99 B2B Marketing Statistics to Back Your Bets

Undoubtedly, the most well-known fortune-teller in history was Nostradamus. Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting numerous events in world history including the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, and the development of the atomic bomb. In 1555, he published Les Prophesies, a collection of his major, long-term predictions; many of which are cited as truths today.

While Nostradamus didn’t leave us with any insights in regards to the future of B2B marketing in the 2020’s, many of my fellow content marketers like to put their Miss Cleo hats on and make predictions like “social media is dying!!!” or “ROBOTS ARE GOING TO STEAL ALL OUR JOBS!!!”

But with most marketing thought leadership being so hype-heavy, I’ve decided to take out the spin and serve you up with some hard data. We’re talking numbers, baby – and frankly, I think marketing content could use more of them.

I spent hours upon days scouring the internet for the most up-to-date and relevant marketing statistics you can use to inform your strategy, to stay ahead of the competition, or maybe just because you want to be the smarty-pants at the next company meeting.

Before you head off to the races, here are our 99 marketing statistics to back your bets!

On content marketing:

1. 9 out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchasing decision. (Unsplash, 2018)

2. Conversion rates are 6X higher for companies and brands using content marketing than those that aren’t. (Stratabeat, 2019)

3. 95% of B2B buyers consider content as trustworthy while evaluating a company and its offerings. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

4. 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. (Harvard Business Review, 2019)

5. Content marketing generates 3X as many leads for 62% less money than traditional marketing. (Toprankblog.com, 2018)

6. A staggering 74% of companies found that both lead quantity and quality drastically improved thanks to an informed content strategy. (Content Marketing Institute, 2018)

7. Long-form blog posts generate 9X more leads than short-form blog posts. (Curata, 2019)

8. 67% of the buyer’s journey is done digitally, through engaging with a company’s content (Hubspot, 2019)

On the marketing profession:

9. Here’s a fun one for you: In survey after survey, marketing is listed as one of the least valuable professions to humanity, scraping the bottom alongside politicians and civil servants. (CampaignLive, 2019)

10. 80% of CEOs don’t trust or are unimpressed with their CMOs (ouch!). In comparison, just 10% of the same CEOs say they feel that way about their CFOs and CIOs. (Harvard Business Review, 2017)

11. Experts predict by the year 2034 fully 47% of today’s jobs will be automated, and 65% of today’s students will be applying for jobs that don’t exist yet. The marketing prowess that landed you your current role will likely be outdated when you are vying for your next one. (Cloudpeeps.com, 2019)

12. CMOs earn an average of $160,000- $245,000/year (Creative Group, 2019)

13. VPs of digital marketing earn $140,000-$200,000 (Creative Group, 2019)

14. More than 50% of B2B marketers say they have created content based on original research in the past year (compared with only 35% of B2C marketers). (Roberthalf.com, 2019)

15. Among digital marketers who earn between $100,000 and $150,000, 42% have a bachelor’s degree and 25% have a master’s degree. (Hafizmuhammadali.com, 2019)

16. Some 43% of digital marketers who earn more than $150,000 have a bachelor’s degree, 23% have a master’s degree, and 27% have an MBA or a doctorate. (Hafizmuhammadali.com, 2019)

17. 82% of B2B technology marketers say “soft” abilities such as good communication and people management are the most important skills needed to succeed in the field. (Spiceworks, 2019)

18. Writing skills rank second (80% say they are very or extremely important), followed by content marketing skills (78%), digital media skills (77%), data analysis skills (77%), and email marketing skills (65%). (MarketingProfs, 2019)

On video marketing:

19. Nearly 9 in 10 (87% to be exact) companies use video as a marketing tool today. (Wyzowl.com, 2019)

20. 68% of consumers say a short video is their single most desired method for learning about new products. (Wyzowl.com, 2019)

21. Using video on a landing page can increase conversion by as much as 80% (Content Marketing Institute, 2017)

22. 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video (Statista.com, 2019)

23. 6 in 10 people say watching a video on Facebook has influenced their purchasing decisions. (Statista.com, 2019)

24. Nearly half on consumers engage with brand videos on Facebook every day. (Animoto.com, 2018)

On social media & employee advocacy:

