The Challenge
This Manchester-based manufacturer of industrial components had a traditional sales culture: relationships, trade shows, and handshakes. The 3-person marketing team had been running Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads for two years, but leadership viewed digital marketing as a cost center with no proven return.
The problem was attribution. B2B marketing analytics sales cycles run 6–18 months. A prospect might click a LinkedIn ad, download a whitepaper, attend a webinar, visit the website 12 times, request a quote via phone, negotiate for months, and finally sign a purchase order - all with zero connection between the initial digital touchpoint and the final sale in the CRM.
The newly hired data analyst was tasked with answering a simple question from the Managing Director: "Is our £150K annual digital marketing spend generating any revenue?" Without a way to connect digital touchpoints to offline sales, the honest answer was "we don't know" - and the budget was at risk.
The Solution
The data analyst connected Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4, and Google Search Console to Xplainr, then integrated CRM deal data to create a complete digital-to-revenue pipeline.
- Extended B2B Attribution: Xplainr's 18-month attribution window tracked the complete buying journey from first digital touchpoint through to signed purchase order, connecting online behavior to offline revenue for the first time.
- Account-Level Analytics: Instead of individual user tracking, Xplainr aggregated touchpoints by company/account, showing that key accounts typically had 15–25 digital touchpoints across multiple team members before requesting a quote.
- Content-to-Revenue Mapping: Aria identified which content types drove the highest-value deals. Technical whitepapers downloaded via LinkedIn Ads had a 12x higher deal-close rate than generic landing pages from Google Ads - a counterintuitive finding that reshaped content strategy.
- Board-Ready Attribution Reports: Automated quarterly reports showing digital marketing's contribution to pipeline and closed revenue, with clear methodology that the finance team could validate and trust. Learn about closed-loop reporting.
The Impact
The analysis revealed £2.1M in revenue directly influenced by digital marketing over the previous 18 months - a 340% ROI on the £150K annual spend. The most surprising finding: LinkedIn Ads, which had the highest CPL and seemed most "wasteful" in platform-native metrics, had a 5.2x ROAS when measured on actual closed deals.
The Managing Director's response was immediate: the digital marketing budget was increased by 60%, with most of the increase directed toward LinkedIn thought leadership and technical content. The data analyst now runs monthly attribution reviews and has become the bridge between marketing and sales teams, using Xplainr's account-level analytics to identify high-intent prospects for sales follow-up.