MARKETO'S SECRETS FOR ADWORDS LEAD GENERATION

Marketo’s Secrets for
AdWords Lead Generation

A comprehensive look at why search marketing is important
for filling the sales pipeline, the four search campaigns
Marketo runs that you can too, and the importance of
connecting marketing and sales data.

Brought to you by Bizible.com, THE Salesforce app for connecting marketing and sales
data. Make profitable marketing decisions in a snap.

Paid Search Matters For Pipeline Marketing
Search engine marketing is incredibly important for companies with sales teams. We
tracked all the marketing touches for nearly 500,000 leads and published a study which
found that over 50% of leads came from Search.

Pipeline marketing is more than leads though. It’s about measuring marketing and making
decisions based on revenue, even if it generates a lower amount of leads. (If the term
pipeline marketing is new to you, learn more at bizible.com/pipeline­marketing.)

Looking further in the sales pipeline, our study found that Search had the second
shortest marketing cycle, even less than direct. This speaks to the intent leads
generated from search engines.

Looking even further in the sales pipeline, our study found that win rates for Search was
3.5x Display and second only to Direct traffic. This speaks to the quality of search
engines as a source of traffic.

If that doesn’t convince you search marketing is an important component to growing your
sales pipeline, consider this: Your competitors are probably doing it. Because of its ability
to drive revenue, search marketing has become such a popular acquisition channel that it’s
now table stakes for almost all businesses.

Next, we’ll look at why Marketo is a case study worth exploring.

Marketo As A Case Study
Since search marketing is such a competitive acquisition channel, how can you be
successful? I find studying real companies and examples is the best way to learn. In this
section, I’ll show you why Marketo makes a great case study.

Founded in 2008, Marketo is a SaaS company that offers marketing automation. They
raised over $100 million in venture capital funding prior to an initial public offering
in May 2013. Because they are a public company, we can understand a bit more about
their explosive growth.

Marketo invests heavily on AdWords; in a very competitive market
One thing to look for in a search case study is the amount being invested. This key number
can help determine if the campaigns are a one trick pony or something much bigger that is
repeatable.

According to SEM research tool spyfu.com, Marketo spends anywhere between $120,000
­ $280,000 each month on paid search, paying an average of $6.70 per click. Some
keywords such as “lead generation” cost upwards of $27 per click. Something is working if
they are continuing to spend this much money.

Plus, we know they are not just capturing low hanging fruit, as marketing automation is a
highly competitive market. The term “marketing automation” averages $17 per click for
broad match and an astonishing $35 per click for exact match with 63 advertisers bidding
on the term in the last 3 months.

Also according to spyfu.com, Hubspot has nearly doubled their search marketing
spend in the last year to between $157,000 to 296,000 per month.

Their business is exploding (in a good way)
At the end of June 2013, Marketo announced they had 2,592 customers. Just 9 months
later, in their first quarter results from 2014, they announced customer count had increased

to 3,215. More impressive, they also said that revenue (the holy grail of pipeline marketing)
increased 64% year over year to $32.3 million. This is important as it shows they are
investing in growth and seeing the returns.

Brand is outpacing market growth
The next questions to ask is around the category, specifically is Marketo’s growth simply a
positive effect of the growing awareness of marketing automation? Using Google Trends
we can quickly compare the search growth of the terms “marketo” and “marketing
automation.” As you can see below, “marketo” has grown much faster than “marketing
automation,” which means they are outpacing the market.

Next, we’ll look at some real examples of Marketo’s paid search campaigns and how you
can apply them to fill your sales pipeline too.

How Marketo Is Winning On Google
There are four types of search marketing campaigns that Marketo runs, which we’ll call the
four Cs: Company, Category, Content, and Compete. This section will walk you through a
real example of each.

Company
Simply, these are people who are searching for your company or misspellings. Otherwise
known as "brand keywords" or "brand terms" these terms are generally high­performing
and deeper down the the sales pipeline (maybe even a customer), since searchers are
already familiar with your brand.

Here's an example of a company ad when searching "marketo" on Google.

Category
These keywords relate to your solution or related terms to your product, but probably don’t
know about your company yet. Category keywords tend to be more exploration and aimed
at the top of the pipeline. This is a good opportunity to land prospects on a high­level
overview, with options to dig deeper into specific areas your product and download
relevant content (see Marketo’s sitelinks).

Here's an example of a category ad when searching "marketing automation" on Google.

Content
These keywords are related to specific content (aka “whitepaper” or “guide”) about your
industry. Like Category ads, Content Ads tend to be more exploratory relating to top of the
funnel targeting. This is a good opportunity to land prospects directly on a content

download page to capture contact information and initiate a sales development process
and/or lead nurturing campaign.

Here's an example of a category ad when searching "marketing automation guide" on
Google.

Compete
These keywords are when people actively look to compare options and competitors.
Searchers tend to be much deeper in the funnel as options have been narrowed down. This
is a good opportunity to have pre­built pages which only focus on competitor comparisons
and which make it easy for prospect to understand key differences.

Here's an example of a category ad when searching "hubspot vs marketo" on Google.

Next, we’ll look at why it’s important to connect marketing and sales data to make
profitable AdWords decisions.

Making Profitable Search Marketing Decisions
When investing in online advertising such as AdWords, it’s critical to tie sales and
marketing data together on a detailed level. Tracking the exact Adwords clicks of your
leads and connecting this with sales funnel data in the CRM is a crucial missing piece in
many online advertising efforts. You’re flying blind without it.

The question marketers are always asked by management is “How much revenue does X
drive?” X can be a specific ad, campaign, channel, or in the case of AdWords, keywords.
By not having a native integration between Salesforce and AdWords, it can be a bit of a
guess, or a huge effort to merge spreadsheets of ever changing data. This makes
optimizations and reporting difficult, leaving ad budgets at risk.

Bizible Marketing Analytics is a native Salesforce App which connects directly to Adwords
and brings sales and marketing data together. You can make profitable marketing
decisions through insights generated via Bizible. As an example, Australia’s leading
online educator has been able to grow lead volume 2x while reducing cost per lead
by 15%.

Data scientists, marketers and CMOs drive revenue using Bizible to prove the value of
online marketing, especially AdWords by:

      ✔ Tracking exactly how much revenue each keyword is generating as
      sometimes the higher cost clicks bring in more revenue and justify higher spend.

      ✔ Reporting on conversion from Ad Impression to Lead to Opportunity as
      sometimes certain ads or keywords generate more sales­ready opportunities.

      ✔ Surfacing marketing data to sales, so they can see the exact lead source,
      pages viewed, and plan their pitch accordingly.

   Learn more about Bizible or request a request a demo

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