Social Media, Digital Advertising Now Lead in Marketing Investment But Data Quality and Availability Still Biggest Issue

Stirista, the leader in data-driven marketing solutions, has released the results from its annual B2B Customer Acquisition Survey, focusing on senior-level B2B marketers across various industries. The findings highlight a significant shift toward digital marketing channels and the challenges B2B marketers face, particularly in data quality and availability.

The Shift to Digital Channels

The survey indicates that B2B marketers have increasingly turned to new technologies and digital methods to engage with customers as traditional marketing channels have become less effective. Social and digital advertising have emerged as the top customer acquisition channels. However, nearly half (47%) of the marketers report that data quality and availability pose significant challenges in reaching and engaging with customers.

Pandemic-Induced Changes

Mike Hilts, SVP of Product at Stirista, explains, "As in-person meetings and other traditional sales tactics fell away due to the pandemic, B2B marketers quickly pivoted to digital channels. Our survey sheds light on current B2B customer acquisition strategies and their potential evolution over the next two years."

Two-Year Outlook for Customer Acquisition Marketing

The survey reveals that most B2B marketers are optimistic about meeting or exceeding their marketing goals in the next 24 months. Despite this optimism, nearly three-quarters (72%) of respondents report limited success from their efforts, indicating a need for improved customer acquisition strategies.

Budget and Channel Shifts

Key findings include:

• A significant increase in budget allocation for partner programs is expected by 72% of marketers.
• Mobile (in-app) and video marketing budgets are also anticipated to rise (30% and 29% respectively).
• Marketers plan to increase their focus on in-person channels, such as live events and partner programs.

Keys to Success in Customer Acquisition

The survey identifies several critical factors for successful customer acquisition:

• Marketing and sales alignment is deemed the biggest contributor to success by nearly half (47%) of the marketers.
• Data quality and availability are crucial, along with workflow efficiency (47%) and performance measurement and attribution (43%).

The Role of Live Events

There is a notable disconnect regarding live events. While 55% of marketers find live events highly beneficial, only 11% believe they are the main factor contributing to their strategy's success.

Challenges Across Industries

Data quality, attribution, and measurement are identified as the biggest hindrances to growth across all industries. Successful acquisition strategies vary widely among sectors, highlighting the need for tailored approaches.

Study Methodology

The findings from the 2024 Stirista State of B2B Customer Acquisition Survey are based on an online panel conducted by Ascend2. The survey included nearly 200 marketing decision-makers in management roles or higher, representing B2B companies with 500 or more employees across various industries in the United States.

The 2024 B2B Customer Acquisition Survey by Stirista underscores the ongoing evolution in marketing strategies driven by digital transformation and the critical need to address data quality and availability challenges. B2B marketers are poised to leverage a hybrid approach combining digital personalization and in-person connections to achieve their customer acquisition goals.

• Localization and Voice-over Provider for IVR Systems and Other Tech Platforms Conducted a Consumer Survey to Gauge Opinions on Current State of Voice CX

• Of all contact channels, 56% say they have the most success with the telephone for receiving same-day resolutions

In BLEND's recent caller preferences study, nearly 69% of surveyed consumers demonstrate continued reliance on automated phone systems, highlighting the resilience of the voice channel amidst expanding omnichannel support options. The study, conducted by BLEND, sheds light on consumer sentiments toward voice self-service, AI innovations, and audio quality in contact center interactions.

Consumer Behavior Insights

Phone Channel Reliance

The study reveals that:

• 69% of consumers call into automated phone systems several times a month.
• 56% rely on the phone for urgent customer service requiring same-day resolution.
• 53% describe their day-to-day interactions with IVR systems as 'positive' or 'very positive.'

Importance of Audio Quality

Consumers prioritize audio quality, with:

• 78.5% considering the technical audio quality of voice prompts and on-hold music, as well as the sound of the voice talent, 'very important' or 'important' to the customer experience.

Perception of Voice Technology

Human vs. AI Voices

• 60% believe they can distinguish between a 'human' voice recording and a current-gen AI voice on an IVR interaction.

Gender Preferences

• 46% have no gender preference for IVR voice recordings, while 31% prefer female voices.

