ll explore in a future episode.
If you found this episode useful, please leave us a review. Our mission is to remove the smoke and mirrors from B2B advertising, and reviews help us achieve that goal. If you have a burning question or a challenge you’d like us to address, visit webmarketeruk.com/topic and fill out the form. We read every message and aim to make every episode as valuable as possible. Catch you on the next episode!
Why B2B Needs Better Ad Tracking
For small B2B teams, performance tracking is often messy
If you’re running a small B2B team, tracking ad performance can feel like herding cats.
Your prospects don’t follow a neat path, they might attend a webinar, download a whitepaper, or call you directly. This non-linear “spaghetti” journey makes it tough to pinpoint which ads are working.
Limited budgets and tools compound the issue, leaving you stuck with basic metrics like cost per lead.
These don’t tell the full story, often wasting time on low-quality leads and frustrating your sales team.
Robust tracking is critical to focus your efforts and boost results.
E-commerce has ROAS, B2B needs smarter CRM connections
E-commerce marketers have it easy with ROAS, a tidy metric showing sales per pound spent on ads.
Platforms like Shopify integrate seamlessly, making tracking a breeze.
B2B, with its long sales cycles and multiple touchpoints, lacks this clarity.
The solution?
Smarter CRM connections. By linking your ads to your CRM, you can track which campaigns deliver high-value leads.
It’s not simple, it involves custom setups but it shifts your focus from cheap leads to those driving sales, aligning marketing with your bottom line.
This post unpacks what eComm gets right — and how to build it in B2B
E-commerce nails tracking with clean, linear funnels and tools like Google Analytics, which map every step from product view to purchase.
B2B’s chaotic journeys demand a different approach.
By building CRM-based tracking, you can mirror e-commerce’s clarity. This means tagging ads, capturing data on your website, and feeding it into your CRM to reveal which campaigns drive your best clients.
It’s a game-changer, and I’ll show you how to set it up step-by-step in this post.
What B2B Can Learn from eCommerce Tracking
Why ROAS is eComm’s secret weapon
In e-commerce, ROAS is king.
It tells you exactly how much revenue each pound of ad spend generates.
This clarity comes from integrated platforms that track every click and purchase out of the box.
Agencies pitch clients on ROAS targets, and it’s the heartbeat of every report. B2B lacks this single, shiny metric because relationships take time and touchpoints.
But we can borrow e-commerce’s focus on measurable outcomes by building our own tracking systems.
Clean funnels vs. spaghetti: B2B journeys are multi-touch and messy
E-commerce funnels are beautifully simple: view, add to cart, buy.
B2B?
It’s a tangle of webinars, demos, emails, and calls, with no set order.
This mess makes tracking tricky.
Each interaction nudges prospects toward a sale, but there’s no standard journey to follow. Without clear data, you’re guessing which ads work.
E-commerce’s clean funnels show us the value of structured tracking; B2B needs to create its own structure to make sense of the chaos.
The problem with lead volume as your North Star metric
Chasing lead volume feels great when you log into your ad account and see low costs. But here’s the catch: focusing on quantity often tanks quality.
Cheap leads can flood your pipeline with duds, wasting your sales team’s time and lowering your return.
Businesses don’t want leads; they want sales.
By tracking lead quality through your CRM, you can prioritise prospects likely to convert, saving time and driving better outcomes.
It’s time to rethink your North Star.
How to Connect Your CRM to Your Ads (Step-by-Step)
Ready to track like a pro?
Connecting your ads to your CRM isn’t plug-and-play, but it’s doable with the right steps.
Here’s how to set it up…
Step 1: Add tracking data to your ad URLs
Start by tagging your ad URLs with custom parameters to track where leads come from.
If you’re using Google Ads with auto-tagging, avoid standard UTMs to prevent conflicts.
Instead, use parameters like crm_source (e.g., google, linkedin), crm_term (keywords or targeting), and crm_content (ad group or description).
For company-specific needs, create custom tags.
This data will help you trace every lead back to its source, giving you a clear picture of what’s working.
Step 2: Capture that data on your website
Next, ensure your website grabs this data.
Add hidden fields to your forms (think contact or demo request forms) to capture the URL parameters when someone submits.
This works flawlessly if they fill out the form on the landing page.
But if they click to another page first, the data often gets lost.
That’s a common pitfall, so we’ll fix it in the bonus tip below.
For now, focus on setting up those hidden fields to pull in your tracking data.
Step 3: Send that data into your CRM
Now, get that data into your CRM.
If you use HubSpot, their native integrations make this a breeze. Check their knowledge base for guidance.
For other CRMs, tools like Zapier can bridge the gap, syncing form data to your deal records.
Once set up, you can filter campaigns by lead quality in your CRM, spotting which channels or ads deliver your best clients.
This insight is gold, letting you optimise for value, not just volume.
Bonus Tip: Preserve Tracking with Link Decoration
Here’s where things break: if a prospect clicks from your landing page to another page, your URL data vanishes.
This kills your tracking.
The fix? Link decoration.
Use Google Tag Manager to ensure tracking parameters persist across pages.
When someone fills out a form later, the data still reaches your CRM.
It’s a simple tweak that saves your setup from crumbling. Set it up, and you’ll track leads like e-commerce tracks sales.
In summary
B2B ad tracking doesn’t have to be a nightmare.
By learning from e-commerce’s clean funnels and ROAS clarity, you can build a CRM-driven system that reveals your best-performing ads.
Follow the steps, tag your URLs, capture data, sync with your CRM, and use link decoration, and you’ll shift from chasing leads to landing sales.
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