Social Media Driving Revenue For One Third Of B2C Companies, One Fifth Of B2B Firms [Report]

In a year in which more marketers are reporting increased pressure to deliver ROI, social media finally seems to have become a part of the revenue equation for many companies. More marketers at both B2C and B2B companies report they are not only generating awareness and leads from social media campaigns, but that those leads are converting into customers, according to the 2013 State of Digital Marketing report Webmarketing123.

Of those surveyed, 54 percent of B2B marketers and 60 percent of B2C marketers said they have generated leads from social media. B2C companies lead in converting customers from social media, with 54 percent of those generating leads reporting revenue generated from social. Just 39 percent of those B2B companies were able to clearly say they have seen revenue generated from social media.

What’s clear from the report is that many companies still aren’t tracking social’s impact on the bottom line is still lacking in many companies. One in five marketers in both camps were unsure whether they have generated leads from social media, and of those that have, more than a third don’t know if they converted into customers. In fact, any marketing attribution at all, remains a gap for more than 40 percent of the marketers polled.

One thing that might explain these results is that of the more than 500 marketers polled for this survey, half spend 25 percent or less of their budgets online. In a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, marketers say the inability to prove ROI is the number one obstacle to increasing online budgets. Without the ability to prove ROI, it’s no wonder 15 percent report a lack of buy-in from management.

That said, most of the marketers polled are planning to increase their investments in online channels, with content creation and social media getting the biggest number of nods.

The complete State of Digital Marketing report  is available here.