Introduction The modern marketing organization collects a lot of data from various encounters – touchpoints – that prospects and customers have with that organization. With the right implementation of technology, marketers are aggregating data about website visits, email opens, click-throughs, downloads, webinar registrations and any other existing form of digital interaction. Collectively, this rich set of data represents the “digital body language” of a prospect, providing marketing with the raw data to first detect and then predict a prospect’s level of interest in a solution and even when that prospect might buy. There is a tremendous amount of potential energy stored in this digital body language (DBL) data that marketing collects, and converting it to kinetic energy is a matter of passing it downstream, to the sales team, with high fidelity. It seems intuitive that marketing and sales would have an efficient, effective process to ensure that the sales team can fully exploit the DBL data that is available. In theory, collecting DBL data is an excellent practice for many reasons. This data helps marketing refine it’s part of the sales funnel for which it is responsible. This data, at least in theory, also gives the sales team a complete view of a prospects needs and readiness to buy, all before sales engages in dialogue with qualified prospects. Demand Metric and ion interactive teamed up to determine how well digital body language is living up to its potential. What this study discovered, and this report details, is that while digital body language is conceptually appealing, the sharing and exploitation of this data is relatively poor. A strategy that relies on digital body language whose execution does not produce a meaningful digital dialogue will disappoint. Table of Contents - Introduction - Executive Summary - The Digital Buyer's Journey - The Last Mile - The State of DBL - The Opportunity: A Digital Dialogue - Tools & Content - Analyst Bottom Line - Acknowledgements
 - About ion interactive - About Demand Metric - Appendix: Survey Background Research Methodology This Digital Body Language Benchmark Study survey was administered online during the period of May 22, 2015 through June 9, 2015. During this period, 358 responses were collected, 300 of which were complete enough for inclusion in the analysis. The data was analyzed to identify insightful relationships between variables in the study and to ensure the statistical validity of the findings. The representativeness of these results depends on the similarity of the sample to environments in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.

1. © 2015 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Benchmark Report
The Truth About Digital Body Language
Sponsored By:

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
3
4
6
8
11
14
Introduction
Executive Summary
The Digital Buyer’s Journey
The Last Mile
The State of DBL
The Opportunity: A Digital Dialogue
21
23
24
Acknowledgements
About Demand Metric
Appendix: Survey Background
16
19
Tools & Content
Analyst Bottom Line
22 About ion interactive

3. INTRODUCTION
The modern marketing organization collects a lot of data from various encounters – touchpoints – that prospects and customers
have with that organization. With the right implementation of technology, marketers are aggregating data about website
visits, email opens, click-throughs, downloads, webinar registrations and any other existing form of digital interaction.
Collectively, this rich set of data represents the “digital body language” of a prospect, providing marketing with the raw data to
first detect and then predict a prospect’s level of interest in a solution and even when that prospect might buy. There is a
tremendous amount of potential energy stored in this digital body language (DBL) data that marketing collects, and
converting it to kinetic energy is a matter of passing it downstream, to the sales team, with high fidelity.
It seems intuitive that marketing and sales would have an efficient, effective process to ensure that the sales team can
fully exploit the DBL data that is available. In theory, collecting DBL data is an excellent practice for many reasons. This data
helps marketing refine it’s part of the sales funnel for which it is responsible. This data, at least in theory, also gives the sales
team a complete view of a prospects needs and readiness to buy, all before sales engages in dialogue with qualified prospects.
Demand Metric and ion interactive teamed up to determine how well digital body language is living up to its potential. What this
study discovered, and this report details, is that while digital body language is conceptually appealing, the sharing and
exploitation of this data is relatively poor. A strategy that relies on digital body language whose execution does not
produce a meaningful digital dialogue will disappoint.

4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The data for this digital body language study was collected through an online survey whose participants came largely from B-to-
B organizations across a range of industries, technology having the strongest representation. Over two-thirds of respondents
reported revenue growth in the most recently completed fiscal year, and these organizations range in size from less to $10
million to over $1 billion.
The analysis of this study’s data provides these key findings:
 For 52% of study participants, the buyer’s journey is mostly digital, providing ample opportunities for collecting
digital body language data. But less than 30% of marketers understand reasonably or extremely well a prospect’s content
needs during this journey.
 Personal selling plays a significant to very significant role in closing deals for 72% of respondents.
 Despite the heavy reliance on personal selling, the usage of DBL data by the sales team occurs often or always just 22%
of the time.
 The top reason why DBL data isn’t more useful to sales is because too many, different interpretations of it exist.
 A majority of organizations are not yet using the four most common types of interactive content. Previous Demand
Metric research confirms that this type of content is better at capturing prospect needs and interest, and creating dialogue.

5. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 If the collection and sharing of DBL data were optimized, 62% of respondents report the sales close rate would improve
by more than 10%.
This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data. For more detail on the survey participants, please
refer to the Appendix.

6. ABOUT ION INTERACTIVE
ion interactive’s software replaces landing pages with app-like web, mobile and responsive experiences. Using ion’s simple drag-
and-drop interface, anyone can create and test amazing, app-like experiences—no technical or design skills required.
ion interactive’s experiences significantly improve lead generation and customer acquisition with research showing that 73% of
ion’s customers report at least doubling their digital marketing conversion rates. ion is based in Boca Raton, FL, with a second
office in Cambridge, MA. Customers include Dell, Iron Mountain, DHL and hundreds of other brands and agencies.
For more information, visit www.ioninteractive.com.

7. ABOUT DEMAND METRIC
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership community of over 55,000 marketing
professionals and consultants in 75 countries.
Offering consulting methodologies, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing tools and templates, Demand Metric
resources and expertise help the marketing community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about
their work with authority and conviction and complete marketing projects more quickly and with greater confidence, boosting the
respect of the marketing team and making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed.
To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit: www.demandmetric.com.