153 B2B Content Marketing Statistics October 2026

B2B content marketing statistics for 2026 describe a job that is shifting from publishing to proof. Buyers read more before they talk to a seller, the people judging your content are often not the people you wrote it for, and most teams still cannot tie it to revenue. Only 22% of B2B marketers call their content marketing extremely or very successful, and 21% rate it minimally or not at all successful (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).

The newest studies show where the gap sits. Buyers want research and proof, they take longer to open what they request, and AI is now in most content teams without a plan around it. Each number below links to the organisation that ran the survey or measured the behaviour, with the date of the data. We do not cite other roundups. For budgets and formats across B2B and B2C, see the content marketing statistics hub, and for the search side of B2B, the B2B SEO statistics hub.

How do B2B buyers research and consume content before they buy?

Buyers do most of the work before a seller sees them, and they do it with a stack of documents rather than one page. Content decides who reaches the shortlist, so it has to be believable and quick to use.

Which sources do B2B buyers rely on most?

Independent research comes first, technology media second and vendors third. Buyers care less about who published a piece than about whether it is credible and clear.

• Technology content sites ranked second as a valuable source, at 57%, with vendors third at 49% (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Buyers name credibility (40%) and clarity (38%) as the most useful attributes of both independent and vendor content (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• 61% of IT decision-makers engage with vendor websites, and the share is 70% in North America against 40% in APAC (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Smaller companies favour vendor websites over large companies by 69% to 53% (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Peers lose weight as a source with each younger generation, from 45% of baby boomers to 31% of Gen Z (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Only 27% of Gen Z buyers call vendors an effective source, against 52% of baby boomers and 57% of Gen X (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Gen Z buyers trust social media at 44%, against 16% of baby boomers (Foundry, Aug 2025).

How much content does a B2B buyer consume, and when?

A lot of it, and later than marketers hope. Buyers skim long assets, open them days after requesting them and favour early mornings and weekends.

• Buyers use between three and four sources at each stage of a purchase, rising to 4.3 at product evaluation (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• IT buyers download 6.9 assets on average during a purchase, and small companies consume 5.3 assets against 8.1 at large companies (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Registrants open eBooks after 46.4 hours on average, white papers after 26.4 hours and on-demand webinars after 21.4 hours (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• The delay between registration and consumption has grown 43.2% since 2021 (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• The average demo video runs 15 minutes 14 seconds, but the average view lasts 5 minutes 14 seconds (Consensus, May 2026).
• 45% of all demo views happen within the first 60 minutes after the demo is sent (Consensus, May 2026).
• Buyers take an average of 5 days to open content a seller sends them (Consensus, May 2026).
• Demos sent on Saturday (36%) and Sunday (40%) reach higher engagement rates than any weekday, and sends between 6 and 9 AM local time reach 42% to 43% (Consensus, May 2026).

Where does AI fit in the research path?

AI sits at the front of research and drops out before the internal sell. Buyers use it to narrow options, then go back to people and documents to defend the choice.

• 81% of IT decision-makers say AI influences their purchase decisions, rising to 89% at the largest firms (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Only 15% rely heavily on AI for product research and recommendations, while 43% use it for insights that inform a process that stays human-led (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• 48% use AI to evaluate products and services and 46% to set technical requirements, but use falls to 15% when buyers sell the decision internally or approve it (Foundry, Aug 2025).
• Buyers start vendor research on search engines at 41%, with AI tools close behind at 40% and vendor websites at 28% (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• 61% of buyers rely on AI to summarise or compare options (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• 65% of buyers expect AI search to play a bigger role in their decisions in 2026, the largest share of any channel (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).

Which B2B content formats and channels deliver the most?

Format is a buying-stage decision. Light, tactical assets collect the downloads, while trend reports, playbooks and case studies attract the buyers closest to a purchase.

Which content formats do B2B buyers prefer?

Video, interactive pieces and live events lead, and buyers care more about the topic than the length. Conversational writing wins ahead of product pitches.

• At work, 34% of buyers find long videos (over five minutes) most engaging, ahead of infographics (32%) and short videos under a minute (28%) (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• In their personal time, buyers pay the most attention to market trends (44%), news (38%) and success stories (29%) (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• A conversational and relatable style draws the best response from 27% of buyers, product-focused writing from 26% and creative and bold writing from 25% (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• Only 16% respond best to data-led writing and 6% to concise and visual writing (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• 48% of B2B marketers say video, live or virtual events and interactive experiences would each make their thought leadership more effective (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 45% name featuring industry experts and influencers as an upgrade, and 39% name customer or executive stories (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• For research reports, 53% of B2B marketers find interactive formats and explainer videos most effective for engagement, followed by infographics at 51% (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).

