B2B marketing is evolving at a breakneck pace, which is a polite way of saying that if you look away for five minutes, you’ll return to find that AI has taken your job and your company now has a TikTok strategy. The global B2B market is projected to reach a staggering $28 trillion in 2024, meaning businesses are in an all-out scramble to boost brand awareness, generate leads, and convince potential customers that, yes, their software is somehow different from the ten other nearly identical options on the market.
Content marketing remains the crown jewel of B2B strategies, with 92% of marketers churning out short articles and posts, 76% producing videos, and 75% relying on case studies to prove that their product has, in fact, helped someone, somewhere. But despite all this effort, a good portion of B2B marketers are still wandering through the dark when it comes to measuring performance—56% admit they struggle to track customer journeys, which is marketing-speak for “we have no idea if any of this is working.” Meanwhile, AI-powered automation and predictive analytics are becoming the new must-haves, with 56% of marketers planning to use AI in 2025 to create hyper-personalized content, ideally without making it sound like a robot wrote it.
And then, of course, there’s LinkedIn—the undisputed heavyweight champion of B2B marketing, where 85% of marketers swear by its value, even if most of us secretly log in just to congratulate strangers on their work anniversaries and then immediately leave.
In this article, we’ll break down the latest B2B marketing statistics, unpacking how content trends, AI adoption, and marketing automation are reshaping the way businesses try (and sometimes fail) to engage their target audiences. Because in a world where every company claims to be a thought leader, the real challenge is finding a way to make anyone actually care.
- Content Types Utilized: 92% of B2B marketers use short articles/posts, 76% use videos, and 75% use case studies/customer stories. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Content Marketing Achievements: 87% of B2B marketers say content marketing created brand awareness in the last 12 months. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Challenges in Measuring Content Performance: The two challenges cited most often for B2B marketers measuring content performance are attributing ROI to content efforts (56%) and tracking customer journeys (56%). contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Social Media Platform Effectiveness: 85% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the social media platform that delivers the best value for their organization. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Use of Paid Channels: 84% of B2B marketers use paid channels to distribute content, with 73% utilizing social media advertising/promoted posts. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Investment in Video Content: 61% of B2B marketers expect their organization’s investment in video to increase in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Global B2B Market Size: The global B2B market is estimated to reach $28 trillion in 2024, reflecting the growing demand for digitization. sellerscommerce.com
- Brand Awareness Priority: 84% of B2B marketers stated that brand awareness is their top goal. protocol80.com
- Presence of Brand Programs: Only 54% of businesses have a B2B brand program in place for measuring brand perceptions. protocol80.com
- Content Performance Metrics: Conversions are the most common metric to evaluate content performance among B2B marketers. backlinko.com
- Marketing Goal Achievement: 74% of marketers set goals, but only 50% always or most of the time achieve them. backlinko.com
- Digital Marketing Spend: In 2024, offline U.S. B2B advertising and marketing spending was estimated at $39.1 billion, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total spending. statista.com
- Use of Marketing Automation: The B2B marketing automation market was valued at $2.1 billion in 2020 and more than $2.74 billion in 2021. en.wikipedia.org
- Lead Generation Challenges: 76% of B2B tech buyers drop out because of high costs. vib.tech
- Channel Management: B2B marketing manages an average of 10.2 channels in 2024, double the number managed in 2016. swordandthescript.com
- Content Marketing Achievements: 74% of B2B marketers reported that content marketing generated demand/leads in the last 12 months. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Use of AI in Marketing: Most B2B marketing teams (54%) take an ad hoc approach to AI, experimenting but not necessarily applying it widely. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Trust in AI Outputs: Only 4% of B2B marketers report a high level of trust in generative AI’s outputs. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Content Distribution Channels: 89% of B2B marketers use organic social media platforms to distribute content. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Effectiveness of Webinars: 55% of B2B marketers use webinars, which are among the distribution channels that produce the best results for their content marketing. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Expected Budget Changes: 46% of B2B marketers think their content marketing budget will increase in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Investment in Thought Leadership: 52% of B2B marketers expect investment to increase in thought leadership content in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Use of Case Studies: 75% of B2B marketers use case studies/customer stories in their content marketing efforts. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Effectiveness of LinkedIn: 85% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn delivers the best value for their organization among social media platforms. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Use of Paid Social Media Advertising: 73% of B2B marketers use social media advertising/promoted posts as part of their paid content distribution strategy. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Digital Self-Serve Channels: More than half of large B2B transactions (over $1 million) are expected to be processed through digital self-serve channels by 2025. forrester.com
