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B2B Marketing Benchmarks: Measuring Your Success in 2024
Gain Insights Into Your Performance With These Key Statistics
Brandon Storey
March 16th, 2024
In 2024, B2B marketing spending is expected to reach $37.7 billion.
The question is: How do you spend your budget?
Where do you allocate your time, money, and resources?
Today, B2B marketers are facing challenges like AI, growing consumer expectations, and a shifting global economy that are impacting how and what they need to do.
But while challenges are surmounting in the B2B world, so are opportunities to expand your market share and increase revenue.
In this guide, we’ll break down key B2B marketing benchmarks that you need to know to build an impactful marketing strategy in 2024.
Feel free to jump to any section quickly like SEO, paid advertising, or email marketing benchmarks.
Table of Contents
Why You Need To Track B2B Marketing Benchmarks
Did you know that 38% of businesses admit that data analytics is one of their 5 biggest weaknesses?
The reason? Numbers aren’t always easy to track. Analytics software can be clunky. Tracking can feel like work. And… there always seems to be something more important to do.
But if you’re wanting to craft a B2B marketing strategy that actually makes a difference this year, then you need to know your numbers. However, simply looking at your data isn’t enough.
You need to understand how your competition is doing. That way, you know if you’re falling behind or making strides forward.
Knowing how other companies like yours are performing is crucial to seeing the bigger picture.
By understanding key marketing metrics across the B2B landscape, you can craft objectives, goals, and personal benchmarks to move towards in the coming months.
Now, let’s dive into some crucial B2B marketing benchmarks.
Lead Generation Benchmarks for B2B Marketing
The phrase “lead generation” is one of the most commonly spoken phrases among B2B marketers.
If you want to grow your business, you need to find more leads.
Lead generation has always been one of the biggest challenges for marketers.
Here are some B2B benchmarks for lead generation:
86% of B2B marketers use their website as a prospect communication channel.
38% of B2B marketers state that email marketing is their top lead generation channel.
33% of B2B marketers state that search engine optimization (SEO) is their top lead generation channel.
33% of B2B marketers state that social media is their top lead generation channel.
30% of B2B marketers state that content marketing is their top lead generation channel.
21% of B2B marketers state that search engine marketing is their top lead generation channel.
Average MQL to SQL conversion rate is 13%.
78% of B2B marketers use lead conversions as their main performance metric.
74% of B2B businesses set goals, but only 3% consistently achieve them.
Email Marketing Benchmarks in B2B
One of the most important marketing channels for B2B marketers is email marketing.
Here are key email marketing benchmarks in B2B:
The average ROI of B2B email marketing is $44 for every $1 spent.
81% of B2B businesses have email newsletters
87% of B2B companies use email to deliver content.
59% of B2B companies state that email is their best channel for generating revenue.
31% of B2B companies believe email newsletters are their best content for nurturing leads.
89% of B2B emails use the company name as the sender name.
Why Listen to Me? I’ve generated over $1 million with email and get over 50,000 monthly visits on two niche blogs. I also run Storey Time, a newsletter where I teach people how to become full-time digital writers.
Content Marketing Performance Metrics
Content marketing isn’t going away anytime soon, especially for B2B marketers.
Here are the top B2B content marketing metrics:
46% of B2B marketers plan on increasing their spend on content marketing budget in the next year.
Nearly half of all content created by B2B marketers is to drive brand awareness.
The average blog post takes 3 hours and 55 minutes to write.
Content on page 1 of Google has an average of 1,447 words.
67% of B2B marketers say that their main type of content is top-of-funnel content.
70% of B2B buyers consume videos throughout their customer journey.
Social media has been on the rise for years.
While Facebook use is trending down, new platforms like TikTok are seeing increases in B2B usage.
Plus, with the rebrand from Twitter to X through the Musk takeover, B2B marketers continue to capitalize on social media to grow their audience and convert new customers.
Here are the crucial social media benchmarks for B2B companies:
The average LinkedIn engagement rate is 2%.
The average Facebook engagement rate is 0.4%.
