What B2B Software Buyers Look for in Online Reviews
64 percent of B2B buyers have said that they read online reviews during the awareness stage of the purchasing process, with 68 percent reading them while considering purchases, and 54 percent while in the decision-making stage — three of numerous findings of interest to B2B marketers contained in newly-published survey data. MarketingProfs

Gartner: 20% of brands to go ‘acoustic’ amid rising generative AI concerns
By 2027 some 20 percent of brands will leverage the fact that they are not using AI in their business as a key differentiating point, while by 2026 80 percent of top creative roles are expected to have a greater mandate to use AI to achieve results that stand out, with 79 percent of consumers expect to utilize AI-enhanced search during the next year, according to recently-released Gartner research data. Marketing Dive

Is Marketing Becoming More Complex? [Report]
Within two years marketers will work with an average of 7.5 service providers, manage 14.6 channels, and utilize 16.3 marketing technology tools, as 70 percent of marketing and media decision-makers have said that they are under greater organizational pressure to establish and maintain their brand presence, according to new survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingCharts

The Right Way to Build Your Brand
When it comes to brand perception, purchase intent and brand preference, 56 percent of customer promise (CP) campaigns 56 saw improvement — compared to only 38 percent of other campaign types, and the Harvard Business Review recently explored the practice of customer promise marketing with industry leaders from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, examining brand advertising effectiveness surrounding new customer acquisition and retention. Harvard Business Review

“Brand promises are about the brand. Customer promises are about the customer. All customer promises are brand promises, but not all brand promises are customer promises.” — Mimi Turner of Click To Tweet

Dentsu’s 2024 Media Trends Report
91 percent of chief marketing officers have said that they viewed AI as the future and not just a fad, a figure that dropped to 78 percent among consumers, according to newly-released 2024 media trends report data from Dentsu. MediaPost

Marketers’ Business and Budget Expectations for 2024 [Report]
36 percent of global marketers have indicated that they expected to increase their investment in the LinkedIn professional social platform during 2024, while 61 percent expected overall business to improve in 2024, with 54 percent having pointed to brand metrics including awareness and purchase intent as the leading measures of marketing strategy effectiveness, according to recently-published survey data of interest to B2B marketers. MarketingProfs

Google will start phasing out third-party cookies in weeks with new feature
A group representing about one percent of global users of Google’s popular Chrome web browser will have Google’s Tracking Protection tool activated in January, 2024 — the first segment of users to receive Google’s replacement technology for the traditional web tracking cookie, Google recently announced. MarTech

Instagram introduces GenAI powered background editing tool
Meta-owned Instagram has begun rolling out updates to Story format content posted on the social platform that will offer users the ability to use AI prompts to change image backgrounds or to choose from recommended presets, Instagram recently announced. TechCrunch

Threads Launches in EU, Expanding Reach of Meta’s X Rival App
European Union-based consumers have been given the ability to use Meta’s Threads social platform — which has gained traction and users since X (formerly Twitter) changed ownership and branding, topping the 100M monthly user threshold, Meta recently announced. Social Media Today

Content Volume – and Budgets – Expected to Increase Next Year
18 percent of content and creative professionals have said that they expect budgets to significantly increase during the next year, with some 54 percent expecting moderate increases and 20 percent looking for budgets to stay the same, according to newly-published survey data. MarketingCharts

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like AI-Generated Content” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

Man On Day Two Of Typing Streaming Password Using Parents’ Remote — The Hard Times

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

Donna Robinson / TopRank Marketing — Social Media Trends & Tips: Dec. 4-8 — Arik Hanson
Donna Robinson / TopRank Marketing — Using LinkedIn to Elevate B2B Influencer Marketing — LinkedIn (client)
Lee Odden / TopRank Marketing — Harnessing the Power of Connection: Lee Odden Top Rank Marketing [Podcast] — Tonka Talk
Lee Odden — 15 Top SEO Quotes for Motivation to Boost Your Search Rankings in 2024 — BloggersPassion
TopRank Marketing — 30+ Artificial Intelligence Tools to Achieve Huge Growth in 2024 — Red Website Design

FRIDAY FIVE B2B MARKETING FAVORITES TO FOLLOW:

Melanie Deziel
Andrew Davis
Nancy Harhut
Katelyn Drake 
Stephanie Stahl

Learn more about TopRank Marketing‘s mission to help elevate the B2B marketing industry.

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Thank you for taking the time to be with us for this week’s Elevate B2B Marketing News, and we hope that you’ll return once again next Friday for another array of the most up-to-date and relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page, or at on Twitter/X for even more timely daily news.

About the author

Lane R. Ellis has over 40 years’ experience working with and writing about the Internet. He writes for and manages all of the posts on the award-winning TopRank B2B Marketing Blog. Before joining the team here as Social Media and Content Marketing Manager, Lane spent more than a decade as Lead Editor for the prestigious conference firm Pubcon. When he's not writing about B2B marketing trends, Lane enjoys distance running (he's completed 11 marathons including two ultra-marathons so far), genealogical research, cross-country skate skiing, vegetarian cooking, and spending time with his wonderful wife Julie Ahasay and their cats Kukla, Twister, and Arlo in beautiful Duluth, Minnesota.