B2B Marketing News: B2B Tech Marketers Hit Pre-Pandemic KPIs, Global Ad Forecasts Improve, B2B Buyer Advocacy Study, & Google’s New Ad Formats

One-Third of B2B Tech Marketers Say They’ll Meet Their Original KPIs This Year 42 percent of B2B technology executives say they’ll meet their revised 2020 key performance indicators, while 16 just say they won’t meet KPIs — two of several items of interest to digital marketers in recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts Year-End Global/U.S. Ad Forecasts Improve Markedly Three recently-released global advertising spending forecasts predict a much stronger outlook for 2021 than in 2020, with improvements in the global market especially better — up an average of 7.8 percent in the studies compared to 4.5 percent for the U.S. MediaPost Guiding the new B2B buyer from attraction to advocacy It takes an average of 6.2 touch-points to go from a sales qualified lead to a closed sale, while 76 percent of B2B practitioners say customer expectations for digital experiences that are more personalized will reach all-time highs, according to newly-released Adobe and Forrester survey data. Adobe (client) Virtual Events Are A Part of “Core Strategy” For 1 in 3 Marketers Now Marketing professionals have increasingly made virtual events a vital part of their strategy, with marketers measuring webinar success primarily by lead quality, pipeline conversion, registrations, and audience interactions, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts Majority of marketers want to continue WFH after pandemic, but concerns linger Most marketers have expressed the desire to keep working from home even after the global health crisis subsides, according to newly-released survey data of 28,000 Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) members. The Drum Google Discovery ads can now use your 4:5 social image assets The latest update from Google Ads now allows the 4:5 image aspect ratio format within Discovery ad campaigns, along with an array of new audience selection workflow features, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Land YouTube upgrades Premieres with trailers, themes and a live pre-show option Google-owned YouTube has augmented its video Premieres function with several new features including live-chat sidebar communication, video trailer previews, and a Live Redirect live pre-show streaming option, YouTube recently announced. TechCrunch Twitter's Testing a New Option Which Would Limit Tweet Replies to Followers Only Twitter has begun testing an option that would allow users of the social media platform to designate tweets which could only be replied to by followers, a change that would add an additional layer to brand-audience engagement options. Social Media Today Consumers Are Obsessed With Feel-Good Short-Form Content Right Now Brands that offer short-form content, especially when it consists of feel-good or otherwise positive content, are expected to see greater success in 2021, according to recently-released study data of interest to digital marketers. Adweek Brands Change Tactics, Increase Focus On Customer Marketing, Advocacy, Study Finds 83 percent of marketers see successful customer marketing utilizing success stories, 79 percent testimonials, and 72 percent use advocate marketing, while the top metric for measuring customer marketing effectiveness is customer engagement — several of many findings of interest to digital marketers in recently-released survey data. MediaPost ON THE LIGHTER SIDE: A lighthearted look at “consumer privacy comeback” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist Why Pantone Believes Gray and Yellow Will Be 2021’s Colors of the Year — Adweek TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — How B2B Influence Adds Value to Business Customers — Brian Solis
• Lane R. Ellis — 100+ Content Marketing Predictions for 2021 — Content Marketing Institute
• Lee Odden — The B2B Forum 2020 Edition of Marketing Smarts [Podcast] — MarketingProfs
• Ty Heath / LinkedIn (client) — Get to Know the New B2B Decision-Makers: LinkedIn's Ty Heath Shares New Research on Marketing Smarts [Podcast] — MarketingProfs
• Lane R. Ellis — Top 10 Digital Marketing Articles of this Week: 4th December 2020 — PageTraffic

Have you found your own favorite B2B marketing story from the past week of industry news? Please let us know in the comments below. Thanks for taking the time to join us for another weekly edition of our B2B marketing news, and we hope that you will come back again next Friday for more of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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