Insights for Contact Centers

Tim Shoemaker, BLEND's COO of Voice-Over Services, emphasizes:

• The ongoing significance of the telephone in customer experience.
• The importance of high-quality voices and user interfaces.

Leveraging Consumer Feedback

BLEND utilizes consumer feedback to:

• Guide brands in voice casting, scripting, and audio implementation decisions.
• Recommend suitable voice actors or AI voices to enhance customer experiences.

Study Methodology

The survey, conducted in April 2024, involved 250 international consumers of all ages. Participants were invited via email, and responses were collected through an online survey.

BLEND's caller preferences study offers valuable insights into consumer behavior and preferences in contact center interactions. As consumer expectations evolve, contact centers can leverage these findings to optimize their voice-based customer service strategies and enhance overall customer experiences.

The new product is an evolution of the company's Link-in-bio offering, driven by market opportunities and customer demand for seamless conversion solutions

Bitly Inc., the world's leading Connections Platform, has introduced its newest product: Bitly Pages. This user-friendly tool enables businesses to create customizable, mobile-friendly landing pages that drive meaningful results. Bitly Pages enhances the company's Connections Platform by offering businesses a centralized solution to create, share, and convert end-to-end customer connections.

Evolution of Link-in-bio Tool

Bitly Pages is an evolution of the company's Link-in-bio tool, designed to meet market and customer demand for building landing page solutions. This innovative addition enables businesses, from small enterprises to large corporations, to generate links and QR codes at scale, directing users to personalized, interactive landing pages.

Addressing Market Demand

With the landing page market projected to reach $1.9 billion by 2032, Bitly is strategically positioned to assist businesses in closing the loop on customer engagement. Bitly Pages provides a seamless way for businesses to convert leads and optimize every customer touchpoint within the Connections Platform.

Features and Benefits

Insights and Optimization

Bitly Pages offers deeper insights into consumer interactions, enabling businesses to make data-driven improvements. By understanding user engagement with landing pages, businesses can optimize connections for higher engagement and conversion rates.

Seamless Integration

Bitly Pages integrates seamlessly with Bitly's suite of tools, including branded links, custom QR codes, and analytics. This integration enables businesses to deliver critical notifications, information, and experiences to their audiences, driving better business outcomes.

Empowering Businesses of All Sizes

Bitly continues its mission to empower businesses of all sizes to connect with their audiences in more meaningful ways. With Bitly Pages and other offerings, businesses can strengthen connections and drive engagement by delivering personalized experiences to their audiences.

Bitly Pages represents a significant advancement in Bitly's offerings, providing businesses with a powerful tool to create engaging landing pages and optimize customer connections. By leveraging insights and integrating seamlessly within the Connections Platform, Bitly enables businesses to drive meaningful results and enhance customer engagement.

All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the leading SEO plugin for WordPress, has acquired LowFruits, an innovative keyword research tool designed to uncover low-competition keywords for enhanced search engine rankings. This acquisition marks a significant step forward for AIOSEO in its mission to equip businesses with the best tools to optimize their SEO efforts effectively.

Empowering Small Business Owners

LowFruits enables small business owners to discover high-converting keywords with lower competition, providing them with a competitive edge in search results. With its advanced functionalities, such as bulk SERP analysis and keyword clustering, LowFruits empowers businesses to identify and target keywords that significantly improve their rankings.

Commitment to Excellence

"We are thrilled to welcome LowFruits to the AIOSEO family," said Syed Balkhi, Founder and CEO of Awesome Motive. "By integrating LowFruits into our ecosystem, we can offer our users a comprehensive and user-friendly tool to simplify keyword research and enhance their overall organic performance."

Maximizing SEO Potential

While LowFruits will maintain its independence, retaining its unique features and functionality, AIOSEO users can now leverage both tools to maximize their SEO potential. The synergy between AIOSEO and LowFruits will streamline keyword research and provide users with a seamless experience.

Future Enhancements

AIOSEO is committed to introducing new features and improvements to optimize the user experience and simplify keyword research further. Users can expect these updates to be rolled out by the end of Q3 or early Q4, further solidifying AIOSEO's position as a leading provider of comprehensive SEO solutions for WordPress users.

