Dive Brief:

• A new study from Bizible looked at 480,000 leads tracked through Salesforce to retrieve some insight on first, middle, and last touch data in the sales cycle. 
• The findings showed that social media shortened the sales cycle when it was the first touch and had a 30% win rate, while only generating 5% of leads. 
• Search was the No. 1 channel in 9 out of 10 industries for generating leads from first touch and came in second behind direct with a 40% win rate. 

Dive Insight: 

A big part of what this Bizible study is revealing is that monitoring only last touch is a big mistake. When you look at first and middle touch in respect to lead and wins, it's easy to see that other factors play into that last click. Taking in a holistic view of digital marketing offers the best insight to buyer behavior. The fact that this study broke it down by industry is also helpful, as each buyer will be different.