business-to-business-survey-2007
Contact Information:
Enquiro
Search marketing is an incredibly effective channel for connecting with potential customers. And the more you know about how your customers interact with search, the more successful that channel will be. At Enquiro, we never stop exploring how to make search more successful.
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION (5)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (7)
METHODOLOGY (9)
RESULTS (10)
General Participant Characteristics (10)
Gender, Age and Education (11)
Phase versus Role (12)
Phase of Purchasing Cycle versus Role (13)
How Soon Before the Purchase Does Research Begin? (13)
Online versus Offline Conversion (14)
The Importance of Online versus Offline Influencing Factors (16)
Online Influencing Factors by Phase (17)
All Phases (17)
Online Influences - Awareness (18)
Online Influences - Research (19)
Online Influences - Negotiation (20)
Online Influences - Purchase (21)
Offline Influencing Factors by Phase (22)
All Phases (22)
Offline Influences - Awareness (23)
Offline Influences - Research (24)
Offline Influences - Negotiation (25)
Offline Influences - Purchase (26)
Would They Go Online? (27)
All Phases (27)
Evolution of Online Activity Based on the Purchase Phase (28)
Where Did You Start Your Online Research? (28)
All Phases (Not including Past Purchase) (28)
Where did you start your online research? By Phase (29)
Where Did They Start if not a Search Engine (and How Did They Get There)? (30)
Preferred General Search Property (37)
Reason for Search Engine Choice (Five Reasons Each) (38)
Preferred Vertical Search Engine (39)
Reasons for Choosing B2B Search Engine (40)
Site Factors (41)
Top Site Factors - Awareness (42)
Top Site Factors - Research (43)
Top Site Factors - Negotiation (44)
Top Site Factors - Purchase (45)
Installation of Toolbars (46)
Interactions on the Search Results Pages (47)
Organic vs. Sponsored Click Through (47)
Comparison of Click Throughs by Study (48)
Importance of Factors in Click Through (49)
Intent For Search (50)
Successful Search Experience? (51)
INTRODUCTION
We've found that when it comes to search, the business to business (B2B) market is largely
ignored. That was the reason we did our initial B2B survey back in 2004. While we never
expected it to become a seminal work in understanding B2B buying decisions, because of the sheer lack of other research in the area it has come to be regarded as such. Over the past year,
we've had a number of people ask us to conduct the site study again so we would have a more
recent point of reference in trying to understand how search plays a part in B2B buying decisions. Thanks to the help of supporting partners (see Methodology); we're now happy to share the initial results from the survey with you.
There are some significant differences from the 2004 B2B survey. As we learned more about business to business, we found that it was important to dissect B2B buying decisions in a few different ways. In the survey, we made sure we identified the role that our respondents played in their respective organizational buying decisions. We identified four major roles within an organization that are typical. For the purpose of this survey, we called them the economic buyer, the technical buyer, the user buyer and the coach buyer.
The economic buyer is the person who ultimately makes the buying decisions and signs the check. The technical buyer is a person within an organization who is tasked with ensuring that whatever solution that is purchased needs the technical requirements of the company. For technology purchases this would often be an IT professional. For accounting software you would typically be
a controller or financial officer. And for sales relationship management software it would be sales manager. While these people usually don't have final financial approval they are integral to the purchase process as they are the ones that ensure the potential solution is the right match with
the organization’s needs and requirements.
The user buyer is the person on the front lines who will actually use the solution or product purchased. It's often this person the first identifies the need it makes the organization aware that they have to explore potential solutions. And, after the purchase is this person who has to ensure that they implemented solution is the right fit for their need.
Finally, there's the coach buyer. Often this is an internal champion who helps move the sales process along and usually has a vested interest in the purchase of the solution.
Another difference from the 2004 B2B survey to this survey was that we carefully determined what
phase of the purchase cycle our respondents were in. We divided the purchase process into four phases, awareness, research, negotiation and purchase. We believed that there could be
significant differences in the influence of different factors on the purchase process depending on
what phase the buyer within. The impact of a vendor website, a trade publication or attending a trade show could be significantly different for an organization that's at the very early phases of awareness as opposed to an organization that was deep in the intricacies of the final negotiation. As much as possible, we wanted to provide a timeline of the purchasing process based both on the role of the individual involved and the type of industry they were in.
