Study: Search, email remain strong in driving B2B traffic, leads [Infographic]
eMedia Vitals
Two “old school” digital platforms – organic search and email – remain key drivers of traffic and leads, respectively, to B2B sites, according to a new study by Optify.
Organic search drove 41% of traffic to B2B sites in 2012, according to the Optify study, which analyzed more than 27 million visits from various sources to 591 B2B sites in North America. And Google accounted for 90% of that search traffic.
But while organic search is the top traffic driver to B2B sites, it lags in converting visitors to leads. Email remains the lead dog for leads, with a 2.9% conversion rate – double that of organic search (1.45%) and social media (1.22%).
“Organic search is still the strongest traffic driver, but email is the best way to get people to engage,” Optify CMO Doug Wheeler said in a phone interview.
“I really thought, in the age of content marketing, that inbound marketing was the way to go,” Wheeler added. “But the real secret is getting them onto your outbound list. Publishers may not want to dial down email just yet.”
Here’s an infographic from Optify that summarizes the results of the study.