Which content formats signal a buyer is ready to buy?

Trend reports, playbooks, case studies, newsletters and infographics sit closest to a decision. Templates, checklists, cheat sheets and book summaries attract the most casual readers.

• Registrants for infographics are 79.8% more likely than in 2024 to be tied to a buying decision within 12 months (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• White paper registrants are 48.8% more likely and guide registrants 31.5% more likely than in 2024 to buy within 12 months (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• Playbook registrants are 101.7% more likely to buy within three to six months, and trend report registrants are 177% more likely to buy within six to twelve months (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• Live webinar registrants are 20% more likely to buy within three months, 81.3% more likely than any other format in that window (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• On-demand webinar registrations grew 46.2% in 2025 while live webinar registrations fell 22.9% (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• eBooks are still the most requested format at 48.8% of registrations, though their volume fell 16.7% (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• Each eBook uploaded to the NetLine platform generates 859.1 registrations, against 63.5 for each white paper (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• Trend reports (60.1) and playbooks (58.9) top NetLine's format efficiency score, ahead of eBooks (55.0) and case studies (51.1) (NetLine, Mar 2026).

Where do B2B marketers publish, and where do buyers read?

Marketers lean on LinkedIn, YouTube and webinars, and buyers consume less there than marketers assume. The best performers spread out to video, podcasts and peer communities.

• 54% of marketers use LinkedIn for thought leadership, but only 38% of professionals say they consume it there most often (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 50% of marketers use YouTube, against 34% of professionals who consume there (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 48% of marketers use webinars, against 34% of professionals who consume there (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• Top performers are nearly twice as likely to diversify, with 55% using YouTube, 41% podcasts and 28% peer communities (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 32% of professionals use generative AI tools to discover thought leadership, a channel missing from marketers' distribution lists (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 68% of B2B marketers increased their use of LinkedIn in the past year, 31% increased YouTube and 27% increased Instagram (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 39% of B2B marketers do not use X at all, up from 27% a year earlier, and only 15% use Reddit (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• Digital events reach 40% of B2B marketers, podcasts 27% and microsites 26% (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).

How do B2B teams budget, staff and measure content marketing?

Budgets are growing for most B2B marketers, but headcount is flat and measurement is thin.

How are B2B marketing budgets changing in 2026?

Up for most, at a modest pace. Money is moving toward events, paid media and personalisation, and the way budgets are locked in holds back mid-year changes.

• Budgets rose for 70% of UK marketers, 59% in APAC and 58% in the US (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 47% of B2B marketers are very confident in their organisation's budgeting process and 46% are somewhat confident (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 28% of marketers worked at companies with significant revenue growth in the last year, down from 36% in 2024 (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 41% frequently reallocate spend based on performance and 47% do so occasionally (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• The main barriers to reallocating spend mid-campaign are slow approvals (45%), platform limits (45%), missing real-time data (45%) and budgets locked into annual allocations (44%) (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 50% of marketers allocate budget audience-first, while 24% allocate channel-first (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• Among areas B2B marketers plan to invest in more, events and experiential marketing lead the non-AI options at 33%, then paid media (25%), content personalisation (24%) and tech infrastructure (21%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• Research and insights (15%) and first-party data capabilities (12%) rank near the bottom of those plans (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 40% of B2B marketers put 1% to 10% of their marketing budget into experiential activities and 26% put in 11% to 30% (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).

Who makes B2B content, and what holds them back?

Hiring has moved to hands-on creators and senior owners, with the middle thinning out. The constraints B2B teams report are the same ones they reported a year ago: time, silos and tools.