The average X (formerly Twitter) engagement rate is 0.5%.
95 out of 100 B2B marketers leverage social media in some form.
84% of B2B executives leverage social media as a source in making purchasing decisions.
80% of B2B social media leads originate with LinkedIn.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Benchmarks
While Google has seen some shaky algorithm changes in the past year, search engine optimization (SEO) continues to be a crucial marketing tool for B2B brands.
Here are key SEO benchmarks for B2B marketers:
89% of B2B buyers search for information about potential purchases with Google.
News-related and PR-style blogs get twice as much traffic as educational blogs.
The average B2B buyer searches 12 times, on average, before interacting with a website.
29% of Google searchers visit just one page from the search engine results page (SERPs).
Paid Advertising Effectiveness in B2B
One of the fastest ways B2B brands can fuel audience growth and conversions is with paid advertising.
Here are key B2B benchmarks for paid ads:
Facebook Ads (Source)
Click Rate: 0.5%
Cost Per Click: $5.68
Conversion Rate: 10.63%
Cost Per Action: $23.77
LinkedIn Sponsored Content (Source)
Click Rate: 0.44%
Cost Per Click: $5.58
Conversion Rate: 5-15%
Cost Per Action: $30-$60
Google Ads (Source)
Search Campaigns Click Rate 2.41%
Search Campaigns Conversion Rate: 3.04%
Display Network Click Rate: 0.46%
Display Network Conversion Rate: 0.8%
Web Analytics and User Behavior Benchmarks
Your website is the home base to your B2B digital marketing.
Here are some key B2B web analytics and user behavior benchmarks:
Average session duration: 2:51 minutes
Average pages per session: 3 pages
Average form conversion 2-3%
Average engagement rate: 63%
Overall conversion rate: 2-5%
Future of B2B Marketing Benchmarks
The B2B marketing world is ever-changing.
With advancements in technology like AI and shifting economies, it’s crucial to analyze what the top B2B marketers are focusing on moving forward into 2024 and beyond.
Here are some future insights and trends with B2B marketing, based on research from LinkedIn that analyzed 1,954 B2B leaders across various industries.
Most Important Skills for B2B Marketing Teams
58% Agility/adaptability
50% Storytelling
50% Problem solving
46% Eagerness to adopt new technology
Top Changes to the Role of B2B CMO
47% of CMOs will have a more direct role in driving revenue.
47% of CMOS are expected to demonstrate impact to the bottom line.
40% CMOS are under more pressure to prove ROI in less time.
Budgeting
36% of B2B marketers plan to spend money on lead generation.
60% of senior B2B marketers state that budgets have increased and will continue to increase in the coming year.
Top Challenges in the Next Two Years
46%: Finding and converting customers
40%: Implementing emerging technology (i.e., AI) into the marketing plan
35%: Improving the customer experience
30%: Selling C-suites on the value of the marketing department
29%: Improving trust
28%: Cutting budgets
28%: Finding and retaining talent
22%: Boosting data management
15%: Lacking skills to keep up with the shifting landscape
The Role of AI in Setting Benchmarks
3 in 4 B2B marketers are excited about investing in AI.
53% of B2B marketers plan on using AI to improve workplace efficiency.
54% of B2B marketers plan to leverage AI to create more content in less time.
49% of B2B marketers plan to use AI to establish engaging content.
Leverage beehiiv To Boost Your B2B Marketing Performance
As a B2B marketer, you need to know how your performance stacks up against your industry.
Without knowledge of industry averages, how can you be sure that you’re on the right track with your marketing efforts?
To remain competitive moving forward, you need to ensure that you’ve got a clear understanding of how your business, marketing, and performance stack up against the competition.
Two of the main challenges that B2B marketers face is generating and nurturing leads.
If you want to engage with leads effectively and improve your marketing ROI, then launching a beehiiv newsletter is one of the best opportunities.
At beehiiv, we offer incredible growth tools to help you expand your reach and convert customers on autopilot.
Founded by the same team who built and scaled Morning Brew to millions of subscribers, beehiiv is the newsletter platform for growth.
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