Understanding B2B Marketing Analytics Tools: How to Choose the Right Solution

B2B digital marketing generates a wealth of data that enables your business to maximize campaigns and allocate resources, so you can meet goals and provide the best possible results. Successfully leveraging this potential depends on your ability to gather the right data, analyze it correctly and provide clear and actionable insights. And this requires that you have the right B2B marketing analytics tools in your martech (marketing technology) arsenal.

Conversely, using the wrong analytics platform can impact the success of your marketing campaigns. The wrong software makes it difficult to accurately measure, analyze and provide actionable insights, all of which are necessary for meeting B2B marketing objectives. This wastes your resources, from your technology investment to your campaign costs. It wastes the time and effort you put into measuring and reporting.

The three main components of B2B analytics are collecting data, analyzing data and using the insights from analysis to make informed decisions. This is a cyclical process that involves continuous collection, analysis, and insight-driven refinement. The tool or tools you select must facilitate this process. But with all the different options on the market, choosing the right technology for your analytics efforts can be a challenge in and of itself. In this blog, we’ll review top B2B marketing analytics platforms to help you navigate the software so you can make an informed decision that benefits your company.

Factors to consider when choosing a B2B marketing analytics technology

Effective data-centric marketing requires careful consideration and selection of your tools. With so many platforms on the market, it can be tempting to make a choice based on capabilities and cost. But there’s so much more that goes into the right choice. As an important component of your B2B martech software, your analytics tool must seamlessly integrate with your existing technology. Compatibility should also extend to your team—is your organization prepared for a learning curve or is your marketing team expected to hit the ground running?

• Budgetary considerations: Analytics solutions are available in a wide price range, from modest monthly fees to considerable investments. To understand the affordability and cost-effectiveness of a tool, you must evaluate its cost against the value it will bring to your B2B organization in addition to the return you will get from your investment.
• Features and functionality: Thoroughly evaluate the features and functionalities a tool offers. The tool you choose should help you meet your specific campaign objectives while providing precise insights and effective strategies. While it’s important not to waste resources on a tool that provides much more than you need, it’s also a good idea to plan ahead. Consider tools that allow you to scale up or down with features or functionalities that can be turned on and off as needed.
• User-centric interface and support: Your team’s proficiency in using B2B analytics tools should be a key factor in your selection. If your team is new to B2B data analytics, prioritize platforms with intuitive interfaces and comprehensive customer support. A user-friendly tool that provides training resources and responsive support services will expedite onboarding, adoption and competency.
• Integration capabilities: Consider your existing marketing technology (martech) and sales software stack. A platform that seamlessly integrates with your current tools and systems ensures the smooth flow of data and enhances your marketing team’s productivity and effectiveness.

Advantages of selecting the right B2B marketing analytics software

A top-performing marketing analytics software platform offers several advantages that can amplify B2B marketing initiatives, strengthen customer relationships and generate revenue and business growth.

• Enhanced precision: The right platform will provide accurate insights on an individual level and at a larger, more expansive scale. With features for data visualization, cross-channel attribution, and predictive analysis, you can collect actionable insights from a variety of data sources. This facilitates informed decision-making, strengthens strategies and increases campaign success.
• Data-driven strategies: Advanced data integration and segmentation capabilities lend you a comprehensive view of your digital campaign performance across various touchpoints. This enables you to direct your efforts towards the most impactful strategies, improving efficiency, minimizing waste and accelerating revenue generation.
• Efficient resource allocation: Features like real-time dashboards, predictive modeling and attribution analytics can automate complex data processing tasks, providing accurate insights and real-time campaign performance snapshots. This minimizes manual intervention and empowers your team to devote more time to strategic planning, innovation and campaign refinement.
• Actionable insights: A robust analytics platform will offer comprehensive reporting, insightful B2B marketing analytics dashboards, attribution models and predictive analytics. These features enable continuous optimization, empowering you to fine-tune strategies, maximize marketing spend and improve ROI.
• Holistic campaign insight: Tools that include collaborative features encourage alignment between marketing and sales teams. This eliminates silos, fosters a unified customer experience and amplifies revenue generation.
• Return on investment (ROI): The key advantage of selecting the right analytics platform lies in its cost efficiency and potential to supercharge your ROI. Accurate analysis coupled with data-driven insights helps eliminates wasted manhours and spending on unproductive activities. With streamlined processes, automation and real-time B2B marketing analytics dashboards, productivity increases and budget allocations become more precise. As a result, your marketing investments yield higher returns, driving revenue growth and delivering superior ROI.