In this initial report, we’ll cover off our findings at a high level. We’ll provide quick insight into the significant findings and notable trends that we saw. But, in analyzing the data, we found that there is a lot here to cover in one white paper. For that reason, we decided to release three subsequent white papers that will provide further insight and analysis based on the three primary roles we saw emerge in the survey data. We had significant numbers of respondents in the economic buyer, technical buyer and user buyer categories. We found it would be most useful for the marketer to focus individually on each of these roles and provide a much more comprehensive picture of purchase behavior and how that translates into both online and offline activity. We’ll be releasing these three subsequent white papers over the coming three months.
We hope that the enclosed information proves useful to B2B marketers. One of the reasons we wanted to do this survey is that we’ve found B2B transactions, particularly those that involve a significant amount of research, can be much more complex then consumer purchase decisions. There is an unfortunate lack of solid research in this area and we hope that this survey helps fill the void. It is our intention to continue to provide more insight into B2B purchase decisions and we welcome any feedback or comments any of our readers might have in this regard.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In this study, we were looking for the answer to one question, with several different parts: How important is online research in business to business (B2B) purchase decisions? We certainly believed it to be important, but even we were surprised by just how important respondents to our survey indicated it was to them. We found a heavy reliance on online research in all aspects of the purchase cycle. We also found that as prospects become aware of potential offerings through offline channels, they naturally turn to online sources to find out more about them. For example, a prospect may become aware of a potential offering at a trade show and the first thing they do is go online to find out more about that offering. One of the more interesting findings of the study was just how important those online influencers could be, in many cases matching the influence of traditional offline factors. A vendor website, together with the perennial offline winner, word-
of-mouth from a colleague or peer, were both indicated as the most important influencers in a purchase decision. Close behind were search engines, distributor websites, word-of-mouth from friends or paid consultants and online and offline trade journals.
Another significant finding was where this research tends to happen online. General search engines are often the first place people turn to begin their online research session and among the general search engines, Google holds a dominant position, being the first choice of 77.7% of respondents. As researchers begin to research their purchase, they rely heavily on information from the vendor’s own website. Also, as they enter the later research phase and start compiling information to begin the actual negotiation, many purchasers rely on B2B vertical engines to help gather detailed information they require. Other sources of heavily relied upon information included industry websites, distributor websites and offline channels such as trade journals and other industry publications.
An important finding for website developers was the type of information that purchasers want to access on the vendor’s website. Without exception, they preferred to access information in a text format that was easily downloadable and transferable to others within their organization. Critical information included pricing, expensive product information, technical specifications, information on customer service and support and searchable knowledgebases. Less important to the buyer were presentations of information that relied more heavily on rich media, online video and podcasts. In the case of the B2B buyer, simpler is better.
A rather surprising finding was the percentage of B2
B buyers who actually convert online. In most categories, we found close to a 50-50 split of online versus offline conversions. The one exception was in the parts category, where 70% of the respondents indicated that they actually made a purchase online. This was one data point in a fairly extensive survey and because the result was rather unexpected, it would require further research to provide more insight around this particular point. As we look at purchase behaviors amongst individual roles, we may be able to find out more about exactly where and how conversions take place.
Finally, we look at the actual interactions on the search results page. Here we found a remarkable
consistency in click through patterns from our previous studies. The ratios we found fall remarkably close to those we’ve seen in the past. For example, we saw 74.4 % of respondents
choose an organic link and 18.7% choose a sponsored link. 12.2% clicked on one of the top ads
presented and 6.5% clicked on one of the ads appearing on the right rail. The top four organic listings captured 52.6% of all the click throughs, with the number one organic result capturing 27.1%. Position again proves to be important in the sponsored listings, with the top PPC ad capturing twice the number of click throughs as the number two ad (7.4% versus 3.4%).
In summary, we found nothing in the study that contradicted any of the findings in our previous
B2B study. What we found was a three-year evolution in the importance of online in B2B purchases. Online resources are critical in the business purchasing process and a few of them stand head and shoulders above the rest, notably vendor websites and search engines. If you want to influence the B2B purchaser, provide lots of information in an easily accessible, text-based format that can be passed from individual to individual within the organization. Understand that there are different types of buyers and their level of interest in certain types of information, including pricing, can vary, depending on where they are in the purchase cycle.
METHODOLOGY
Enquiro, along with the help of supporting partners, collected survey data in March 2007 from a select list of North American contacts.
Survey Sampling International provided the sample of 1086 professionals.
We screened the participants by asking:
Are you considering making a business to business purchase from one of the following categories within the next year?
