Marketing's Profit Impact: Quantifying Online and Off-line Funnel Progression

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Use it as a product, platform or behavior mechanism reference rather than a direct forecast for a SaaS funnel.

Reported result

What the study found

The study found extensive cross-channel effects, direct effects on early and later funnel stages, and substantially higher profit impact for online customer-initiated contacts than offline firm-initiated contacts. A budget-shifting field experiment produced net profit increases 14 times larger than the status-quo allocation.

Research question

What the authors investigated

What are the effects of marketing communications on online/offline purchase-funnel metrics, and what are the magnitude and timing of profit effects from firm- versus customer-initiated contacts?

Design

Econometric modeling of marketing communication effects on online and offline funnel metrics, followed by a field experiment reallocating marketing budgets.

Sample and setting

Inofec, a small-to-medium-sized B2B enterprise; outcomes include website visits, online/offline information activity, quote requests, and purchases, with firm- and customer-initiated contacts compared across channels.

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

Not stated on the publisher article page's abstract; the publisher describes one B2B SME context, so generalizability beyond that setting is not established by the page (carefully marked interpretive limitation).

Research sources

The publisher abstract identifies Inofec as a B2B SME and reports cross-channel effects, direct effects across funnel stages, higher profit impact from online customer-initiated contacts, and a field-experiment profit increase 14 times larger than the status quo. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; profile summarizes the accessible record and does not claim independent review of inaccessible full text.