The State of B2B Content Marketing in Q4 2019 (Including 70+ Statistics) 

The world of B2B content marketing is constantly changing.

As technology and best practices evolve, so do marketing strategies. While there’s a certain amount of testing, creativity, and intuition that goes into marketing decisions, you can and should rely on data to shape your strategy.

In this post, I’m sharing more than 70 B2B content marketing stats that will help you with your marketing strategy going into 2020.

GENERAL MARKETING STATISTICS

In this section, we’re taking a look at general marketing trends and stats in the B2B space. SaaS companies and B2B marketers should pay attention to voice search and VR as they become more popular among consumers.

1. “My Activity” is a place where users can go to manage information that’s saved to their Google Account like their search and browsing history. Since 2016, search interest for this phrase has increased by more than 1000% worldwide. (Think with Google)
2. 90% of top-performing B2B content marketers say that they put their audience’s informational needs first. (Content Marketing Institute)
3. 73% of B2B content marketers will use personas for content marketing purposes by end of 2018. (Content Marketing Institute)
4. VR is predicted to make up 40% of all B2B experiences by 2022. (B2B Marketing)
5. 65.2% of study respondents in a global survey of 500 B2B buyers said that they found value in discussing their situations with salespeople. Only 6.2% wished to buy B2B online and never deal with salespeople again. (CSO Insights)
6. By the time you interact with a prospective B2B customer, they’ve already conducted 12 online searches on average. (Think with Google)
7. 96% most successful B2B content marketers say audiences view their company as trusted resource. (Content Marketing Institute report –  B2B Content Marketing 2019: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends)
8. IBM study reveals that nearly 60% of the organizations surveyed see GDPR as an opportunity to improve privacy, security, data management, or as a catalyst for new business models, instead of just a compliance issue or impediment. (IBM)

SEO STATISTICS

Search engine optimization is as relevant today as it was when it first emerged. Google algorithms change often, but B2B marketers producing frequent, quality content can expect to continue using SEO to their advantage.

Voice search is on the rise, and marketers should produce their content to appeal to audiences using audio technology. Search is no longer limited to the desktop.

1. Voice search is expected to make up 50% of all web searches by 2020.
2. Google currently processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average and the number only continues to increase. (Internet Live Stats)
3. Google My Business marketing site, for example, saw a near 2X increase in organic traffic. (Think with Google)
4. 70% of respondents in a poll of 58 marketers claimed SEO is better than PPC for generating sales. (Databox)
5. 86.5% of marketing respondents said their PPC campaigns inform their SEO efforts. (Databox)
6. CMI research revealed that only 13% of organizations in content marketing viewed voice search as a concern, though the topic is generating a lot of buzz. (Content Marketing Institute)
7. In Q1 2019, Google sent 7.2% of all search clicks to paid results. (SparkToro)
8. Think with Google saw a 64% increase in organic web traffic after consolidating content for 6 websites. (Think with Google)

BLOGGING STATISTICS

More brands are jumping on the podcast bandwagon and for a good reason. As the number of podcast audiences continues to grow, brands can take advantage of this to get their product in front of the right listeners.

1. The first 48 hours of a video’s life are the most important on YouTube for engagement. Creating a page on your blog dedicated to the video and promoting it in those 48 hours will give you a higher watch time. (Social Media Examiner)
2. One blog grew its traffic by 650% over two years by increasing its number of contributors from 3 to 8. They accomplished this by using people in all departments that liked to write, not just the hired writers. (Moz)
3. 80% of bloggers in a recent study reportedly optimize images for their blog. (Bannersnack)
4. 43% of people say that they only skim blog posts. (HubSpot)
5. Websites with blogs have their pages indexed by search engines 434% more than those without a blog. (Social Media Examiner)
6. The number of bloggers in the United States is expected to reach 31.7 million in 2020. (Statista)

PODCAST STATISTICS

More brands are jumping on the podcast bandwagon and for good reason. As the number of podcast audiences continues to grow, brands can take advantage of this to get their product in front of the right listeners.

1. Apple is home to over 525,000 active podcast shows with more than 18.5 million episodes available. (Fast Company)
2. 65% of monthly podcast listeners have listened to podcasts for less than 3 years. (Podcast Insights)
3. 32% of households listened to a podcast within the last month. This is up from 26% in 2018. (Podcast Insights)
4. 78.0% of podcast listeners do not mind advertisements as a means of supporting the content. (WARC)
5. Podcasts will account for 4.5% of all audio ad spend in 2022, up from 1.9% in 2018. (WARC)
6. 53% of listeners use YouTube for podcasts, 28.8% use Apple, and 28.3% use Spotify. (WARC)
7. Podcasts generate up to 4.4x better brand recall than display ads on other digital media platforms. (Nielsen)
8. There was an average 10% increase in purchase intent among listeners exposed to a podcast ads. (Nielsen)
9. There was a 43% greater recall with a longer, customized version of an ad, compared to the conventional, shorter ad for the same product. (Nielsen)

MOBILE STATISTICS

There’s no denying that smartphones have ingrained themselves into both our personal and business lives. The stats below show how mobile usage has impacted search engines, ad revenue, and the way consumers interact with brands.

