Industry playbook · Channel choice
IndiaMART, Thomasnet or your own ads? How manufacturers should decide
Marketplaces rent you a share of someone else’s buyer, often alongside competitors. Your own paid acquisition usually costs more per enquiry and can cost less per order. Decide on cost per quote-ready RFQ and per order, including sales time, not on the number of enquiries.
Should you stop using IndiaMART or Thomasnet and run your own ads?
Short answer
Not immediately. Track both sources for at least two quarters and compare cost per quote-ready enquiry and per order, including sales time. Marketplace enquiries are often shared with several suppliers, so they can be cheap per enquiry yet expensive per order. Downgrade only when your own ads match or beat that cost per order.
How do B2B marketplaces distribute enquiries?
Short answer
Marketplaces collect a buyer’s requirement once and put it in front of several suppliers. IndiaMART describes a BuyLead as a requirement it filters and shares with the suppliers dealing in that product. Thomasnet lets a buyer select up to five suppliers and send requests to all of them at once. Either way, you rarely receive the enquiry alone.
The two best-known directories describe the mechanism in their own help pages:
- IndiaMART: a BuyLead is “the purchase requirement sent by prospective buyers for products and services, which is filtered by IndiaMART and shared with the suppliers dealing in those products/services” (IndiaMART Help).
- Thomasnet: buyers can “select up to five suppliers and send multiple RFIs at once” (Thomasnet Help). Paid programmes add sponsored listings at the top of relevant buyer searches, and premium subscriptions add direct RFQ requests (Thomasnet programmes).
Neither of these is a flaw. It is what a marketplace is for: buyers get several quotes quickly, and suppliers get access to demand they didn’t pay to create. But it changes the economics in three ways. Win probability per enquiry falls, because you are one of several responders. Price pressure rises, because the buyer is explicitly comparing. And speed matters more than usual, because the first credible response often sets the shortlist.
Your own campaigns work differently. A buyer who searched “SS ball valve manufacturer Ahmedabad”, clicked your ad and filled in your form contacted you, not five of you. That enquiry costs more to generate, and it arrives with less competition attached.
Why do enquiry counts mislead?
Short answer
An enquiry count treats a shared price check the same as a specific requirement sent only to you. Marketplaces usually win on count, and many of those enquiries are price shoppers, resellers or requests already sent to competitors. Each still costs a sales call. Compare sources on quote-ready enquiries and orders, with the sales hours each source consumes.
- Price shoppers. Buyers comparing several suppliers ask for price first and specifications later, if ever.
- Shared requests. The same requirement reaching several suppliers means your share of the order is, at best, one of several.
- Sales hours. Every enquiry is a call, a WhatsApp thread or an email. A source that produces three times the enquiries and the same orders triples the work.
Original framework
Rented vs owned RFQ economics
One formula for every source, marketplace or ad platform. Use your own invoice for marketplace fees; this guide does not quote marketplace prices.
Full monthly cost
Platform fee or ad spend, plus management time, plus sales hours spent on that source’s enquiries multiplied by an hourly cost.
Cost per quote-ready RFQ
Full cost divided by enquiries that pass requirements review: specification, quantity and location in range.
Cost per order
Full cost divided by orders, reported on cohorts old enough to have closed.
Shared-lead flag
Note, per source, whether the request was likely sent to other suppliers too. It is a qualitative flag for win rate and price pressure, not a number.
Worked numbers
India and US: the cheaper source per enquiry is not the cheaper source per order
An Indian valve manufacturer and a US machining shop compare one marketplace with Google Ads over the same month.
| Source | Monthly cost | Enquiries | Quote-ready | Quotes | Orders | Cost per quote-ready | Cost per order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marketplace subscription | ₹50,000 | 120 | 30 | 12 | 1 | about ₹1,667 | ₹50,000 |
| Google Ads (spend and management time) | ₹60,000 | 40 | 16 | 8 | 2 | ₹3,750 | ₹30,000 |
| Marketplace with sales time (₹250 per enquiry) | ₹80,000 | 120 | 30 | 12 | 1 | about ₹2,667 | ₹80,000 |
| Google Ads with sales time (₹250 per enquiry) | ₹70,000 | 40 | 16 | 8 | 2 | ₹4,375 | ₹35,000 |
The marketplace wins per enquiry (about ₹417 against ₹1,500) and per quote-ready RFQ. Google Ads wins per order. Sales time, at 30 minutes per enquiry and ₹500 an hour, adds ₹30,000 to the marketplace and ₹10,000 to Google, widening the gap per order. One month and three orders prove nothing, so the decision is Review over two quarters, with no cut yet.
| Source | Monthly cost | RFQs | Quote-ready | Orders | Cost per RFQ | Cost per quote-ready | Cost per order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Directory programme | US$2,000 | 25 | 8 | 1 | US$80 | US$250 | US$2,000 |
| Google Ads | US$2,000 | 12 | 7 | 2 | about US$167 | about US$286 | US$1,000 |
Same budget, half the RFQs from Google, nearly the same number of quote-ready RFQs and twice the orders. Log whether each RFQ arrived with a drawing: it is a quick way to see which source sends buyers with real requirements.
When should you keep the marketplace?
Short answer
Keep a marketplace when its cost per order is at or below your owned channels, or when it reaches buyers you cannot reach elsewhere, such as categories where procurement only searches the directory, or export buyers discovering suppliers abroad. Downgrade after two quarters of owned channels matching it per order. Cut only when quote-ready rates stay low after fixing response time.
- Keep when the marketplace’s cost per order is equal to or lower than owned channels, or when it reaches buyers no other channel reaches.
- Downgrade to a lower tier when owned channels match its cost per order for two or more quarters.