Exploring the different B2B marketing analytics tools

Whether you’re shopping for a platform, an app or a plugin, you have a large selection of marketing analytics tools. Moreover, the selection is always changing and expanding, with new tools popping up and existing tools sprucing up.

The following list explains different types of B2B data analytics tools based on their unique functionalities:

• Data visualization tools: By transforming complex data sets into understandable visual representations these tools help you to quickly identify trends and communicate findings.
• Cross-channel attribution tools: These tools analyze customer journeys across various touchpoints, helping you to understand how each channel contributes to conversions. This helps you to determine where best to allocate resources and budget.
• Predictive analysis tools: Leveraging machine learning algorithms to forecast outcomes based on historical data, B2B predictive analytics empower you to anticipate customer behavior, enhance strategies and improve ROI.
• Real-time dashboards: Providing a centralized view of campaign performance metrics and KPIs, dashboards enable you to monitor the health of your campaigns, identify anomalies and make prompt adjustments.
• Customer segmentation tools: These tools help you divide your customer base into meaningful segments based on specific attributes or behaviors, allowing precise targeting and personalization.
• Attribution modeling tools: These tools assign credit to different touchpoints along the customer journey to help you understand the impact each touchpoint has on conversions and ROI.

When considering the different tools available to you, it’s important to remember that the strengths and weaknesses of B2B analytics tools can vary significantly. Different vendors offer varying levels of functionality, user interface, integration and customer support. It’s essential to evaluate individual platforms based on your specific requirements, goals and user experience to choose the software that best aligns with your strategy and delivers the desired insights.

Top B2B marketing analytics tools

When it comes to choosing the right marketing analytics tool, industry research and reviews can provide additional guidance. Vendor-neutral research organizations review technologies for you and provide comprehensive evaluations that can help you narrow your selection to a top marketing analytics solution.

In 2023, the following analytics tools were lauded by Gartner and G2 for their excellence and effectiveness in driving successful data-driven marketing initiatives. These top vendors have earned their reputation through robust functionalities, user satisfaction and demonstrated impact on data-driven marketing strategies.

Microsoft Power BI: The 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms marks the 16^th consecutive year that Microsoft has been named a leader for its marketing analytics platform. Moreover, 2023 marks the fifth consecutive year that Power BI has led in Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. Power BI converts data from diverse data sets, forming data models and creating interactive reports and dashboards.

Salesforce Tableau: Recognized by Gartner as a leader for the 11^th consecutive year, Tableau is an AI-powered visual end-to-end data and analytics platform with data management and governance capabilities, as well as visual analytics and collaboration. Tableau’s data storytelling functionality effectively presents insights, trends and patterns in a compelling and understandable manner for technical and non-technical users.

Qlik: Recognized as a Magic Quadrant Leader for the 13^th consecutive year, Qlik transforms complex data sets into interactive visuals, making insights more accessible and actionable. It has a user-friendly interface and an associative model that enables users to explore data freely, uncover hidden relationships and derive insights from various angles.

HubSpot: Based on customer reviews and aggregate data, G2 rates HubSpot Marketing Hub as the hands-down top marketing analytics technology in terms of market presence and satisfaction. Marketing Hub is best known as part of the all-in-one marketing automation CRM platform, but it can be used separately. Even so, Marketing Hub is more comprehensive than most marketing automation tools, with campaign creation/management and lead nurturing tools in addition to analytics.