Parts and Components (i.e., parts for assembly, semi-conductors, motherboards etc.)
Equipment (i.e., test or measurement equipment, manufacturing, medical etc.)
Business Services (i.e., accounting, legal, logistics and shipping etc.)
Supplies (i.e., industrial or office supplies, furniture, tools etc.)
Software (i.e., enterprise software etc.)
Hardware (i.e., enterprise hardware etc.)
Is this product or service worth over $1,000?
The participants completed the online survey that consisted of over 100 questions. Each participant answered questions based on what phase of the purchase cycle they were currently in.
An added feature of the survey allowed participants to launch live search queries. This allowed the survey to capture important search behavior such keyword analysis, position and rank of search engine result pages.
Enquiro acknowledges the support of the following partners who helped underwrite some of the expense of conducting a study: Zoom Information Inc., Google Inc., Survey Sampling International LLC (SSI), and MarketingSherpa Inc. While these partners helped to subsidize the cost and provided some suggestions in the earliest phases of the study, they were not directly involved in the design of the study, the collection of the data or the analysis of that same data.
The survey questions are available upon request.
RESULTS
This paper is a report of the general findings of the survey. Where appropriate, we’ve added additional analysis to provide some insight into what the numbers are telling us.
We plan to publish a series of follow up white papers, to provide additional insight from the perspective of three types of buyer: the economic buyer, the technical buyer and user buyer.
General Participant Characteristics
The sample provided by SSI was a generally diverse B2B sample. We covered purchases in a wide number of product categories. This allowed us to look at how purchase decisions were made for various types of purchases. We divided all respondents into the following product categories. The supplies category had the greatest number of respondents but it was also the least defined of the categories. Types of purchases falling into it included significant purchases of office and business supplies (in excess of $1000).
Industry Product Categories n (%)
Supplies 406 (37.4)
Software 169 (15.6)
Hardware 157 (14.5)
Business Services 144 (13.3)
Equipment 118 (10.9)
Parts and Components 92 ( 8.5)
We also wanted to get a sense of the size of the purchases that made up the dataset for the study. The majority of them (63.2%) fell into the $1,000-$10,000 category.
Budget for considered purchases n (%)
1,000 to 9,999 686
(63.2)
10,000 to 49,999 260 (23.9)
50,000 to 100,000 78
(
7.2)
100,000 or more 62 ( 5.7)
Gender, Age and Education
Responders averaged 43 years old with a gender split of 63% women and 37% men.
Having more females in the sample is consistent with past survey work we’ve done. It seems to be more an artifact of online survey methodology than any significant finding on B2B purchasing behavior.
Gender n (%) Mean Age (± SD)
Female 682 (63) 41.7 (11.3)
Male 404 (37) 46.2 (13.1)
Education levels seem to follow generally representative patterns.
Highest Level of Education n (%)
High School Diploma 120 (11.1)
Some College 344 (31.7)
University Degree 392 (36.1)
Masters Degree 186 (17.1)
Doctoral Degree 39 ( 3.6)
Phase versus Role
One of the primary objectives of the study was to gain further understanding of organizational
B2B purchase behavior goals by phase of the purchase cycle and by role of the individual involved.
We asked each participant indicate in the study where they were in a current purchase cycle based on the following definitions of phase:
Awareness: This is where you first learn about needs or opportunities. You learn you have a pain that needs to be solved.
Research / Consideration: Information and/or data gathering, defining of requirements, vetting, screening of options, creation of a short list of candidate solutions.
Negotiation / Vendor Finalization: Reviewing vendors’ offerings before making recommendations, negotiating the best price, finalizing specifics of final purchase.
Purchase: Approval of purchase, recommendations and authorizing purchases. Completing required paperwork for procurement.
We also asked participants to identify the role they played in the purchase based on the following definitions:
Economic Buyer: This buyer releases the money and has ultimate power of veto in the selection of the purchased brand. i.e. Executive Management.
User Buyer: This buyer judges the impact on the job. The user buyer considers a brand in terms
of who within the company will personally use or supervise the use of a product or service. i.e. Sales personnel for CRM software, Project Management personnel for Project Management software.
Technical Buyer: The role of this buyer is to screen out various brands from consideration. This type of buyer makes judgements about the technicalities of a product or service versus another offering as a way of screening out vendors and brands. i.e. logistics and shipping services, Financial personnel for accounting software, etc.