- Cut when the quote-ready rate stays low even after you respond faster and qualify better.
- Overlap for two to three quarters before any cut, so owned-channel cohorts have time to close orders.
Two cases deserve special care. Exporters often use global marketplaces for discovery, which your domestic ads can’t replace. And some categories, often standard commodity parts, are bought almost entirely by comparing directory listings, where leaving the directory means leaving the market.
What replaces marketplace demand?
Short answer
Owned channels replace it: Google Search on capability and part-number terms, a website that accepts RFQs with drawings, LinkedIn ads to engineering and procurement roles, and trade shows. Other directories are an option too. Compare each against the marketplace on cost per quote-ready RFQ and per order before shifting budget.
- Google Search on capability, material, standard and part-number terms, with negative keywords for retail, DIY, jobs and students. The manufacturers playbook and distributors playbook cover term selection, and Zephra for Google Ads shows how search terms are judged by outcome.
- An RFQ form that qualifies. Ask for quantity, material or standard, and let buyers upload drawings. See form and capture optimisation.
- LinkedIn to engineering and procurement roles at target accounts, for mid-market suppliers with defined account lists. See LinkedIn ABM targeting.
- Trade shows, logged as their own source with the same stage definitions. See trade show paid ads.
- Tenders and vendor lists for project suppliers: see the EPC and engineering playbook.
How do you run both during the transition?
Short answer
Give every source its own tracking before you change any budget: a distinct phone number or email per source, a “where did you find us” question on the first call, and a source field in your CRM or sheet. Then compare quarterly cohorts on quote-ready RFQs and orders, over two to three quarters, before downgrading anything.
The source-tracking kit:
- A distinct phone number, WhatsApp number or email address for each marketplace and each ad platform.
- A “where did you find us?” question on the first call, recorded even when the lead came by phone.
- A source field and a stage field in the CRM or sheet, with the date each stage was reached.
- A quarterly table per source: full cost, enquiries, quote-ready RFQs, quotes, orders, cost per quote-ready and cost per order.
Report by cohort, meaning enquiries grouped by the month they arrived, so a new Google campaign isn’t judged on orders that haven’t had time to close. Paid media pipeline attribution explains cohort reporting, and cost per qualified lead covers the stage maths.
Failure modes
- Comparing on enquiry counts. The marketplace always wins, and the decision is wrong.
- Cancelling before owned cohorts mature. New campaigns look worse per order for the first quarter simply because orders haven’t closed.
- Google Ads bringing retail and DIY buyers. Without negatives and B2B qualifiers on the form, owned search can be noisier than the marketplace.
- Slow response to marketplace leads. Shared requests reward the first credible responder; a slow team makes any marketplace look bad. The sales handoff guide covers response discipline.
- No source on phone enquiries. Calls are often the best leads and the least tracked.
- Treating export discovery like domestic lead generation. The payback period and buyer type differ.
What changes with company size?
- SMB manufacturers often keep one marketplace and add a focused Google Search campaign on their strongest capability.
- Mid-market suppliers add LinkedIn to procurement and engineering roles at named accounts, and hold marketplaces to the same cost per order.
- Enterprise and OEM suppliers depend less on marketplaces; distributors, vendor lists and tenders matter more.
India, US and UAE notes
- India. IndiaMART, TradeIndia and ExportersIndia all sell access to shared buyer requirements, so the same economics apply to each. Follow-up is phone and WhatsApp first, so log both. A GST-registered buyer is a useful B2B qualifier. Lead forms need clear consent under the DPDP Act 2023.
- US. Thomasnet and MFG.com buyers often send RFQs with drawings, so your own landing pages should accept uploads. For defence parts, export-control requirements are a qualifier to capture, not a marketing claim. Keep call and text follow-up TCPA-compliant.
- UAE. Trading companies often use global B2B marketplaces for re-export demand. Compare them with Google and LinkedIn on the same stages, and run GCC countries as separate campaigns only where sales motion, pricing or language differ; see B2B paid ads in the UAE and GCC.
Questions, answered
Marketplaces vs paid ads FAQ
01Is an IndiaMART subscription worth it for manufacturers?
It depends on its cost per order, not its enquiry count. Add the subscription fee and the sales hours spent on its enquiries, divide by quote-ready RFQs and orders, and compare with your own campaigns over at least two quarters. Some manufacturers find it their cheapest source per order; others find it their most expensive.
03Why do marketplace leads only ask for price?
Because the buyer is comparing several suppliers at once. Price is the easiest thing to compare across responses. Ask one specification question in your first reply; buyers with a real requirement usually answer it, and price-only shoppers usually don’t.
04Can Google Ads work for industrial products in India?
Yes, when campaigns use capability, material and standard terms, negative keywords for retail, jobs and students, and a form that asks for quantity or specification. Judge them on quote-ready RFQs and orders, because cost per enquiry will usually be higher than on a marketplace.
05How long before our own ads can replace a marketplace?
Plan two to three quarters of overlap. Owned campaigns need time to learn, and their orders need time to close. Judge them on mature cohorts, enquiries old enough to have become orders, before downgrading the marketplace.
06What are the best Thomasnet alternatives for manufacturers?
The main alternatives are owned channels: Google Search campaigns on capability and part-number terms, a website that accepts RFQs with drawings, LinkedIn ads to engineering and procurement roles, and trade shows. Other directories are also options. Compare each against Thomasnet on cost per quote-ready RFQ and per order.
07Should exporters keep global B2B marketplaces?
Often, yes. Global marketplaces help foreign buyers discover suppliers in markets where you have no brand or sales presence. Keep them as a discovery channel, track their orders separately, and don’t judge them on the same payback period as domestic enquiries.
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