Surprising New B2B Online Purchasing Decision Data Announced by Enquiro 2007 Survey
September 18, 2007
JUST THE FACTS: From the Enquiro Online B2B Purchasing Survey 2007
Summary Results of B2B Survey
- …even we were surprised by just how important respondents to our survey indicated that online research was to their purchase decisions
- There was a clear spark of interest from a trade show, colleague, or friend and then they went to SEARCH
- The match of a good vendor website and a recommendation from a peer or colleague was a clear winner
- Price and Product Information in clear text is the #1 thing purchasers want in all phases of the buying process
- They want this in clear, simple text
- Less important were rich media, online video, and podcasts
- Simpler is Better
- Google Dominates B2B search with 77.7% of the market
- B2B Verticals like Business.com, Knowledge Storm, and Thomas Net were important later in the buying decision process to compare alternatives
- 50% of B2B online interactions convert to a sale. This was a surprise that it was so high
- Where on the page are B2B buyers clicking? (This is confirmed through other recent eye tracking studies)
- 74.4% organic listings; 18.7 Paid Ads
- 27.1% on the Top Organic Listing
- 52.6% on the Top 4 Organic Listings
Methodology of Enquiro Survey
- Published by Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc.
- 1086 participants
- 37% were looking for Supplies (i.e., industrial or office supplies, furniture, tools, etc.)
- Participants by price of the purchase they were considering:
- 63% <$1,000
- 23% $10,000 to $50,000
- 13% >$50,000
- 46% were the economic buyer’s they had spend authority for the purchase
- 49% were in the research phase gathering data and refining their requirements
MOST SURPRISING RESULTS
- There was a significant increase over previous studies in people who made their purchase online after researching online
- 51% made their purchase online
- 55% for <$10,000
- 31% for >$100,000 (That is still a large percentage on big purchases)
- For PARTS, 69.8% preferred purchasing online
- 51% made their purchase online
- Influence of the vendors website had the same importance (5.5 on a scale of 7) as a word-of-mouth recommendation from a colleague
CONCLUSION: As awareness is formed, a large percentage of prospects will use online resources to find out more information and they will use search to locate the vendor’s website. Search visibility is essential at intersecting the prospect at this point.
Detailed Results Just the Facts
- 85.3% reported they would go online before making a purchase
- 92% in the Awareness phase
- 91.6% in the Research phase
- 66.4% in the Negotiation phase
- 81.3% in the Purchase phase
- Over 70% of B2B purchasers started out from a Search Engine
- 51% from Google, Yahoo, or MSN directly using search
- 12% from B2B Search Engines (Business.com, Knowledge Storm, Thomas Net)
- 12% used the search engine to find the Vendor of choice website
- General Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) dominate early in the purchase cycle
- 65.3% in Awareness phase
- 51.8% in Research phase
- 42% in Negotiation and Purchase phases
- Only 12% of purchasers had their vendor of choice website bookmarked at the start of their search
- By the Purchase phase, 80.7% were able to type the vendor website URL directly into their browser or had it bookmarked
CONCLUSION: You must capture the buyer’s attention early in the Awareness or Research phases so you are bookmarked by the final phases
- Google dominates B2B search
- 77.7% launched search in Google
- 13.8% in Yahoo
- 6.6% in MSN
- Vertical B2B search engines had a strong place in the purchase process. Typically purchasers started on the general search engine, then used the vertical later to compare alternatives
- The top three vertical search engines are
- Business.com 73% – business supplies and services creates a large percentage of users
- KnowledgeStorm 22% – technology purchases, enterprise hardware and software
- ThomasNet 5% – industrial and manufacturing solutions accounts for lower percentage in this study
- Major website factors for B2B purchasers
- Price (at least a price range)
- Product Information
- Downloadable product/service information, particularly in the final stages
- Comparisons
- Company approach to Customer Service
- Support Information was of secondary importance
- General company information
- Case studies and testimonials
- Downloadable white papers
- Knowledge bases
- Multimedia was not that important
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Video
- Online chat
- Top Site Factors by phase were:
- Awareness Price
- Research Price with Extensive Product Information a close second
- Negotiation Downloadable Product/Service Information to pass around to colleagues
- Purchase Price again with Product Information a close second
- In this final phase the Company Approach to Customer Service was bumped up to a tie with Product Information
- Importance of Search Engine Rankings (Repeatable numbers from other recent eye tracking studies)
- 74.2% click on organic listings first
- 18.7% click on Pay-per-Click ads first
- 27.1% click on the Top Organic listing first
- 52.6% click on one of the Top Four listings first
- Only 6.9% do not click on a first page listing
- Top Factors in Click Through to a site from a search listing or ad
- Ranking
- Title bold relevant terms
- Description scanning clusters of words (Much less important than title)
- Brand if all the above don’t work, user will not see brand. But brand can close the deal and capture the click through if it is seen
- 70.7% of B2B buyers are searching to
- Learn more about a product/service (pricing, availability, requirements, features)
- Compare products/services against each other
- 95.8% of users found all or most of the information they needed to make a decision from online
- 61.3% were Fully Successful; they found everything they needed online
- 34.5% found some information but used other resources before making a buying decision
- Only 0.9% of people reported they never found what they were looking for
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