• Execution-heavy roles are 34% of content marketing job listings, with Content Producer listings up 1,261% and Content Creator listings up 410% since 2023 (Semrush, Feb 2026).
• Postings for Head of Content Marketing grew 376% and for VP of Content 308% (Semrush, Feb 2026).
• New listings for Content Marketing Manager fell 73% and for Content Marketing Specialist 74% (Semrush, Feb 2026).
• Median advertised pay reached $161,500 for senior content roles (up 54%) and $80,000 for other roles (up 29%) (Semrush, Feb 2026).
• Lack of resources is still the top non-creation challenge for B2B marketers, at 54%, against 58% the year before (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 40% say communicating across organisational silos is a challenge, 33% say accessing subject matter experts is, and 33% cite workflow and approvals (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• Fewer B2B marketers now call SEO optimisation (35%, down from 45%) and creating quality content (27%, down from 44%) top challenges (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 47% lack efficient lead generation and nurturing processes in their tech stack, and 47% lack streamlined data management and reporting (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 38% of B2B marketers say they have the technology but are not using its potential, up from 30% a year earlier (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).

How do B2B marketers measure content results?

Mostly through engagement, with few teams connecting content to closed revenue. The teams that do connect it report better results and move budget faster.

• 54% of B2B marketers rate their content marketing success as moderate (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• Top performers credit understanding their audience (82%), producing high-quality content (77%), industry expertise (70%) and high-performing team members (69%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• They also credit goals aligned with organisational objectives (62%), effective measurement (53%) and a documented strategy (47%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 31% of B2B marketers call their marketing results neutral, 7% somewhat ineffective and 3% highly ineffective (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• Effective teams credit alignment with sales (45%), technology (43%), customer understanding (40%) and measurement and reporting (40%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 41% of B2B marketers cite difficulty measuring performance as the top cause of underperforming content (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• High-ROI marketers use thought leadership at the awareness stage 69% of the time against 56% for others, and at the decision stage 64% against 48% (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• Marketers with full attribution visibility were more likely to significantly exceed their primary goals (45% against 24%) (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 64% of those attribution leaders frequently reallocate spend across channels, against 36% of all marketers (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• The top analytics challenges are measuring performance across channels in one place (35%), connecting activity to specific buyers or buying groups (35%) and identifying what drives pipeline (33%) (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).

Does gated content still generate B2B leads?

Yes, but fewer of them, and later. Gating survives because it is one of the few places left where a buyer says who they are, and the lead needs to be read as research, not intent.

How many people still register for gated content?

Millions of them, and a growing share ask about AI. Most B2B marketers still collect first-party data through content.

• Registrations peaked at 7.9 million in 2024 after growing 26.9% that year (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• AI-related content drew 21.1% of all registrations in 2025, up 28.5% on the year (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• C-level content consumption grew 3.8% and accounts for 14.5% of total demand (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• 91% of B2B marketers collect first-party data (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 68% collect it through content, such as gated assets, webinars and interactive tools (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• Direct customer engagement is the most common method, at 77%, followed by CRM and sales interactions at 63% and behavioural insights at 52% (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• Only 23% use incremental collection such as progressive forms (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).

Do gated leads turn into buyers?

Eventually. Buyers are slower to open what they request but still come, and their engagement with product content is a stronger signal than the form fill.

• 45.9% of B2B professionals who registered for content expect to make a purchase decision within 12 months (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• In 2025, 7.0% planned to buy within three months and 28.4% within six to twelve months, while 54.1% planned to buy beyond a year (NetLine, Mar 2026).
• Buyers who watch nine or more demos close at over 55%, 8 to 10 times the rate of prospects who never watch one (Consensus, May 2026).
• Prospects who convert on marketing content spend 7 minutes 39 seconds watching demos, 2.3 times longer than the average viewer (Consensus, May 2026).
• The average demo board view rate is 38% and has not changed from 2025 (Consensus, May 2026).
• Stakeholders discovered when a demo is forwarded engage at 61%, against 28% for the person who received it (Consensus, May 2026).
• Demo boards shared with seven or more stakeholders are tied to opportunities 36% of the time, against 19% for boards with no added stakeholders (Consensus, May 2026).

How much friction will buyers accept before they leave?

Very little. One or two questions are acceptable, and irrelevant content ends the conversation faster than any form field.

• Most buyers will not click through more than four steps of a product tour before leaving (Consensus, May 2026).
• Only 42.75% of discovery demos include questions, and over 75% of viewers answer just one (Consensus, May 2026).
• 90% of viewers answer two questions or fewer, even though demos average 1.91 questions (Consensus, May 2026).
• 40% of VPs say they would stop engaging immediately with a vendor that has no relevance to their business (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• Proof of concept (45%), transparent pricing (44%) and responsive communication (39%) give buyers the most confidence in a vendor, well ahead of case studies (25%) (Digitalzone, Jan 2026).
• 44% of IT buyers need vendor help when evaluating products or defining technical requirements, against 26% when selecting vendors (Foundry, Aug 2025).

