This Week in Marketing: Telling the Whole Story

It’s the struggle all B2B marketers are painfully familiar with: Our B2B marketing attribution measurement so rarely tells the whole story.?

The complications of limited attribution can feel endless. Maybe you’re not able to prove the value of your brand marketing, so your C-suite forces you into the vicious cycle of prioritizing demand gen at its expense. Maybe there’s a disconnect between the metrics that drive impact and the metrics you’ve got the ability to report on effectively. Or maybe you just can’t lock down useful metrics to track across every leg of the long B2B customer journey.

There’s a good reason why “data interpreter” is one of the nine defining traits of tomorrow’s B2B marketing superstar: Collecting the right marketing data and using it to inform our B2B strategies is only becoming more important. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.?

This week’s roundup of B2B marketing content explores the challenges of meaningfully measuring and monitoring their performance.?

What to Read

Marketing Sourced Pipeline is the Wrong Metric for Measuring B2B Marketing (Customer Think): Steve Offsey critiques the usefulness of marketing sourced pipeline as an ultimate metric of B2B marketing success. “By fixating on sourced pipeline, you incentivize marketing tactics that generate quick leads but don’t necessarily attract the right customers or set the stage for long-term success.”

Why B2B CMOs Are Frustrated with ABM Platforms (MarTech): Scott Stedman discusses why so many B2B CMOs have become disillusioned with the promise of ABM platforms, citing hidden costs like cross-departmental ownership and implementation burdens.

Why You Need People to Manage the Meaning of AI Content (CMI): Generative AI is blurring the lines between content and data, writes Robert Rose. He unpacks some implications for marketers to consider.

Google Search Snippets Show Contradictory Information, Study Finds (Search Engine Journal): Matt G. Southern comments on a recent report that surfaces issues with how Google Search finds its Featured Snippets.

“Google builds models to try and predict what people like, but the problem is this creates a kind of feedback loop. If confirmation bias pushes people to click on links that reinforce their beliefs, it teaches Google to show people links that lead to confirmation bias.” - Mark Williams-Cook, SEO expert and founder of AlsoAsked

Creators vs. Influencers: The Changing Identity of Social Media Talent (TopRank Marketing): The creator economy is one the rise! Alex White examines how perceptions of social media talent are changing and how that might affect your influencer strategy.

What to Watch

How do you ensure the right mix of paid and organic content to stand out on LinkedIn??

In this quick Certified Market Experts Tips video, LinkedIn #CertifiedMarketingExpert Bhavya Arora shares her approach: She suggests getting to know your goals and your audience, and then using each type of content to enhance the impact of the other.

What to Know

Demandbase released the second edition of its State of B2B Advertising Report this week. The report uses a large-scale survey and data analysis to uncover market analysis and expert insights on the prevailing marketing trends of 2025.?

The report includes findings such as:

• 85% of marketers surveyed spent the majority of their ad budget on LinkedIn
• Ad personalization can slash acquisition costs by 50%
• Pairing LinkedIn with display ads has led to 50% more clicks and a 33% drop in CPC compared to running LinkedIn alone

Be sure to keep up with the LinkedIn for Marketing Blog for the latest B2B marketing insights.