The acquisition of LowFruits by AIOSEO represents a strategic move to enhance keyword research capabilities and empower businesses with improved search engine rankings. With a focus on innovation and user experience, AIOSEO continues to be at the forefront of providing cutting-edge SEO solutions for WordPress users.

Synup, a leading platform for managing listings and reviews, today announces major upgrades to its managed services program and the introduction of Mailparse, a revolutionary feedback collection system. With these upgrades, the company aims to provide greater value to customers, streamline processes, and complement the overall user experience.

Synup, the renowned platform for managing listings and reviews, announces significant upgrades to its managed services program and introduces Mailparse, a groundbreaking feedback collection system. These advancements signify Synup's commitment to providing exceptional value to customers while simplifying workflows and enhancing user experience.

Managed Services Program

The launch of Synup's managed services program enables customers to submit their business listings to high-value vertical directories, such as healthcare, real estate, and home directories. This initiative aims to enhance search visibility, attract qualified leads, and facilitate effective customer connections.

Comment from CEO

Ashwin Ramesh, Founder and CEO of Synup, emphasizes the significance of the managed services offering: "Our new program is a game-changer for businesses seeking to improve their search visibility. By targeting high-value directories, we can drive relevant traffic and help our customers connect with potential leads more effectively."

Mailparse: Revolutionary Feedback Collection System

Synup introduces Mailparse, a cutting-edge feature that automates feedback collection by extracting customer details from emails sent by legacy CRMs and payment applications. This innovative system streamlines customer engagement and seamlessly integrates essential customer information into review campaigns.

Insight from CTO

Vinod Sankar, CTO of Synup, highlights the benefits of Mailparse: "This feature simplifies feedback collection, eliminating the need for complex CRM systems. By streamlining customer engagement, businesses can gather valuable feedback effortlessly."

Future Enhancements

As a pioneer in digital marketing solutions, Synup remains committed to advancing its offerings. The company looks forward to introducing additional enhancements and product improvements to further support customers and solidify its position as an industry leader.

Synup's upgrades to its managed services program and the introduction of Mailparse represent significant strides in enhancing customer value and simplifying workflows. With these innovations, Synup continues to lead the way in providing comprehensive solutions for managing listings and reviews, empowering businesses to thrive in the digital landscape.

Seamfix, a leading digital identity solutions provider, has successfully secured a $4.5 million investment from Alitheia IDF, a renowned gender lens investing fund.

Seamfix, a renowned digital identity solutions provider, announces a major investment milestone with a $4.5 million funding from Alitheia IDF, a distinguished gender lens investing fund. Facilitated by Growthink Capital, this investment signifies a pivotal moment for Seamfix, propelling its mission to revolutionize digital identity verification across Africa.

Empowering Digital Inclusion

The investment from Alitheia IDF will enable Seamfix to scale its technology infrastructure and expand digital ID and credential services into five new African countries. This initiative aims to foster digital inclusion and economic empowerment, ensuring individuals and businesses gain access to verifiable digital identities crucial for participation in the African economy.

CEO's Enthusiasm

Chimezie Emewulu, Co-Founder and CEO of Seamfix, expresses his excitement about the funding: "This investment validates our vision of shaping the future of digital ID verification in Africa. It empowers us to expand our reach and innovate further, enabling individuals and businesses to access the benefits of verifiable identities."

Strategic Partnership for Impact

The strategic partnership between Seamfix and Alitheia IDF underscores a shared commitment to driving digital inclusion and economic empowerment, particularly for women across Africa. With Seamfix's innovative solutions and Alitheia IDF's support, millions will gain access to crucial identification services, facilitating greater participation in the economy.

Gratitude and Collaboration

Seamfix extends gratitude to Growthink Capital for their invaluable assistance throughout the growth strategy and fundraising processes. Lilian Wilfred, Head of Finance at Seamfix, expresses appreciation: "We are excited about the possibility this presents and how it will help us scale our business."

Commitment to Empowerment

Tokunboh Ishmael, Principal Partner at Alitheia IDF, emphasizes the importance of digital IDs in enabling inclusion and broadening access to essential services: "With this investment, Alitheia IDF is working with Seamfix to amplify its work in enabling millions of women to participate in the African economy."