Coach Buyer: This buyer is an internal guide who helps direct an outside business on the internal process required to make a specific sale. Also called a Champion by the outside vendor.
Participants were chosen from a broad range of roles, phase of the purchasing cycle and industry sectors. Nearly 46% classified themselves as Economic Buyers, 28% User Buyers, 27% Technical Buyers and less than 3% Coach Buyers.
Just less then half of the respondents, 49%, were in the research phase of the purchase cycle with the remaining split between the purchase, 20%, negotiation, 15% and awareness phase, 12%.
Phase of Purchasing Cycle versus Role
The majority of participants were in the research phase of a current purchase. When analyzing this by role we found (somewhat predictably) that technical buyers were slightly more likely to be in the research phase, and economic buyers were slightly more likely to be involved in the purchase phase.
Phase/ Role
Economic n (%)
Technical n (%) User n (%) Coach n (%) Total n (%) Awareness 99 (19.8) 20 ( 8.2) 38 (12.3) 6 (18.8) 163 ( 15.0) Research 228 (45.7) 138 (56.3) 154 (49.7) 15 (46.9) 535 ( 49.3) Negotiation 43 ( 8.6) 40 (16.3) 57 (18.4) 3 (9.4) 143 ( 13.2) Purchase 119 (23.9) 45 (18.4) 54 (17.4)
7 (21.9) 225 ( 20.7)
Total
499 (45.9)
295 (27.2)
310 (28.5)
32 ( 2.9)
1086 (100)
How Soon Before the Purchase Does Research Begin?
When we look at the length of time between when research begins and when the purchases are made, we found a relatively even split between short-term purchase cycles and long-term
purchase cycles. 49.3% of the respondents indicated they made the purchase with less than two weeks of research, and 48.4% indicated that they started researching a month or more before the purchase.
12.3
37
25.2
16.6
5.6
1
5101520253035
40Same Day A Week or
Two
1 Month 2-3 Months 4-6 Months 7-9 Months
Time Before Purchase
% r e s p o n d e n t s
Online versus Offline Conversion
A surprisingly high number of respondents indicated they made their purchase online after conducting online research. Almost 47% indicated this as the outcome of their research online. This was significantly higher than the percentage of online conversions we’ve seen in other studies (although the majority of those have been consumer based).
Where did you end up making your purchase (2007) n (%)
Found vendor online, purchased online 313 (46.92)
Found vendor online, purchased offline 243 (36.4)
Found vendor offline, purchased online 26 ( 3.9)
Found vendor offline, purchased offline 66 ( 9.9)
Don’t Recall 19 ( 2.9)
There is some consistency with our previous study conducted in 2004, although we phrased the question slightly differently. In that case, we asked the outcome of the online research was. As you can see from the table below, in this case online purchases were also more common that offline.
What was the result of your online research (2004) (%)
I never found what looking for 7.9
Valid
Researched online, purchased offline 27.3
Researched and purchased online 36.8
Still researching 28.0
Therefore, we tried to break this down a little more to see what might be happening. Predictably, the number of online conversions was tied somewhat to the size of the budget involved with the purchase. Smaller purchases were much more likely to be conducted online.
Online vs Offline Conversions - by Budget Range
55.0
51.3
41
31
45
48.7
59
69
0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100% 1 - 10 K 10 - 50 K
50 to 100 K 100 K +
Total Online
Total Offline
We also compared by category, thinking that some categories would be more conducive to online purchasing. We found remarkable consistency across the categories, with close to a 50/50 split in online and offline purchasing, with the exception of the Parts category, which had a 70/30 split, favoring online.
Online vs Offline Conversions - by cat egory
69.8
52.2
49.3
50.6
47.3
55
30.2
47.8
50.7
49.4
52.7
45
0%
10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%100%Parts Equipment Bus. Services Supplies Software Hardware
Total Online Total Offline
It does seem that B2B buyers are more likely to purchase online. This result was somewhat surprising to us, but it’s beyond the scope of this study to provide any more insight. We’ve
definitely flagged it as a data point to explore further in future studies, because if this does prove to be a trend, it’s a very important one for B2B marketers to keep track of.
The Importance of Online versus Offline Influencing Factors
When looking at influencing factors as a whole, we were struck by how integral online research is, and how it virtually mirrors the influence of traditional highly influential factors, such as word of mouth, trade shows and trade publications. The chart below shows the twelve most influential factors, both online and offline, amongst all participants.