1. Mobile accounts for nearly 50% of web traffic worldwide. (Statista)
2. 31% of companies have not made the jump to mobile-first. (Moz)
3. 57% of online traffic in the United States happens on smartphones and tablets. (BrightEdge)
4. 63.8% of global mobile searches are made through Chrome as of Oct 2019. (Stat Counter)
5. 92% of Facebook ad revenue came from mobile for Q3 2018 compared to 88% in Q3 2017. (Facebook Investor Relations)
6. Users spend an average of 2 hours and 51 minutes a day on their smartphones. (Bank My Cell)
7. 92% of videos viewed through mobile are shared as opposed to other modes of access. (Forbes)

SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn are just a few of the social media platforms where B2B marketers are successfully connecting with their audiences. Here are some numbers that show the importance of social media in a successful content marketing strategy.

1. Twitter monitors abusive content closely, and >50% of Tweets removed for abusive content in Q3 were taken down without a bystander or report. (Twitter)
2. Twitter grew their average monetizable daily active usage (DAU) by 17% year-over-year, reaching 145 million in Q3, with ongoing product improvements. (Twitter)
3. A recent study showed that Twitter users spend 24% more time with ads that come from creators, compared to those posted directly by brands. (Twitter)
4. Recall of branded creator posts leads to 41% increased purchase intent and reinforces the value of audience-first content. (Twitter)
5. The number of social media users has reached over 3.2 billion. (Hootsuite)
6. At $0.82, CPCs are higher on Instagram than they are on Facebook at $0.19. (Business of Apps)
7. 35% of Instagram users view and post Instagram stories. (Social Media Examiner)
8. Users are now spending 53 minutes per day consuming content on Instagram. (Social Media Examiner)
9. 89% of B2B businesses are using Facebook. (Hootsuite)
10. LinkedIn users have 2x the buying power compared to the average web audience. (LinkedIn)
11. 61% of B2B marketers have increased content marketing through social media compared to just one year ago. (LinkedIn)
12. People spend an average of 142 per day on social media. (Digital Information World)

VIDEO STATISTICS

Video consumption is on the rise and brands that aren’t already creating video content have no time to lose. These stats show how video affects purchasing decisions, engagement, and information retention in consumers.

1. 80% of people say they switch between video and online search when researching products to buy. (Think with Google)
2. In a recent study, a video ad sequence of three 6-second ads had a significantly higher impact than a single 30-second ad. (Think with Google)
3. 62% of B2B marketers rate video as the most important format they will use for content this year. Just 48% chose email, 36% chose other forms of social media creative, 29% chose infographics, and 23% chose case studies. (LinkedIn)
4. Building brand awareness is the most common driver for investing in B2B video content and 62% of study respondents chose it as their reason for creating video. 93% agree that video gives brands more opportunity for storytelling and demonstrating creativity. (LinkedIn)
5. 87% of B2B marketers say in the coming year that they plan to experiment more with how they use video. (LinkedIn)
6. 90% of consumers say that product videos directly inform their purchase decisions. (Forbes)
7. Companies using video content experience a 41% increase in traffic through web searches compared to those that don’t include video in their content strategies. (Forbes)
8. 95% of consumers retain information through video, while only 10% retain information from reading. (Forbes)
9. 85% of people that watch video on Facebook do so without sound. Add captions to your social media videos so viewers don’t have to rely on sound to understand it. (Social Media Examiner)
10. According to the 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 50% of marketers are producing videos on YouTube and Facebook, 38% are using Instagram Stories, and 26% are using native Instagram videos like IGTV. (Social Media Examiner)
11. LinkedIn users spend almost 3x more time watching video ads compared to time spent with static sponsored content. (LinkedIn)

EMAIL MARKETING STATISTICS

Email marketing is one of the most effective and targeted ways to distribute content. Contrary to what some marketers may claim, email remains one of the top ways to communicate with customers. People using and preferring email communication continues to grow, and marketers should focus on creating content that nurtures their subscribers.

1. 58% of respondents in a recent study say they’ve used content marketing successfully to nurture subscribers, audiences, or leads in the last 12 months. One of the top methods is email at 87%. (Content Marketing Institute)
2. Using a CTA button in place of a text link increased click-throughs by 28% in a recent study. (Campaign Monitor)
3. Emails are 6x more likely to get a click-through than Tweets. (Campaign Monitor)
4. Over 50% of the world population used email in 2019. (Radicati)
5. 63% of United States email users have only one email account. (Statista)
6. Segmented campaigns result in as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (Campaign Monitor)
7. The United States is estimated to spend over $350 million on email advertising in 2019. (Statista)
8. The number of worldwide email users is expected to grow to over 4.3 billion people by the end of 2023. (Radicati)
9. By the end of 2019, the number of business emails sent and received per user per day is expected to average 126 emails per day. (Radicati)

PAID ADS STATISTICS

Despite the rising number of ad blockers in use, PPC ads continue to take a significant portion of a B2B marketing budget. Why? Because they still work.

Paid search and social ads continue to increase brand awareness and generate leads for both B2B and B2C companies.

1. 30% of B2B marketers think paid advertising like billboards, outdoor, and print are overrated. (Pure B2B)
2. Paid search ads improve brand awareness by 80%. (SEO Tribunal)
3. 46% of user clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on the SERP. (SEO Tribunal)
4. 43% of new customers make their first purchase of a product because they saw it in a YouTube ad. (SEO Tribunal)
5. 3.17% is the average click-through rate for Google Ads on the search network, and 0.46% is the rate on the display network. (SEO Tribunal)
6. The average CPC for a Google Ad is $2.69 on the search network, but only $0.63 on the display network. (SEO Tribunal)
7. Brand awareness can increase by 46% when companies appear in mobile search ad results. (SEO Tribunal)

CONCLUSION

B2B marketers have a wide variety of marketing tactics to reach their audiences. Assessing the trends above will help you create the right content marketing strategy for your customers.

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