Marketo Inc. has announced a data integration with Google Analytics and Google AdWords and the marketing software firm’s Engagement Marketing Platform. The partnership will help marketers see how their ads are performing beyond the initial conversion in AdWords and provide a deeper understanding of their target audiences for more personalized ad delivery.
A challenge for B2B advertisers is seeing the end result of their campaigns. In AdWords, conversions trigger after an action is taken — a demo or webinar signup or a whitepaper download, for example. Marketers don’t know if those conversions turned into meaningful prospects or actual sales. The Marketo integration aims to close the loop and give marketers insights into what’s actually working to convert customers and allow them to retarget with personalized ads to their most promising prospects.
Data from Marketo, including user profile information and firmographics (characteristics about target companies) of both known and unknown customers, can be imported into Google Analytics. Marketers can then segment and analyze the behavior of key audiences — entry points, sources and site behavior, for example — to get a better understanding of who they are and how the company’s marketing efforts resonate through the customer journey.
With the AdWords integration, marketers can retarget these audiences with personalized ads and optimize advertising spend based on prospecting and revenue outcomes. Offline conversions such as qualified leads and opportunities won can be exported automatically from Marketo to AdWords. This gives marketers a view of how their ad spend is working to convert the right audiences and drive revenue, down to the keyword level. Bid optimization can follow from there.
“Paid advertising has lived in a silo for long enough,” said Sanjay Dholakia, CMO at Marketo in the announcement. “With our integration to Google AdWords and Google Analytics, we are breaking down that wall and enabling marketers to look holistically at how they are engaging audiences across different channels.”
Getting these types of insights is key for B2B marketers, and Marketo is not alone in trying to solve the problem. Bizible, for one, is a start-up in Seattle that enables this type of integration with CRMs including Salesforce.
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