B2B brands are pushing ahead, with 74% increasing their budgets this year — up from 68% in 2021, according to State of B2B Digital Marketing, a study by Ascend2 and Wpromote.
But they face challenges, including privacy and the loss of third-party cookies.
Only 36% are completely prepared for impending data privacy changes, although 67%
among best-in-class B2B marketers are. Overall, 60% are somewhat ready, and only 4% not at all.
Email is key to brand strategy as firms deal with the loss of
third-party cookies (despite the decline of email open rates as a metric due to Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection). They are employing:
- Content marketing
— 48%
- Email marketing/automation — 45%
- First-party data collection — 40%
- Investing in
technology/CDPs/data clean rooms — 30%
- Upper-funnel paid media campaigns — 28%
- Other — 7%
Of course, revenue is
the top marketing objective in 2022. B2B marketers seek to:
- Increase revenue — 51%
- Improve brand awareness —
37%
- Improve customer experience — 31%
- Deliver quality leads — 31%
- Deliver more leads — 30%
But the main challenges are different:
- Delivering quality leads —
35%
- Generating enough leads — 32%
- Improving customer experience — 32%
- Producing quality content
— 31%
- Aligning marketing and sales — 31%
Despite these imperatives, only 12% plan to significantly increase their marketing
budget this year, down from 26% in 2021. But 62% will boost them moderately, versus 42% last year. Another 5% will keep them as is, but few expect decreases.
Less than a third of
companies plan to increase their email budgets this year:
- Social media—52%
- Content
marketing—44%
- Paid search—32%
- Email—27%
- Display
advertising—26%
- Organic search—22%
- Streaming TV (CTV, OTT)—21%
Ascend2 and Wpromote surveyed 321 B2B marketing professionals, including 23% from firms with revenue of $100 million to $500 million, 23% with $25 million-$100 million, 20% with $10
million-$25 million, 13% with $1 billion+ and 10% with less than $10 million.
Of this sample, 34% rate themselves as best-in-class, and 36% as being in growth mode
(10% in the last year).
Email ranks third in terms of driving revenue:
- Social media — 50%
- Content marketing —
47%
- Email—41%
- Display advertising — 28%
- Paid search — 28%
- Organic search — 26%
- Streaming TV (CTV, OTT) — 21%
In the upper funnel, which is the place for building
brand awareness and educating prospects, email is second as a tactic:
- Social media—47%
- Email—45%
- Paid search—30%
- Interactive content—30%
- Site content
including blog—23%
But when you get to the bottom of the funnel, when the customer is moving toward conversion, email is first:
- Email — 44%
- Social media — 38%
- Paid search — 31%
- Virtual events
— 26%
- Interactive content — 23%
At the front end, brands face these obstacles to successful lead generation:
- Collecting
quality data — 41%
- Creating targeted/engaging content — 37%
- Managing and tracking leads—33%
- Measuring channel performance and attributing leads — 26%
- Communicating with sales/aligning goals — 25%
- Tracking touchpoints across channels — 22%
- Building an efficient tech stack — 19%
- Targeting
with less third-party data — 18%
What are they measuring? The top KPIs are:
- ROI — 40%
- Conversion rate
(lead to opportunity — 37%
- Website traffic — 34%
- Cost-per-lead —
33%
- Attributed revenue — 27%
- Customer acquisition cost — 27%
- Lifetime value
— 25%
- Lead volume (MQL’s & SQL’s) — 23%