Activate: B2B Marketing Report 2024

B2B marketers say their biggest challenge with content creation is producing the right content for their audience. So it helps to know which content types they think drive the highest ROI. According to the latest annual State of Demand Generation report produced by Activate in partnership with Marketing Charts, in-depth white papers or eBooks performed strongly.

Activate surveyed 268 qualified demand sources and technology marketers, primarily in North America, asking participants to identify the top three content types they believe have the highest overall ROI.

Customer case studies topped the list, with 33% of respondents placing it in their top three. In fact, separate results from the report demonstrate the popularity of customer case studies, which were identified as the most effective content type in the middle and bottom of the funnel. It was also the type of content that the largest percentage of respondents (52%) expected to increase their use of in the coming year to improve their demand generation strategy.

The survey divided respondents into three groups: those who exceeded their 2023 demand generation goals (32%), those who met their goals (52%), and those who did not meet their goals (16%). The group that exceeded their goals had a much different view on the type of content that generates ROI than the group that did not meet their goals.

For example, in-depth white papers or e-books are the most effective content types, with 35% naming them in their top three. For laggards, only 5% chose this content type. Similarly, top performers believe more in the effectiveness of webcasts (29% vs. 10%) and brief white papers (16% vs. 2%) than laggards. They also show stronger opinions on other content types, including research (16% vs. 10%) and ROI calculators (23% vs. 17%).

Meanwhile, top performers are not as convinced as bottom performers about the effectiveness of customer case studies (25% vs. 32%), live events (23% vs. 29%), and virtual events (11% vs. 15%). There are also notable differences in some of the top content types: Few top performers believe in the ROI-generating power of videos (4%) and blogs (1%), each of which is cited as a top three content type by underachieving respondents (12%).

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