B2B marketing strategies are booming. It’s easy to see. In 2024, Salesforce brought in Matthew McConaughey to promote its AI security capabilities.

 If that doesn’t scream “B2B has arrived,” we don’t know what else does.

It’s not just star power, however. 

• B2B advertising spending in the U.S. is estimated to hit $23B by 2026.
• Projections see the B2B e-commerce market reaching $47,772.6B by 2030.
• More than 70% of B2B companies have a formal marketing plan.

In short: the B2B marketing space is cluttered. 

Looking to break through the noise in 2025? We’ve compiled the data from this past year so you have all the info you need to build the best B2B marketing strategies in 2025. 

Keep reading to see which content types, distribution channels, and trends will influence your B2B marketing strategies most.

B2B Marketing Strategies: Key Insights From 2024

Content Distribution Trends

Source: MarketingProfs

Research shows that top B2B content marketers leverage over 20 channels. The majority use nine key platforms to drive effective lead generation. B2B marketing strategies should include as many effective digital distribution channels as possible to effectively reach and engage target audiences.

Source: MarketingProfs

Research suggests that in 2024, the actual number of touchpoints before a sale varies between 1 and 50—depending on the prospect’s buying stage. 

Every interaction represents a chance to engage and provide value. By diversifying content formats in B2B marketing strategies—such as blogs, videos, webinars, and thought leadership—B2B businesses can address specific customer pain points and preferences. 

Aligning content with customer intent not only captures attention but guides audiences toward confident, informed decisions.

Effective Content Types

Source: MarketingProfs

One of the primary challenges impacting traffic volume and conversion rates for B2B marketing strategies is when B2B businesses limit the variety of inbound marketing content types. 

Expanding into new formats can help B2B businesses engage a wider audience and better align with diverse consumer preferences.

Source: MarketingProfs

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, personalized and dynamic content is essential to connect with diverse audiences. 

Given the challenges surrounding content creation, B2B businesses must allocate time and resources strategically to develop impactful content. 

By tailoring B2B marketing strategies to align with each stage of the customer journey, companies can ensure relevance, build trust, and foster stronger, long-lasting relationships with prospects and customers.

Goals and Content Marketing Benchmarks

To make your mark in 2025, it’s essential to set benchmarks that determine if you hit your goals. Here are some of the goals B2B marketing strategies should set forth.

Goals of B2B Marketing

Increase Brand Awareness

The foundation of any effective strategy is making sure your brand is not just known, but trusted. For B2B, this often means becoming synonymous with thought leadership, industry expertise, and reliability.

Generate Qualified Leads

Beyond quantity, focus on quality. The goal is to attract leads that align with your ideal customer profile and sales personas, creating a higher likelihood of conversion.

Drive Engagement and Nurture Relationships

Building meaningful, long-term relationships through consistent and valuable interactions at every stage of the buyer’s journey is a must.

Demonstrate ROI and Drive Conversions

Ultimately, the goal is to convert prospects into customers and showcase the direct value of your marketing efforts in driving revenue.

Strengthen Customer Retention and Advocacy

Retaining customers and turning them into brand advocates establishes sustained growth and reduces churn.

Content Marketing Benchmarks to Measure Success

To reach your goals, here are some content marketing benchmarks that should be placed throughout your B2B marketing strategies.

Brand Awareness Metrics

• Website Traffic Growth: Measure increases in unique visitors, particularly from target industries or demographics. It depends on your pipeline, industry, and audience, but a 10-20% monthly increase in web traffic is a good benchmark for content marketing.

• Social Media Engagement: Look at shares, likes, comments, and follower growth on professional platforms like LinkedIn. A 3% engagement rate and above is generally considered good for B2B on social media.

B2B Lead Generation Statistics

• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): Track how many leads fit your criteria for readiness to engage. An average benchmark from website visitor to lead is 2-4%. The benchmark for lead to MQL is generally around 25-35%.

• Cost Per Lead (CPL): Assess the efficiency of your lead generation efforts. Here are the CPL averages for different content types, according to VisitorQueue:

Engagement and Nurturing Metrics

• Email Engagement Rates: Open rates, click-through rates, and responses can indicate interest and relevance. For B2B, emails have an average open rate of 15.14%, a click rate of 3.18%, and a click-through rate of 21%.

• Time Spent on Content: Monitor metrics like session duration, downloads of gated content, or time spent on page. The average time spent on page for B2B is 82 seconds.

Conversion Metrics

• Lead-to-Customer Rate: Calculate the percentage of leads that convert to paying customers. An average lead-to-conversion rate is 7%, but we think that is slightly high for B2B.

• Revenue Growth Attributed to Marketing: Attribute revenue back to specific campaigns or channels to showcase direct impact. There is no consistent number for this metric in B2B, as it concerns the company’s internal wants for ROI. However, the average content marketing ROI for B2B is $5 for every $1 you spend—a ratio of 5:1.

Retention and Advocacy Metrics

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Understand the long-term revenue generated by customers acquired through marketing efforts. As an industry benchmark, there is no one number because it depends on your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). However, you should aim to earn 3x as much from your customers over their lifetime as the amount you spent acquiring them.

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauge how likely your customers are to recommend your brand to others. The average NPS for B2B is anywhere from 39 to 76.