How do thought leadership and sales alignment move B2B deals?

Thought leadership works on the people sales never meets. It fails when a few marketers write it, no experts contribute and sales does not use it.

Does thought leadership change what buyers do?

It makes the quiet members of a buying group more receptive, and it gives them something to repeat when they argue for a vendor.

• 95% of hidden decision-makers say strong thought leadership makes them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 79% are more likely to champion a proposal in an RFP from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 53% of buyers agree that when thought leadership is high quality, brand recognition matters much less (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 51% of hidden decision-influencers say it helps them convince C-level executives to back their choice, and 52% say it helps them convince other decision-makers (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 73% of hidden decision-makers say thought leadership is one of the best ways to judge the caliber of thinking a firm will deliver to clients (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 64% of hidden decision-makers trust thought leadership more than marketing materials and product sheets when assessing capabilities (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 91% say a mark of quality is that it helps them see a challenge or need they had missed, against 81% of target decision-makers (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 86% prefer provocative ideas that challenge their assumptions over ones that confirm them (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).
• 57% favour quick takeaways over academic depth, and 65% prefer a human, less formal tone (Edelman and LinkedIn, Jul 2025).

How do marketers plan and staff thought leadership?

Almost everyone does it, and most do it thinly. The programs that last start from customer questions and extend past the sale.

• 97% of B2B marketers say thought leadership is critical to full-funnel success, but only 43% extend it past acquisition to engage and retain customers (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 47% of top performers use thought leadership after the sale, against 28% of others (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 93% of B2B marketers who use research-based content say it drives engagement and leads, and 48% call it very effective (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 47% plan to increase their use of original research and data-driven content in the next year (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 35% say original research is significantly more valuable than AI-generated content for building trust and authority, and another 32% say it is more effective overall (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• Direct customer feedback (53%), CRM and sales data (44%) and market trend analysis (44%) most influence research topics, while AI-generated insights influence 26% (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 17% of B2B marketers rate their thought leadership program as exploratory, 36% as developing and 36% as established (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• At 30% of organisations, only 5% to 15% of in-house experts contribute, and at 10% more than half contribute (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 40% of B2B marketers measure thought leadership through audience feedback (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).

Are sales and marketing aligned on content?

Not well. Alignment is a stated challenge for four in ten B2B teams, and the ones that fix it through buying groups report better win rates.

• 43% of B2B marketers say aligning content across sales and marketing is a challenge, against 45% a year earlier (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 45% say aligning content with the buyer's journey is a challenge (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 39% say their tech stack lacks strong alignment between sales and marketing systems (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 27% of marketers cite misalignment with sales on lead quality or follow-up as a limit on full-funnel results (Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, Nov 2025).
• 38% of B2B marketers have fully implemented buying groups and 42% have done so partially (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• Among those who fully implemented them, 61% report improved marketing and sales alignment, 59% higher win rates and 55% better conversion from opportunity to closed revenue (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• 36% of top marketing leaders report to the CEO and 33% to a commercial leader (Anteriad and Ascend2, Mar 2026).
• Line-of-business managers now take part in 31% of IT needs decisions, 24% of vendor selections and 25% of post-sales engagement, up from 27%, 18% and 14% in 2023 (Foundry, Aug 2025).

How are B2B teams using AI to make content?

AI is in almost every B2B content team, usually without a strategy. Speed gains are easy to measure, quality gains are not, and the returns depend on whether anyone built the workflow.

How widely do B2B marketers use AI for content?

Eight in ten teams use generative AI, but most do so informally and with free tools.

• 81% of B2B marketers say their teams use generative AI tools, up from 72% a year earlier (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 27% of teams do not formally use AI, but individual staff members may choose to (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 88% of marketers using generative AI use free tools, 49% use AI inside their content creation or management systems and 32% pay for tools (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• After written content, B2B marketers use AI most for creative assets (53%) and social media tools (38%), with market research and insights tools at 35% (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 20% rate their AI implementation as exploratory, 48% as developing, 24% as established, 5% as advanced and 3% as leading (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• Among marketers experimenting with AI agents, 52% report improved operational efficiency, 21% better customer engagement and 19% better campaign performance (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 34% of senior content marketing job listings and 19% of other listings mention AI, while prompt engineering appears in under 1% (Semrush, Feb 2026).

