New B2B analytics platform called Proof correlates sales results with marketing efforts, despite time lag

Unlike B2C sales, B2B deals often take many months to close. But how can you determine which marketing, ad, PR or other spending drove the final deal, given such time lags for all the drivers?
That’s a key incentive behind a new business analytics platform, launched this week by a Phoenix-based startup called Proof. The company, founded last year, describes the platform as being “the industry’s first business impact analytics for marketing and communications.” Essentially, it defines “impact analytics” as correlating causes to effects and taking into account the time delay issue.
The platform’s patent-pending Proof Correlation Engine is intended to show the effects of marketing and other efforts on such business performance factors as sales productivity, customer awareness, employee retention and other results, even when the effects are months away from the causes.