There seems to be a common offline/online complimentary approach to B2B purchase research. A recommendation by a friend or colleague, an encounter at a trade show or an ad or feature in a trade publication can first make you aware of a product or service. Then the natural inclination is to turn to the Web to find out more. And when that happens, search is one of the first places prospects turn to. Then, as prospects move through the conversion path, there are a mix of influences that help shape the ultimate decision.
Primary amongst these is the Vendor’s website itself. In understanding the balance between online and offline influencing factors, the B2B marketer can begin to leverage the strengths of one against the other. Paramount in this is understanding that as awareness is formed, a large percentage of prospects will turn online to find out more and will use search to locate the vendor’s site. Search visibility is essential in intersecting the prospect at this point.
Top Influences - Total (All Phases)
5.5 5.5
5.1
5.1
4.9
4.6
4.6
4.6
4.3
4.3
0.0
0.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.05.56.0Vendor Websites
WOM -Colleague
Search Engines
Distributors Websites
WOM -Friend
WOM - Paid Cons.
Trade Pub
Trade Shows Online Trade Pub Online Gen.
Bus Pub
All Influencers
Online Influencing Factors by Phase All Phases
When asked what the top influences were on the purchase decision, respondents across all phases indicated that the website of the vendor, followed by distributor websites and search engines were the most important influencers. Other sources of objective information also rated quite highly, including online word-of-mouth (i.e. support forums and newsgroups), online trade publications and online general business publications as well as online news portals.
Influencing factors that have emerged in the last few years were generally rated as less influential; these included online video, RSS feeds, webinars, podcasts and social networking sites.
Top Online Influences - Total (All Phases)
5.1
5.5
5.1
4.2
4.3
4.3
3.8
3.7
3.5
3.5
3.4
3.4
3.9
0.0
0.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.05.56.0Search Engines M an.Websites Dis.Websites Online WOM
Online Trade Pub Online Gen. Bus.Pub
Online Video Opt in email RSS Feeds
Webinars Podcasts
Social Net Sites Online News
Online Influencers
On a scale of 1 to 7
Online Influences - Awareness
When asked about online factors that influenced them, participants who were in the awareness phase, rated the actual vendor/manufacturer website is the most influential factor. Distributor websites and search engines followed this. Sites that presented information in a more traditional form, i.e. in text based presentations (information in online newsletters, forums, etc) tended to be more influential than those that presented information in a multimedia format, i.e. in webinars, podcasts or online video.
Top Online Influences - Awareness
5.0
5.4
5.1
4.2
4.4
4.3
3.7
3.8
3.4
3.2
3.3
3.3
3.9
0.0
0.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.05.56.0Search Engines M an.Websites Dis.Websites Online WOM
Online Trade Pub Online Gen. Bus.Pub
Online Video Opt in email RSS Feeds
Webinars Podcasts
Social Net Sites Online News
Online Influencers
On a scale of 1 to 7
Online Influences - Research
Looking at respondents in the research phase we found the similar pattern emerge again. If
anything, the respondents in this phase were even more reliant on the presentation of information in a straightforward traditional way. Participants in this phase said the vendor/manufacturer website is highly influential, giving it the highest score across all influencing factors in phases. Search engines were also highly influential in this phase.
Top Online Influences - Research
5.4
5.8
5.2
4.4
4.6
4.6
4.2
3.9
4
3.4
3.7
3.6
4.2
0.0
0.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.05.56.0Search Engines M an.Websites Dis.Websites Online WOM
Online Trade Pub Online Gen. Bus.Pub
Online Video Opt in email RSS Feeds
Webinars Podcasts
Social Net Sites Online News
Online Influencers
On a scale of 1 to 7
Online Influences - Negotiation
As we look at the respondents in the negotiation phase we see few surprises here. One thing to note is that search engines did become a little less influential to this group and webinars seemed to increase in influence, although in both cases the variance was marginal.
Top Online Influences - Negotiation
4.9
5.4
5.1
4.1
4
4.1
3.6
3.5
3.3
3.9
3.3
3.3
3.7
0.0
0.51.01.52.02.53.03.54.04.55.05.56.0Search Engines
M an.Websites Dis.Websites
Online WOM
Online Trade Pub
Online Gen. Bus.Pub
Online Video
Opt in email
RSS Feeds
Webinars Podcasts
Social Net Sites
Online News
Online Influencers
On a scale of 1 to 7