Does AI make B2B content better or only faster?

Mostly faster and cheaper to run. The quality and performance claims are weaker, and trust in the output is still moderate at best.

• Among marketers using AI for content, 80% say operational efficiency improved and 65% say creative capabilities improved (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 22% see no change in creativity and 21% see none in content quality (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• On content performance, 34% see no change and 15% say it is too soon to tell (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2025).
• 67% of B2B marketers have a medium level of trust in generative AI output and 28% have a low level (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 44% rate AI content quality as good and 35% as fair (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• Among the few marketers who do not use generative AI, the reasons are accuracy concerns (35%), corporate mandates against it (28%), copyright concerns (26%) and lack of training (22%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• Users report fewer tedious tasks (51%), more efficient workflows (45%), improved content optimisation (42%) and improved creativity (38%) (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).
• 45% of B2B marketers say their organisation lacks AI usage guidelines, down from 61%, and 48% of those with guidelines cover disclosing AI-generated content (Content Marketing Institute, Oct 2024).

What is AI doing to B2B content jobs and returns?

Teams are getting older and flatter, and only a minority can show returns. The survey below covers 100 marketing leaders at mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies, so it shows direction and cannot stand in for the whole market.

• Mid-market companies cut or stopped backfilling marketing roles at 52%, against 40% at enterprises (Wynter, May 2026).
• Only 16% of teams visibly shrank for AI reasons, while 31% reduced through attrition and unfilled requisitions (Wynter, May 2026).
• 37% name design and creative as roles at risk, and 20% name junior and entry-level positions (Wynter, May 2026).
• 94% of marketing leaders believe their own role will exist in its current form in 24 months (Wynter, May 2026).
• 53% say their AI marketing investments have not delivered ROI, and 23% say they have (Wynter, May 2026).
• 90% of companies restrict AI tools for marketing, and 41% of marketers admit using personal accounts to get around the restrictions (Wynter, May 2026).
• 30% of companies say their external AI messaging is ahead of what they have deployed internally (Wynter, May 2026).

Methodology and Sources

Every statistic on this page was traced to the organisation that ran the survey or measured the behaviour, and each URL was fetched and checked for the figure and its date on 14 October 2026. We do not cite statistics roundups. Several sources are vendors that sell into B2B marketing: NetLine, Consensus, Digitalzone, Anteriad, Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, and Wynter. Their figures come from their own first-party data or panels and are labelled by name. Samples differ: Foundry surveyed 721 IT decision-makers, Digitalzone 1,500 buyers, Edelman and LinkedIn 1,934 executives, Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing 797 marketing leaders, Anteriad and Ascend2 631 marketing decision-makers, and Wynter 100 SaaS marketing leaders. Dates use each report's publication month. Anteriad and Ascend2 do not show a publication date on the report, so its date is the March 2026 fieldwork. Several Content Marketing Institute benchmarks on channels and AI come from its 2025 report, published in October 2024, because the 2026 edition no longer asks those questions. This page is refreshed monthly as new editions come out.

Sources

• Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026
• Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing: 2025 Benchmarks and Trends
• NetLine, 2026 State of B2B Content Consumption and Demand Report
• Foundry, Role and Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker 2025
• Digitalzone, Dimensions of Demand 2026: Buyer Report
• Consensus, 2026 B2B Buyer Behavior Report
• Ascend2 and TopRank Marketing, The State of B2B Thought Leadership in 2026
• Anteriad and Ascend2, The 2026 B2B Marketing Edge
• Edelman and LinkedIn, 2025 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report
• Wynter, How B2B Marketing Actually Uses AI
• Semrush, We Analyzed 8,000 Content Marketing Job Listings

Glossary

• B2B: business-to-business, companies that sell to other companies
• Gated content: an asset a visitor can only open after giving contact details
• Hidden buyer: a stakeholder who influences a B2B purchase without leading it, such as finance, legal or procurement
• Thought leadership: free content that shares a company's original ideas, data or point of view
• Buying group: the set of people inside a company who take part in one purchase decision
• Attribution: linking marketing activity to the pipeline and revenue it produced
• First-party data: information a company collects directly from its own audience
• ITDM: IT decision-maker, a person involved in buying technology for their organisation
• RFP: request for proposal, a formal vendor selection process
• ROI: return on investment
• AI agent: software that carries out multi-step tasks with limited human input