Conversations over Clicks: How CRO hits different on B2B Marketing Sites
Applying typical e-commerce CRO tactics to your B2B marketing site is like bringing a knife to a chess match. Not only are you using the wrong tool, you're playing an entirely different game. In this article, we’ll tell you how to think strategically and differently about conversion rate optimization for non-commerce marketing sites.
Applying typical e-commerce CRO tactics to your B2B marketing site is like bringing a knife to a chess match. Not only are you using the wrong tool, you're playing an entirely different game. In this article, we’ll tell you how to think strategically and differently about conversion rate optimization for non-commerce marketing sites.
Conversations over Clicks: How CRO hits different on B2B Marketing Sites
Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your e-commerce buddies are obsessed with cart abandonment rates. Meanwhile, over in your world of brand love and awareness, you're trying to figure out if anyone's actually reading your case studies. Welcome to the wild world of B2B marketing site optimization, where the rules are different and the stakes are higher. (Yay, right? Keep reading. It gets better.)
The B2B Difference: Your Marketing Site Isn't an Online Store
Duh, right? Well, let’s hold onto that thought for a moment. In e-commerce, the user journey can be relatively straightforward: visit, browse, add to cart, go through checkout. The price point is usually relatively low (a few dollars to a few hundred most likely), and measuring success is easy: a purchase, usually within minutes.
But on B2B marketing sites? You’re playing a long game. Your site visitor today might become a lead in two weeks and a customer in six months. The price point on your service might be exponentially larger or the potential relationship much more complex than “buy something, get something.” So, the metrics that matter aren't immediate clicks—they're more complex engagement signals that indicate genuine interest in a relationship that might span years.
As Zane Coffin, our CRO expert at Edgar Allan, puts it: "The time to convert on marketing sites, if you're talking about B2B SaaS or other B2B businesses, can be up to a year. If you're just trying to see how many people click a button in their session, you're not getting a very wide or accurate picture of what you're actually optimizing."
The Key: Measuring What Actually Matters
When optimizing a B2B marketing site, you need to track metrics that predict real business outcomes:
- Engagement depth: How many pages are visitors viewing per session? Does variant A lead people deeper into your content ecosystem than variant B?
- Return frequency: Are people coming back? Repeat visits often indicate growing interest.
- Content consumption patterns: Which resources are being consumed, and in what order? This reveals the information journey your prospects are creating for themselves, and that you should be noticing.
- Lead quality: Are you generating qualified conversations, not just more form fills?
That last point deserves special emphasis.
As EA’s Managing Member Mason Poe notes, "If you get too many leads that are just bad, then you've got the sales team mad at you." High volume, low-quality leads create noise that drowns out the signal you're actually seeking. (And it makes for awkward moments at the company holiday party.)
Where to Start: Think Strategy Before Button Colors
The biggest mistake in CRO for B2B Marketing? Jumping straight to ticky tests involving button colors and CTA text when your fundamental user journey needs work.
Instead, start with these strategic questions:
- Is there continuity between your traffic sources and on-site experiences? When someone clicks from an ad to your pages, does the messaging align? Does it meet the audience in the mindset they came in with? Continuity issues are like bait-and-switch tactics that erode trust before it can form.
- Are you mapping the full customer journey? Use tools like Microsoft Clarity to analyze behavioral patterns across your site. Where are people actually clicking? What content gets attention? What doesn’t? Let data guide your hypotheses.
- What's your biggest conversion bottleneck? Is it awareness, consideration, or decision? Your optimization priority should be your largest opportunity area, not where it's easiest to implement changes.
As Zane explains, "We could be talking about optimizing a website but you don't have a strategy—and in that case, it’s almost impossible to find traction unless you get lucky here or there."
A Practical Toolkit: Where to Begin Without a Massive Team
Not every company has the luxury of a dedicated CRO team. But even with limited resources, you can start optimizing your B2B site effectively:
- Use Microsoft Clarity or similar tools for heatmaps and click analysis. This gives you immediate insight into user behavior without expensive setups.
- Check for message continuity between ad campaigns and landing pages. Often the biggest quick win isn't on your site itself, but in the journey that leads there.
- Start with architecture-level tests rather than color or microcopy changes. Reorganizing your key pages or sections often delivers more impact than tweaking button text.
- Layer in engagement metrics to your conversion data. Look beyond form fills to time on page, pages per session, and return visit rate.
The Mindset Shift: Data Informs Strategy, Not Just Tactics
In B2B marketing, conversion optimization isn't just about getting people to click immediately—it's about designing pathways that facilitate meaningful business conversations. You’re forming relationships, not just forcing a decision.
This requires a mindset shift: seeing your website not as a standalone sales asset, but as one touchpoint in an extended relationship-building process.
"The role of the marketing site has started to change," notes Mason. "For a long time, it was more like a brand asset and maybe something like a sales brochure, but not necessarily something that fit into the sales cycle in a more deliberate way."
The Bottom Line
Successful B2B CRO means optimizing for relationship initiation, not just transactions. Your goal is to create digital experiences that move people from curiosity to conversation to collaboration.