Mailchimp: G2 ranks another comprehensive tool, Mailchimp All-in-One Platform, second to HubSpot in marketing analytics. Best known for its user-friendly interface and its renowned email marketing capabilities, Mailchimp also offers features for audience segmentation, social media integration, marketing automation – and of course, analytics. It has a drag-and-drop interface and customizable templates that make it popular with beginners and experienced marketers alike.

Semrush: Coming in third, according to G2, Semrush is a comprehensive suite of data analytics tools. A SaaS platform that specializes in competitive analysis, keyword research and SEO optimization, Semrush offers competitive research, content planning, content planning and creation, pay-per-click (PPC) campaign management and social media analytics. Its in-depth insights make the platform a go-to for marketing experts.

Other popular B2B analytics tools include:

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4): One of the most used tools for data analytics, GA4 is widely recognized for its user-friendly interface and powerful features for tracking website traffic, user engagement and conversions. Its standout feature is its extensive integration with the Google ecosystem, providing comprehensive data insights that help B2B businesses understand user journeys and optimize their online strategies.
• Google Analytics 360 (GA360): This premium version of Google Analytics offers advanced analytics, audience segmentation, and integration with other marketing tools on an enterprise level. Its data integration and sharing options have been particularly attractive for businesses. However, Google is sunsetting this highly used version in July 2024 to focus on GA4.
• Adobe Analytics: Renowned for its advanced tracking and reporting capabilities, Adobe Analytics provides in-depth insights into user behavior across websites and digital platforms. What sets Adobe apart is its seamless integration with other Adobe products, allowing businesses to create a unified ecosystem for data analysis and marketing efforts.
• Hotjar: Best known for its user experience analytics, including heatmaps, session recordings and user surveys, Hotjar also visualizes user interactions, allowing businesses to understand how users navigate their websites and identify areas for improvement. Hotjar helps businesses understand how users interact with forms and how they scroll. Its NPS feature lets businesses measure customer satisfaction with their website.
• fusedeck: Specializing in customer experience analytics, fusedeck sets itself apart by providing tools to collect, analyze and act on customer feedback and satisfaction, aiding B2B businesses in enhancing their products and services based on direct user input. Fusedeck also offers campaign management, tracking and analysis, audience segmentation, lead generation and conversion optimization tools.
• Pardot: A marketing automation platform primarily focused on B2B marketing, Pardot is offered by Salesforce and is designed to help businesses streamline their marketing efforts, generate leads and nurture those leads into potential customers. Pardot provides tools for email marketing, lead generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing, as well as analytics. It allows marketers to create targeted campaigns, track customer interactions, and measure the effectiveness of their marketing strategies. Pardot’s analytics capabilities help businesses understand how their marketing initiatives are performing and make data-driven decisions to optimize their campaigns for better results.
• B2BMA: A Salesforce CRM Analytics app, B2BMA (which stands for B2B marketing analytics) segments and visualizes marketing and sales data. It can help you understand your performance, identify areas for improvement and make better choices about marketing campaigns. B2BMA leverages B2B marketing analytics datasets from Salesforce, Pardot and other marketing platforms to power its analytics. Lenses allow you to filter datasets to create custom views. You can also customize dashboards or use a pre-built one.

Leverage B2B marketing analytics expertise for data-driven marketing success

With all the different B2B analytics tools available, it can be difficult to find the right one to meet your unique needs, budget and team capabilities. But you don’t have to make your decision alone. Seeking guidance from B2B analytics experts can transform your choice into a strategic advantage.

At Elevation Marketing, we have been at the forefront of implementing successful data-driven strategies for over 22 years. With our deep understanding of the intricacies and nuances of different B2B data analytics tools and the needs of B2B businesses, we can guide you through the maze of options and recommend the most suitable solution for your unique requirements.

Contact us today to discover how our expertise can empower your data-driven strategy and drive B2B business growth. Together, we can elevate your marketing efforts to new heights through informed insights, strategic decisions and expert B2B services.