- AI Integration: In 2025, there will be an increased integration of artificial intelligence in B2B marketing for hyper-personalization and predictive analytics. forbes.com
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Adoption: 67% of brands are utilizing ABM strategies, with 93% of SaaS marketers rating ABM as highly successful. rollworks.com
- Video Investment: 61% of B2B marketers plan to increase their organization’s investment in video content in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- AI-Powered Automation: 56% of B2B marketers will prioritize AI-powered automation in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- First-Party Data Utilization: 91% of marketers are expected to use intent data for account prioritization and personalized content strategies in 2025. rollworks.com
- Predictive Analytics Adoption: Ad-influenced accounts progress 234% faster through the sales pipeline than non-ad-influenced ones, highlighting the impact of predictive analytics. rollworks.com
- Personalization Impact: Companies using personalized ABM messaging have seen a 50% improvement in customer re-engagement rates. rollworks.com
- Tech Stack Consolidation: Companies consolidating their tech stacks report a 29% reduction in operating costs. rollworks.com
- Hybrid Events: Hybrid events, blending physical and virtual experiences, are becoming the standard in B2B marketing. rollworks.com
- Purpose-Driven Marketing: 38% of marketers believe AI will reduce ABM costs, allowing a focus on campaigns that highlight brand values such as sustainability and diversity. rollworks.com
- In-Person Events: In-person events are expected to become a key strategy in B2B marketing in 2025. cognism.com
- Social Media Advertising: B2B marketers are prioritizing investments in social media advertising in 2025. digitalcommerce360.com
- Podcast Advertising: There is an increasing focus on podcast advertising among B2B marketers in 2025. digitalcommerce360.com
- Content Performance Measurement: 45% of B2B marketers use social media shares to gauge the success of their marketing efforts. dbswebsite.com
- Web Traffic as a Metric: 60% of B2B marketers view web traffic as the gold standard for measuring marketing success. dbswebsite.com
- Lead Generation Challenges: 76% of B2B tech buyers drop out because of high costs. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Content Creation Models: Nearly half (45%) of B2B marketers lack a scalable model for content creation. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- AI Experimentation: 81% of B2B marketers are experimenting with generative AI tools. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- AI Integration in Workflows: Only 19% of B2B marketers have integrated AI into their daily processes and workflows. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Content Distribution Channels: 89% of B2B marketers use organic social media platforms to distribute content. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- LinkedIn Effectiveness: 85% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn delivers the best value for their organization among social media platforms. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Paid Content Distribution: 84% of B2B marketers use paid channels to distribute content, with 73% utilizing social media advertising/promoted posts. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Search Engine Marketing Success: 61% of B2B marketers report that search engine marketing/pay-per-click is the paid channel that produces the best results for their content marketing. contentmarketinginstitute.com
- Content Marketing Budget Expectations: 46% of B2B marketers think their content marketing budget will increase in 2025. contentmarketinginstitute.com
B2B marketing is undergoing a transformation so rapid and relentless that even seasoned professionals are probably wondering when they signed up for this rollercoaster. Companies are throwing money at content, AI, and data-driven strategies with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for lottery winners, all in an effort to boost engagement and prove that their game-changing, industry-disrupting product is not just another glorified spreadsheet. With digital self-serve channels on the rise and predictive analytics shortening sales cycles, businesses have two choices: adapt or watch their competitors beat them to the punch while they’re still figuring out how to send a properly formatted email newsletter.
And while LinkedIn remains the undisputed networking playground of the B2B world—where everyone pretends they love thought leadership posts and nobody ever admits they’re just there to skim job listings—marketers are expanding their horizons. Hybrid events are making a comeback, personalized ABM messaging is the new gold standard, and AI-powered automation is streamlining operations in ways that make human employees wonder if they should start being extra nice to their robot overlords.
To survive in this increasingly chaotic landscape, B2B marketers must embrace every new tool, trend, and buzzword with a mix of optimism and mild panic. They’ll need to integrate innovative technologies, optimize content strategies, and—perhaps most difficult of all—figure out how to actually measure success without relying on vague metrics like “brand awareness.” By staying agile and data-driven, businesses can navigate the ever-evolving world of B2B marketing and, with any luck, emerge on the other side still pretending they have it all under control.