And that process—unlike convincing someone to add shoes to a shopping cart—takes time, trust, and a fundamental understanding of how business decisions actually happen.
So step away from the button color A/B test. Your B2B marketing site deserves a more sophisticated optimization approach. One that recognizes what you're really building isn't a funnel—it's a relationship.
Read more from the Edgar Allan Blog.
Conversations over Clicks: How CRO hits different on B2B Marketing Sites
Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your e-commerce buddies are obsessed with cart abandonment rates. Meanwhile, over in your world of brand love and awareness, you're trying to figure out if anyone's actually reading your case studies. Welcome to the wild world of B2B marketing site optimization, where the rules are different and the stakes are higher. (Yay, right? Keep reading. It gets better.)
The B2B Difference: Your Marketing Site Isn't an Online Store
Duh, right? Well, let’s hold onto that thought for a moment. In e-commerce, the user journey can be relatively straightforward: visit, browse, add to cart, go through checkout. The price point is usually relatively low (a few dollars to a few hundred most likely), and measuring success is easy: a purchase, usually within minutes.
But on B2B marketing sites? You’re playing a long game. Your site visitor today might become a lead in two weeks and a customer in six months. The price point on your service might be exponentially larger or the potential relationship much more complex than “buy something, get something.” So, the metrics that matter aren't immediate clicks—they're more complex engagement signals that indicate genuine interest in a relationship that might span years.
As Zane Coffin, our CRO expert at Edgar Allan, puts it: "The time to convert on marketing sites, if you're talking about B2B SaaS or other B2B businesses, can be up to a year. If you're just trying to see how many people click a button in their session, you're not getting a very wide or accurate picture of what you're actually optimizing."
The Key: Measuring What Actually Matters
When optimizing a B2B marketing site, you need to track metrics that predict real business outcomes:
- Engagement depth: How many pages are visitors viewing per session? Does variant A lead people deeper into your content ecosystem than variant B?
- Return frequency: Are people coming back? Repeat visits often indicate growing interest.
- Content consumption patterns: Which resources are being consumed, and in what order? This reveals the information journey your prospects are creating for themselves, and that you should be noticing.
- Lead quality: Are you generating qualified conversations, not just more form fills?
That last point deserves special emphasis.
As EA’s Managing Member Mason Poe notes, "If you get too many leads that are just bad, then you've got the sales team mad at you." High volume, low-quality leads create noise that drowns out the signal you're actually seeking. (And it makes for awkward moments at the company holiday party.)
Where to Start: Think Strategy Before Button Colors
The biggest mistake in CRO for B2B Marketing? Jumping straight to ticky tests involving button colors and CTA text when your fundamental user journey needs work.
Instead, start with these strategic questions:
- Is there continuity between your traffic sources and on-site experiences? When someone clicks from an ad to your pages, does the messaging align? Does it meet the audience in the mindset they came in with? Continuity issues are like bait-and-switch tactics that erode trust before it can form.
- Are you mapping the full customer journey? Use tools like Microsoft Clarity to analyze behavioral patterns across your site. Where are people actually clicking? What content gets attention? What doesn’t? Let data guide your hypotheses.
- What's your biggest conversion bottleneck? Is it awareness, consideration, or decision? Your optimization priority should be your largest opportunity area, not where it's easiest to implement changes.
As Zane explains, "We could be talking about optimizing a website but you don't have a strategy—and in that case, it’s almost impossible to find traction unless you get lucky here or there."
A Practical Toolkit: Where to Begin Without a Massive Team
Not every company has the luxury of a dedicated CRO team. But even with limited resources, you can start optimizing your B2B site effectively:
- Use Microsoft Clarity or similar tools for heatmaps and click analysis. This gives you immediate insight into user behavior without expensive setups.
- Check for message continuity between ad campaigns and landing pages. Often the biggest quick win isn't on your site itself, but in the journey that leads there.
- Start with architecture-level tests rather than color or microcopy changes. Reorganizing your key pages or sections often delivers more impact than tweaking button text.
- Layer in engagement metrics to your conversion data. Look beyond form fills to time on page, pages per session, and return visit rate.
The Mindset Shift: Data Informs Strategy, Not Just Tactics
In B2B marketing, conversion optimization isn't just about getting people to click immediately—it's about designing pathways that facilitate meaningful business conversations. You’re forming relationships, not just forcing a decision.
This requires a mindset shift: seeing your website not as a standalone sales asset, but as one touchpoint in an extended relationship-building process.
"The role of the marketing site has started to change," notes Mason. "For a long time, it was more like a brand asset and maybe something like a sales brochure, but not necessarily something that fit into the sales cycle in a more deliberate way."
The Bottom Line
Successful B2B CRO means optimizing for relationship initiation, not just transactions. Your goal is to create digital experiences that move people from curiosity to conversation to collaboration.
And that process—unlike convincing someone to add shoes to a shopping cart—takes time, trust, and a fundamental understanding of how business decisions actually happen.
So step away from the button color A/B test. Your B2B marketing site deserves a more sophisticated optimization approach. One that recognizes what you're really building isn't a funnel—it's a relationship.
Read more from the Edgar Allan Blog.