The investment from Alitheia IDF represents a significant milestone for Seamfix, propelling its mission to provide verifiable digital identities across Africa. With support from Alitheia IDF and collaboration with Growthink Capital, Seamfix is poised for accelerated growth and enhanced impact in advancing digital inclusion and economic empowerment.

Redpanda Connect with Ockam is the only enterprise-scale, zero-trust, streaming data platform that is simultaneously easy to deploy, secure-by-design, and highly performant. 

Ockam and Redpanda collaborate to unveil Redpanda Connect with Ockam, heralding the era of zero-trust streaming data platforms. By combining Ockam's cryptographic protocols with Redpanda's declarative streaming data service, this innovative platform empowers developers to construct secure streaming pipelines across diverse infrastructures effortlessly.

Streamlined Data Connectivity

Redpanda Connect with Ockam facilitates effortless data connectivity by offering over 200 pre-built integrations with applications such as SQL, Mongo, Snowflake, and more. Developers can leverage transforms, mapping, filtering, and enrichment capabilities to process streaming data seamlessly.

Ensuring Data Security with Zero Trust

Ockam's zero-trust approach ensures absolute trust in data and applications by guaranteeing data confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity. Each producer generates unique cryptographic identities and encryption keys, establishing trusted secure channels through Redpanda Cloud to consumers across the streaming platform.

Simplified Data Governance

Ockam simplifies data governance by automating key management processes, including key generation, enrollment, rotation, and revocation. With encrypted data transmission throughout the streaming platform, organizations can enforce data privacy policies at scale, mitigating the risk of unauthorized access.

Seamless Management with Redpanda Cloud

Redpanda Cloud offers a fully-managed streaming data platform with automated upgrades, patching, and 24x7 support. Continuously monitoring and maintaining clusters and underlying infrastructure, Redpanda Cloud ensures strict performance, availability, reliability, and security standards

Redpanda Connect with Ockam revolutionizes streaming data management by integrating zero-trust principles with declarative streaming capabilities. With simplified data connectivity, enhanced security, and seamless management provided by Redpanda Cloud, organizations can accelerate their journey towards secure and efficient streaming data operations.

Attain, the foremost permission-based purchase data platform in the U.S., reinforces its leadership team with the appointment of Ben Kartzman as President and Chief Operating Officer (COO). With a distinguished career spanning transformative roles in ad tech companies like Mediaocean and Flashtalking, Kartzman brings invaluable industry expertise to drive operational excellence and customer-focused growth at Attain.

Ben Kartzman's Background:
Ben Kartzman is a seasoned industry veteran, having served as COO at Mediaocean for nearly three years, where he played a pivotal role in driving operational efficiency and customer success. His tenure included the acquisition of Flashtalking, where he served as President, further solidifying his reputation as a strategic leader in the ad tech landscape.

Vision for Attain:
In his new role, Kartzman aims to leverage his extensive experience to propel Attain's growth trajectory and deliver measurable outcomes for clients, particularly amidst the industry's shift towards first-party data. By prioritizing customer acquisition and operational excellence, Kartzman seeks to position Attain as an indispensable partner for marketers navigating the evolving landscape of data privacy and digital advertising.

Immediate Goals:
Kartzman's immediate focus at Attain is on ensuring an exceptional experience for every new customer onboarded. By cementing Attain's position as a must-have solution for marketers, he aims to deliver consistent value and establish Attain as an essential component of clients' strategies.

Industry Experience and Leadership:
With over two decades of industry knowledge and leadership experience, Kartzman has played instrumental roles in expanding dynamic creative optimization capabilities and driving innovation in ad tech. His track record of success includes leadership positions at Flashtalking, Spongecell, and consulting roles at Accenture and Bridgeline.

Education:
Kartzman holds a dual BS in Human-Computer Interaction and Information and Decision Systems from Carnegie Mellon University, providing him with a strong foundation in both technology and business.

Ben Kartzman's appointment as President and COO of Attain signifies the company's commitment to excellence and customer-centric growth. With his proven track record and strategic vision, Kartzman is poised to lead Attain to new heights, driving innovation and delivering unparalleled value to clients in the dynamic landscape of digital advertising and data privacy.