B2B Marketing News: Targeting B2B Buyers Takes Long-Term Lens, Where CMOs Are Spending, ABM Use Rises In B2B, US Influencer Spending To Top $3B, & Media Price Inflation Concerns

US influencer spending to surpass $3 billion in 2021
An increase of over 33 percent in influencer marketing spending is expected for 2021 — reaching $3.69 billion — recently-released forecast data shows, with a 12.2 percent rise predicted for 2022 and 11.5% in 2023, climbing to $4.62 billion, according to the forecast. eMarketer

Ehrenberg-Bass: 95% of B2B buyers are not in the market for your products
As many as 95 percent of businesses aren’t presently in the market for most services and goods, however not in all sectors, according to newly-released data from client LinkedIn and its LinkedIn B2B Institute. Marketing Week examines the data, and interviews Jann Martin Schwarz, global head of the LinkedIn B2B Institute, on targeting long-term B2B marketing goals and more. Marketing Week

B2B Marketers’ Biggest Lead Gen Challenges
45 percent of B2B marketers find creating targeted and engaging content the most difficult challenge when it comes to lead generation, followed by difficulty gathering quality data at 43 percent, and managing and tracking leads at 38 percent, according to recently-released B2B marketing survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingProfs

Account-based marketing propelled forward by the pandemic
80 percent of B2B buyers plan to do more business online after the pandemic than they did during pre-covid times, while at the same time 77 percent say purchases have become more complex and challenging, with six to 10 people now comprising the median size of buying groups, newly-released survey data shows. MarTech

CMOs: Budgets, Resources Are Constrained, Digital Investments Most Popular
Digital commerce, marketing operations, brand strategy and marketing analytics are the top content marketing officer investments, according to Gartner’s latest CMO Spend Survey, which also showed that over 72 percent of total marketing budgets are now pure-play digital channels. MediaPost

Google Launches New Way to Optimize Videos For Search
Google has brought easier markup to video content hosted on brands’ own sites with the latest Google SeektoAction change, making non-YouTube video segmentation and chapters possible, the search giant recently announced, expanding the previous beta test of the feature to a wider audience. Search Engine Journal

Ad Market Grows 35.2% In June, Marks Fourth Consecutive Month Of Expansion
Strong year-over-year growth has continued for the U.S. advertising economy, with June’s 35.2 percent increase in ad spending representing the third month in a row of growth, according to newly-released advertising index data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

Instagram Stories Drafts are Now Available to All Users
Crafting more thoughtful and detailed content is likely to become easier with the return of Instagram’s option to save Instagram Story drafts — a feature that had previously been removed, the Facebook-owned platform recently announced. Social Media Today

YouTube Begins Adding Chapters to Videos Automatically
Optional artificial intelligence (AI) generated video chapter …read more

Source:: Top Rank Blog