Digital Marketing Trends 2025

AI Integration in Marketing

Going into 2025, marketing leaders’ top priority is implementing AI/Machine Learning technology to drive results. Right now, only 28% of marketers say they don’t use AI tools. This is for a few reasons, including: 

• Lack of guidelines 
• Accuracy concerns 
• Lack of training
• Lack of understanding 
• Copyright concerns
• Corporate mandates 

For the marketers who are using AI, a majority use free tools like ChatGPT in their B2B marketing strategies, 38% use tools integrated into their content management systems, and others are paying for third-party apps (i.e. Writer or Jasper).

Many B2B marketers surveyed predict AI will dominate the discussions of content marketing trends in 2024. AI will continue to be the shiny thing through 2025 until marketers realize the dedication required to develop prompts, go through the iterative process, and fact-check output. 

AI can help you sharpen your skills, but it isn’t a replacement solution for B2B marketing. Here’s how AI’s integration in search engines shifts content marketers’ SEO strategy in 2024:

• 31% are using AI to hone in on user intent and answering questions
• 27% are using AI to create more thought leadership content
• 22% are using AI to develop conversational content

Source: MarketingProfs

Dynamic Creative Engines

According to 48% of marketing leaders, dynamic creative engines are going to have the biggest impact on B2B marketing strategies in 2025. But not just improving them: integrating AI to get a perfect mixture of personalization and efficiency.

A dynamic creative engine is a piece of technology that personalizes ads in real-time based on changing customer data. These engines can change images, text, layout, calls-to-action, user experience, etc.

The key, however, is scaling the campaigns dynamic creative engines produce.

With AI, dynamic creative engine campaigns will be able to grow without a proportional increase in resources or work. 

What that means? 

Ad creative being created instantly based on real-time data, with less human intervention than ever before.

Paid Media Effectiveness

Paid media is still an powerful tactic in B2B marketing strategies. Here are some of the stats we compiled about paid media efforts in 2024, and how they’ll continue into 2025.

Most Popular Paid Content Channels

Here are the paid channels marketers are using most to promote their B2B products or services:

• Social Media Advertising: 78%
• Sponsorships: 65%
• Search Engine Marketing: 64%
• Digital Display Advertising: 59%

B2B marketing strategies are moving further away from traditional media. 

• 35% invest in native advertising
• 29% invest in partner emails
• 21% invest in print display ads

Which Paid Content Channels Work Best?

Check below to see which paid media strategies have the best chance of producing excellent results throughout 2025:

Source: MarketingProfs

Google Remains King

Here’s how paid search engine marketing is influencing B2B marketing strategies, according to WordStream:

• 90% of internet users will see a Google Ad during their online experience
• 155% Increase in user’s search activity after being served a display ad
• 45% total amount of page clicks on Search Results driven from ads
• 27% of consumers search for a business after seeing their display ad
• 70% of users are more likely to convert after being served a retargeting ad
• PPC drives 2x the number of website visitors compared to SEO

What’s the ROI and Break-Even Point for B2B Marketing?

One important thing to remember about B2B marketing strategies: it’s not a light switch; you can’t just flip it on. It takes time to build and compound. Here’s the breakdown of how long it takes to break even with B2B marketing and the amount of ROI you can expect compared to cost.

Source: FirstPageSage

Recommendations for B2B Businesses

Adopt Multi-Channel Strategies to Reduce Reliance on a Single Traffic Source

Relying on a single traffic source is a risk B2B businesses cannot afford to take. By diversifying your channels—such as SEO and SERPs, paid media, social media, email marketing, and partnerships—you reduce vulnerability to platform algorithm changes or shifts in audience behavior. 

Multi-channel strategies also provide a broader reach for B2B marketing strategies, helping meet prospects where they are, rather than forcing them into a singular channel.

Actionable Tip: Map out your ideal customer’s journey and identify the touchpoints where they interact most. Prioritize those channels, but ensure you have a presence across multiple platforms to maintain a consistent flow of traffic and leads.

Expand Content Formats to Include Interactive Media and Thought Leadership

B2B buyers are increasingly seeking engaging and actionable content that goes beyond traditional whitepapers and blogs. 

By incorporating interactive content—such as quizzes, calculators, and virtual demos—you can capture attention and provide immediate value. At the same time, thought leadership pieces like in-depth reports, webinars, and expert interviews establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry.

Actionable Tip: Invest in one or two high-value thought leadership pieces annually, such as industry reports or webinar series, while supplementing with engaging micro-content like polls or infographics to maintain a dynamic presence.

Regularly Revisit and Align Strategies with Industry Benchmarks

The B2B marketing space evolves quickly, with trends and technologies continually reshaping buyer expectations. 

To stay competitive, businesses must regularly evaluate their strategies against industry benchmarks. Use our B2B content marketing benchmarks in the previous sections to see how you can compare your metrics to the goals you set at the beginning of 2025.

Actionable Tip: Set quarterly review meetings to assess your performance against both internal KPIs and industry averages. Use these insights to refine digital marketing campaigns, B2B marketing strategies, test new tactics, and double down on what’s working. Pair this analysis with ongoing research into emerging trends to maintain an edge over competitors.

Enhance Your 2025 B2B Marketing Strategies

Crafting a winning B2B marketing strategy for 2025 isn’t about chasing every trend—it’s about making informed, intentional moves that amplify your business, cutting through marketing clutter.

That’s where Marketwake helps you succeed.

Our full-service digital marketing agency elevates your brand’s voice, blending performance marketing, brand strategy, and CRM management to create work that connects and converts more customers.

In short, we’re obsessed with your success.
If you’re looking to outsource your marketing and amplify your 2025 B2B marketing strategies, contact Marketwake to see how our data-driven creativity will drive growth for your business.