25. Over 3 billion people (close to half the world’s population) are on some type of social media platform. (Statusbrew, 2019)

26. 79% of US internet users log into Facebook (Pew Research Center, 2019)

27. LinkedIn has over 560-million users in over 200 countries. (LinkedIn, 2019)

28. LinkedIn generates more total conversions than Facebook and Twitter combined! (LinkedIn, 2019)

29. 76% of people trust “normal” people more than official brand content (Weber Shandwick, 2019)

30. 8X more engagement from employee-shared content than by official brand channels. (Social Media Today, 2019)

31. Leads developed through employee social marketing convert 7X more frequently than other leads. (Bazaar Voice, 2019)

32. Earned media (press, word of mouth, peer-to-peer referrals) drive 4X the brand lift of paid media (Bazaar Voice, 2019)

33. 20-50% of purchasing decisions are driven by peer-to-peer marketing (McKinsey, 2019)

34. A social-media employee-advocacy program involving 1,000 active participants can generate 1.9M in advertising value. (Kredible, 2019)

35. 30% increase in gross return on ad spend for Facebook advertising. (Pew Research Center, 2019)

On robots taking over the world (or AI, to be more specific):

36. By 2020, businesses that use AI to uncover new insights will take $1.2 trillion each year from competitors that don’t, according to Forrester. (Business Insider, 2018)

37. According to InsideView, by the year 2020, 30% of all B2B companies will employ AI to augment at least one of their primary sales processes. (Business Insider, 2018)

38. 4 billion devices will carry AI-powered voice assistants this year. (Ihsmartkit.com, 2019)

39. The projected growth of the AI software market from 2016-2025 is $1.4 billion (Gartner, 2016)

40. 38% of jobs could be replaced by AI by the year 2030. (Forbes, 2019)

41. 62% of top executives use AI to identify opportunities for their organizations. (Narrativescience.com, 2018)

42. In the United States, $10 billion in venture capital is currently being invested into AI (Tractica, 2019)

On email marketing:

43. Email is the single most effective tactic for turning your prospects into loyal customers. In fact, 55% of companies generate more than 10% of sales from just sending emails. (Litmus, 2019)

44. Worldwide, there are an average of 88B business emails received per day. (Mailchimp, 2019)

45. 14% of women pay attention to marketing emails, as opposed to a mere 8% of men. (Emailmonday.com, 2018)

46. More than 50% of people agree that humor is acceptable in marketing emails. (Emailmonday.com, 2019)

47. 97% of business currently use email marketing to convert prospects into buyers. (Litmus, 2019)

48. 66% of consumers unsubscribe from emails because they aren’t relevant to them. (Expandedramblings.com, 2018)

49. 69% of consumers delete emails from marketers because they get too many emails from them. (Expandedramblings.com, 2019)

50. 58% of all top-performing companies use marketing automation to aid in their email marketing efforts. (Mailmunch, 2019)

51. Personalized email messages improve the click-through rate (CTR) by an average of 14% (CampaignMonitor, 2019)

52. Personalization also improves email conversion by an average of 10% (Chron.com, 2018)

53. CTR is higher when using the first name in the subject line (Chief Marketer, 2015)

54. Every $1 spent on email marketing generates an average of $38 in revenue (Experian, 2018)

55. 72% of people prefer to receive promotional content through email (Smartinsights.com, 2019)

56. Triggered email messages have 71% higher open rates and 102% higher click-through rates than non-triggered. (CampaignMonitor, 2019)

On mobile:

57. 74% of smartphone owners use their devices to check their email (Certona, 2017)

58. Mobile makes the majority of email opens (more than all other desktops and tablets combined) with 54% (Emailmonday.com, 2019)

59. 70% of consumers delete emails immediately that don’t render well on a mobile device (Emailmonday.com, 2019)

60. 23% of users who open an email on a mobile device open it again later (Hubspot, 2019)

61. The iPhone is the most common mobile device subscribers use to open their email for the first time. (Amazon, 2019)

62. Mobile advertising is anticipated to account for 30.5% of global advertising expenditure and total $187 billion in 2020. (Business Insider, 2016)

On podcasts:

