AdWords Industry Benchmark Report - Media

AdWords IndustryBenchmark Report2017

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Executive SummaryIs it important for B2B marketers to keep up with the Joneses? This idiom refers to the comparison of our neighbors’ accumulation ofmaterial goods as a benchmark for social class. We believe it is important to keep up, but we’re referring to different set ofbenchmarks. When B2B marketers can compare benchmarks with their industry peers they get a better understanding of performancemeasurement and goal setting. After all, are you performing well at 125% ROI when the industry average is 300% ROI? How domarketers create goals without knowing what’s achievable?B2B marketers gain valuable insights with a clear understanding of industry performance benchmarks for paid media channels likeAdWords. The 2017 AdWords Industry Benchmark Report, by Bizible and DWA, helps B2B marketers gain a perspective on this in thefollowing ways:— Understand what to expect in terms of cost per lead, cost per opportunity, revenue, and ROI— Understand how much room there is to optimize the above-mentioned metricsThis year we’ve made some interesting findings and are excited to share them with you. We hope that you’ll find this useful in thinkingabout your performance in AdWords in terms of important down-funnel metrics like opportunities, revenue, and ROI.Key Figures— AdWords’ Contribution to Leads, Opps, and Revenue (Industry— % leads, % opps, % revenue): Agency — 36%, 41%, 36%;Business Services — 43%, 47%, 41%; Education — 58%, 68%, 75%; Financial Services — 44%, 48%, 56%; Hardware /Manufacturing — 50%, 50%, 56%; Software / Saas — 32%, 38%, 39%; Telecommunications — 44%, 38%, 43%— AdWords Revenue per Lead: Agency — 502; Business Services — 377; Education — 166; Financial Services — 115;Hardware / Manufacturing — 389; Software / Saas — 305; Telecommunications — 213

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Table of ContentsPurposepg. 4Methodologypg. 5Benchmarkspg. 6Contribution to Leads, Opportunities, Revenuepg. 6Revenue per Leadpg. 7Cost per Leadpg. 8Cost per Sales Opportunitypg. 9ROIpg. 10Year-over-Year Trendspg. 11Industry Breakdownpg. 12

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017PurposeAdWords has long been a critical channel for B2B marketers. When developing a marketing team’s channel mix, it’sa given that AdWords will be an integral part. It’s a proven lead generator, but just how much does AdWordscontribute to down-funnel metrics like revenue?Too often, B2B marketers don’t have a full understanding of what happens after the lead is created, or what toexpect in terms of ROI when investing in paid media. In this report, we will examine industry benchmarks, includingwhat percentage of leads, opportunities, and revenue is driven by AdWords, and AdWords ROI.The industries we cover in this report include agencies, business services, education, financial services, hardware /manufacturing, software / SaaS, and telecommunications.The data comes from approximately 200 companies.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017MethodologyGathering monthly performance metrics from about 200 companies across seven industries, we obtained thefollowing information based on marketing and sales data from October 2016 to May 2017:- Monthly lead count — all marketing channels- Monthly lead count attributed to AdWords- Monthly sales opportunity count — all marketing channels- Monthly sales opportunity count attributed to AdWords- Monthly revenue — all marketing channels- Monthly revenue attributed to AdWords- Monthly AdWords spendAll of the benchmarks that you will find in this report are calculated with these values. In this report you’ll find thefollowing benchmarks:- AdWords Contribution To Business (percent of leads, opportunities, and revenue attributed to AdWords)- Industry Average Revenue Per Lead, AdWords vs. All Channels- Industry Average Cost Per Lead Generated From AdWords- Industry Average Cost Per Opportunity Generated From AdWords- Industry Average AdWords ROI, Current and ProjectedWe will also cover year-over-year changes to the benchmarks.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Contribution to Leads, Opps,and RevenueLOOKING FOR ANUPWARD vicesHardware /ManufacturingOn high volume contributions from AdWords:Software /SaaSTelecommunications”For some of our clients, we have found that AdWords Search campaigns, especially exact matchkeywords, generate a higher volume of leads and opportunities than other channels such as social.This makes sense, considering that with paid search ads, we are targeting users who are activelylooking for the products or services we are offering.— Lucia Rodas-EstradaSEM Team Manager, DWAWhen the percentages (leads,opps, and revenue) are placednext to each other on a bar graph,we can see how AdWords impactsprogressive stages of the marketing pipeline for each industry bythe shape of the each graph. If thebar graph moves upwards fromleft to right, it means thatAdWords brings in leads thatultimately generate revenue at aproportionately high rate. Thismeans that AdWords is bringing inhigh quality prospects relative toother channels.If the graph trends downward, itmeans that AdWords tends togenerate leads that convert tocustomers and revenue at a lowerrate than other channels.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Revenue per LeadWHAT CONTRIBUTES TOREVENUE PER LEAD?Leads from AdWords 600Leads from All Channels 500 400 300 200 sHardware /ManufacturingSoftware /SaaSTelecommunicationsScenarios that lead to high a Revenue per Lead ratio:Lead VolumeCost per LeadConversion RateDeal SizesScenario 1HighLow/AverageHighAverage/HighScenario 2Low/AverageAverage/HighAverage/HighHighScenario 3LowAverage/HighLowExtremely/HighIn general, there are four factorsthat impact this ratio: 1) leadvolume, 2) cost per lead, 3) lead tocustomer conversion rate, and 4)customer value.Looking at the table, the firstscenario is great—your marketingis efficiently attracting leads andconverting them to customers.The second scenario is ok—yourmarketing may be leaking prospects through the funnel, but theprospects that you are convertingare your most valuable customers.The final scenario may be misleading and is not great for long-termgrowth—you may have a high costper lead, attracting many lowquality leads, but you happened tocatch a couple whales. For now,the numbers look good, but theymay not be sustainable.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Cost Per LeadDOES IT PASS THESMELL TEST?Cost per lead is one of the mostcommon paid media / demandmarketing metrics. 300Typically, marketing organizationsuse a CPL ceiling to evaluatemedia opportunities. As atop-of-the-funnel metric, it’s usefulfor quick optimization and makingsure campaign performancepasses the smell test beforewaiting for a full sales cycle or twoto prove out revenueperformance. 250 200 150 100 cesHardware /ManufacturingSoftware /SaaSTelecommunicationsOn lowering CPL:All of our clients have target CPLs for search campaigns. B2B marketers should be constantlyoptimizing keywords, ad copy, and even landing pages to decrease CPL month-over-month.”— Lucia Rodas-EstradaSEM Team Manager, DWA”The target CPL is extremelydependent on industry—largedeal sizes, high conversion ratesat the bottom of the funnel, andmore could make a high CPLacceptable.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Cost Per OpportunityBEGINNING TO ALIGNMARKETING AND SALESFor marketing teams that see thesales opportunity stage as the endof their funnel, the cost peropportunity benchmark helpsdemonstrate the marketingefficiency of AdWords. 1,600 1,400 1,200Cost per opportunity also takes astep in aligning marketing andsales teams. A strong cost peropportunity metric means that themarketing team is effectivelyattracting the right prospects, asdefined by the sales team (theopportunity stage). 1,000 800 600 400 icesHardware /ManufacturingSoftware /SaaSTelecommunicationsOn reviewing opportunity data:Every quarter, marketers should review opportunities and cost per opportunity, in order toprioritize the keywords that are driving the opportunities and decrease the cost per opportunity.— Lucia Rodas-EstradaSEM Team Manager, DWA”

