Special Report: Search Engine Marketing

1. To track the effectiveness of SEM campaigns, Lee says, b-to-b catalogers should use a customer relationship management system to match individual buyers to their companies. “You need some sort of sales tracking system to close the loop and understand what’s working,” he says.

2. The job of tracking b-to-b customers from their initial Web searchs to actual purchase orders often is made more challenging by the fact that they tend to place large orders. “Your most valuable bulk orders don’t come through the ‘traditional’ Web shopping cart,” Lee says. “Businesses tend to place orders on the phone for, say, 75 laptops — after they do online research.” Therefore, map your telephone orders back to search marketing if you can.