63. Nearly 30% of Americans now listen to at least one podcast on a regular basis, and 44% of the US population have listened to a podcast at some point. (Edison Research, 2019)

64. More than 70 million people actively look for engaging podcast content (Edison Research, 2019)

65. Podcast listeners are 45% more likely to have a college degree than non-listeners. (Nielsen, 2019)

66. Podcast listeners are 48% more likely to be post-graduates. (Nielsen, 2019)

67. They are 45% more likely to have an annual income over $250,000. (Nielsen, 2019)

68. 80% of listeners listen to most or all of each episode. (IAB, 2019)

69. Those who listen weekly spend over 6.5 hours each week listening to podcasts. (IAB, 2019)

70. 69% of podcast listeners said podcast ads have made them aware of new products or services. (PwC, 2019)

71. Spending on podcast ads has increased from $69 million in 2015 to an expected $402 million this year (2019), and that number is only expected to rise in the next years. (Pacific Content, 2019)

72. Podcast ads result in an average 14% lift in purchase intent for brands who advertise in business products. (Pacific Content, 2019)

On millennials:

73. Millennials have a major impact in B2B buying and selling, with a whopping 44% of the workforce being millennials by 2025. (Forrester, 2017)

74. 69% prefer to engage vendors during the sales cycle using email (Insideview, 2018)

75. 36% weigh the opinions of friends and family before deciding to purchase B2B products/services. (Insideview, 2018)

76. 69% will post a positive comment on social media if they’re happy B2B clients! (IBM, 2018)

On SEO:

77. Search engines drive 300% more traffic as compared to social media (Branex, 2019)

78. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine (Branex, 2019)

79. 75% of users never click past the first page of search results (Spiralytics, 2019)

80. 87% of buyers perform an online search before making large purchase decisions (Branex, 2019)

81. 75% of users ignore paid ads and click on organic results (SEO Sherpa, 2018)

82. SEO-sourced leads have a 14.6% conversion rate as compared to only 1.7% for outbound marketing methods (Branex, 2019)

On voice search:

83. Every month, there are over one billion voice searches worldwide. (Strategy Analytics, 2019)

84. According to Google, 20% of mobile queries are voice searches. (Google, 2019)

85. 55% of households are expected to own smart-speaker devices by 2022. (Prnewswire.com, 2019)

86. Researchers estimate that more than 50% of all searches will be voice-based by 2020. (ComScore, 2018)

87. Nearly 20% of all voice search queries are triggered by a set of 25 keywords (think how, what, best) (Hubspot, 2018)

88. Voice search is expected to be a $40 billion channel by 2022. (Hubspot, 2019)
On marketing measurement:

89. 91% Of marketers agree that return-on-marketing-investment (ROMI) is a top priority. (DemandGen Report, 2017)

90. 40% say their measurement strategy needs improvement (DemandGen Report, 2018)

91. A mere 13% of marketers rank their current measurement strategy as excellent (DemandGen Report, 2018)

92. 72% of marketers purchase an attribution platform to show their impact on pipeline and revenue, and 68% purchase it to show ROMI (BrightFunnel, 2019)

93. 51% of marketers are still only using excel spreadsheets to measure their marketing efforts. (BrightFunnel, 2019)

94. Only 23% of marketers currently have revenue-based quotas, and 10% have no plans to set goals in the future. (BrightFunnel, 2019)

On marketing dollars:

95. By 2020, researchers predict digital ad spending will surpass television by 38%, or comprise 71% of marketer’s budgets. (Zenith, 2019)

96. Companies are spending most of their marketing dollars on SEO and displays like banner ads and online videos. (Zenith, 2019)

97. Videos are growing faster than other web marketing tool, with investments in them expected to double by 2021. (Spiceworks, 2019)

98. Social media advertising represents about one-quarter of total online marketing spend. (Payscale, 2018) (Marketingcharts.com, 2018)

99. Email marketing is still dominant with the best ROI, social media comes in a close second. (Spiceworks, 2018)

Bonus Statistic

Wow! Congrats for reading all the way to the end. Or maybe you just skimmed here. Regardless, here’s a bonus statistic just for you.

100. You lose 100% of the hotdog eating contests you don’t enter… just saying.

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