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017AdWords ROIWHAT’S THE RETURN?ROI is arguably the most important benchmark for measuring theeffectiveness of AdWords. Forevery dollar that you put in, howmuch do you get in return?600%500%Across all industries measured,AdWords has a positive ROI,meaning companies are makingmore than they put in. And for themajority of industries, it looks likeAdWords has an extremelypositive ROI.400%300%Of course, the ROI of AdWordsonly has meaning when comparedto the ROI of other channels. AnROI of 78% for the BusinessServices industry may not lookimpressive, but if other channelsare delivering less ROI, it mayindicate that AdWords is a ionFinancialServicesHardware /ManufacturingSoftware /SaaS*This is a weighted ROI, calculated by taking the average of each company’s ROI within each industryTelecommunicationsOn the other hand, an ROI northof 500% for the Hardware /Manufacturing industry may seemgood by itself, but if other channels are delivering even greaterROI, it may not warrant anincrease in investment.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017Year-Over-Year TrendsPOSITIVE CHANGE% AdWords Contributesto LeadsAcross industries and across thefunnel, companies are seeing anincrease in AdWords’ impact.% AdWords Contributesto gency34%22%36% 2.8%9%8%36% 155.9%Business Services24%24%43% 37.9%20%18%41% 52.9%Hardware /Manufacturing21%17%50% 66.3%24%24%56% 65.9%Financial Services44%34%44% 0.4%42%35%56% 17.4%Software / SaaS20%16%32% 29.0%11%11%39% 130.1%“On the positive trends:”Marketers are focusing more on down-funnel metrics like ROI, and I suspect this is leading to moreefficiency with AdWords. I’m not surprised to see here that contribution to leads and to revenue areboth up across the board. It’s exciting to see that the increase in contribution to revenue for mostindustries exceeds the gains in lead volume contribution—this indicates that we are all gettingbetter at generating quality traffic from AdWords instead of focusing on volume.— Eva SharfDemand Manager, BizibleEven better, they’re seeing greaterchange at the bottom of thefunnel, which implies that thequality and the value of theprospects that AdWords is drivingis improving.As down-funnel measurementtechnology has advanced andcaught up with marketers’ desireto impact revenue, marketers arenow able to granularly measuretheir impact. This enables them tooptimize their AdWords efforts forrevenue and have a greaterimpact.

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017AgenciesBusiness ServicesIndustryBreakdownEducationFinancial ServicesHardware / ManufacturingSoftware / SaasTelecommunications

AdWords Industry Benchmark Report 2017AgenciesKey FiguresAdWords’ Contribution to:Total Leads:36%Total Opps:41%Total Revenue:36%Revenue Per Lead:(All Channels) 400( 502)Cost Per Lead: 243Cost Per Opp: 1543AdWords ROI:427%*This is a weighted ROI, calculated by taking the average of each company’s ROI within the Agencies industry.Agencies included in thisreport saw a huge increasein AdWords’ impact onrevenue. In past years,AdWords’ contribution torevenue never reached thedouble digit mark. This year,however, it soared to 36%.Depending on the size of theagency, bringing in one ortwo big deals can make a bigdifference for a channel’sperformance metrics. Thisyear, AdWords proved to bea solid channel for agencies.