"What's the ROI of our marketing?" It's the question every industrial marketing leader dreads—and must be able to answer. In companies where engineering and operations dominate, marketing is often seen as a cost center rather than a revenue driver. Proving your value requires rigorous measurement and clear communication.
The Challenge of Industrial Marketing Measurement
Measuring industrial marketing ROI is harder than consumer marketing for several reasons:
Long Sales Cycles: Industrial purchases can take 6-18 months from first touch to closed deal, making attribution complex.
Multiple Touchpoints: Buyers interact with multiple content pieces, attend events, and have numerous conversations before deciding.
Complex Buying Committees: Multiple stakeholders influence each purchase, each with different information needs and touchpoints.
Offline Interactions: Trade shows, sales meetings, and phone calls are often critical touchpoints that are hard to track.
Despite these challenges, industrial marketing can and should be measured rigorously.
Building Your Measurement Framework
Define Your Marketing Goals
Align your metrics with specific business objectives:
- Brand Building: Increase awareness and perception
- Lead Generation: Fill the sales pipeline
- Sales Enablement: Help sales close deals faster
- Customer Retention: Reduce churn and increase lifetime value
Choose the Right Metrics for Each Stage
Top of Funnel (Awareness):
- Website traffic by source
- Social media reach and engagement
- Content downloads and views
- Brand search volume
- Trade publication mentions
Middle of Funnel (Consideration):
- Marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
- Content engagement depth
- Email engagement rates
- Webinar registrations and attendance
- Product page views
Bottom of Funnel (Decision):
- Sales qualified leads (SQLs)
- Demo/consultation requests
- Quote requests
- Win/loss rates by marketing source
Post-Sale (Retention):
- Customer satisfaction scores
- Net Promoter Score
- Repeat purchase rates
- Expansion revenue
Key Metrics for Industrial Marketing
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Formula: Total Marketing Spend ÷ Total Leads Generated
Why it matters: Tells you how efficiently you're generating leads across channels.
Benchmarks: Industrial B2B CPL typically ranges from $50-$500 depending on industry and deal size. Enterprise solutions often see $200-$500+ CPL.
Cost Per Opportunity (CPO)
Formula: Total Marketing Spend ÷ Sales-Accepted Opportunities
Why it matters: More meaningful than CPL because it measures leads that actually have sales potential.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Formula: Total Sales & Marketing Spend ÷ New Customers Acquired
Why it matters: Shows the true cost of winning a new customer, accounting for both marketing and sales effort.
Marketing Sourced Revenue
Definition: Revenue from deals where marketing created the initial contact or opportunity.
Why it matters: Directly ties marketing to revenue—the metric that matters most to leadership.
Marketing Influenced Revenue
Definition: Revenue from deals where marketing played a role in nurturing or accelerating, even if not the original source.
Why it matters: Captures the full impact of marketing on the sales process.
Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)
Formula: (Revenue Attributed to Marketing - Marketing Cost) ÷ Marketing Cost × 100
Why it matters: The ultimate measure of marketing effectiveness.
Example: If you spent $500K on marketing and generated $2M in attributed revenue: ROMI = ($2,000,000 - $500,000) ÷ $500,000 × 100 = 300%
Attribution Models for Industrial Marketing
First Touch Attribution
Credits the first marketing interaction for the entire deal.
Best for: Understanding which channels drive initial awareness.
Limitation: Ignores the nurturing that often makes industrial deals happen.
Last Touch Attribution
Credits the final marketing interaction before a deal closes.
Best for: Understanding which channels close deals.
Limitation: Ignores the awareness and nurturing efforts that got the buyer there.
Linear Attribution
Gives equal credit to every marketing touchpoint in the buyer's journey.
Best for: Simple and fair representation of the full journey.
Limitation: Doesn't account for the varying impact of different touchpoints.
Time Decay Attribution
Gives more credit to touchpoints closer to the conversion.
Best for: Accounts for the fact that later touches are often more influential in closing.
Limitation: May undervalue important early-stage content.
Position-Based Attribution
Gives 40% credit to first touch, 40% to last touch, and 20% distributed among middle touches.
Best for: Balances importance of awareness creation and deal closure.
Recommendation: For most industrial companies, position-based or time-decay attribution provides the best balance of accuracy and practicality.
Implementing Marketing Measurement
Step 1: Establish Your Tech Stack
You need systems to track and attribute:
- CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, etc. for tracking deals and revenue
- Marketing Automation: For tracking engagement and lead scoring
- Analytics: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics for web tracking
- Attribution Software: Consider dedicated platforms for complex attribution
Step 2: Define Your Lead Stages
Create clear definitions everyone agrees on:
- Lead: Basic contact information captured
- MQL: Meets minimum criteria and shows engagement
- SQL: Qualified by sales as a real opportunity
- Opportunity: Actively being worked by sales
- Customer: Closed-won deal
Step 3: Set Up Tracking and Reporting
- Tag all campaigns with consistent naming conventions
- Implement lead source tracking in your CRM
- Create dashboards for real-time visibility
- Establish regular reporting cadence (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
Step 4: Calculate and Communicate ROI
- Develop standard formulas and definitions
- Create executive-friendly reports
- Compare results to benchmarks and goals
- Tell the story behind the numbers
Communicating Value to Leadership
Numbers alone aren't enough. To build support for marketing:
Connect to business outcomes: Frame everything in terms of revenue, pipeline, and customer acquisition.
Show trends: Improvement over time demonstrates progress and validates investment.
Benchmark against goals: Show performance relative to targets, not just absolute numbers.
Tell customer stories: Complement data with examples of specific deals marketing influenced.
Be honest about challenges: Credibility comes from acknowledging what isn't working, not just celebrating wins.
Getting Started
- Audit your current measurement capabilities and gaps
- Align with sales on lead definitions and handoff process
- Implement basic tracking before pursuing advanced attribution
- Start simple and add sophistication over time
- Report consistently to build credibility and demonstrate value
Marketing measurement is a journey, not a destination. The companies that commit to rigorous measurement build marketing functions that are valued as true business partners.
Marcus Chen is the CEO of Acme Marketing, helping industrial companies prove and improve their marketing ROI.