B2B Better: Customers Vote For The Most Trusted Brands
Apple, Amazon, Adobe, LinkedIn and Google garnered the top five spots among B2B professionals as the most trusted B2B brands, followed by Microsoft, FedEx, HubSpot, UPS, and American Express, according to recently-release survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

How to Influence B2B Buyers’ Purchasing Decisions [Survey]
71 percent of B2B buyers said that the top influence on their decision to purchase was when a salesperson leads a thorough discovery of their concerns, wants, and needs, followed by 68 percent who said showing what’s possible or how to solve a problem had an significant influence on buying decisions, with the same percentage noting that a salesperson who listens to them affects their purchasing decision, according to newly-released survey data. MarketingProfs

Twitter Re-Opens Public Applications for Profile Verification
For the first time since November, 2017 Twitter has begun allowing users to apply for verified profile status. As the new option is rolled out, a verification application option will appear within a Twitter user’s account settings, allowing brands to seek a blue check-mark, the firm recently announced. Social Media Today

Google Ads Has New Smart Bidding Features
Google has launched new eligible search campaign recommendations, along with target impression share simulators — two of several new updates of interest to digital marketers that have been rolled out to the firm’s popular Google Ads offering, the search giant recently announced. SEO Roundtable

B2B Marketer Pain Points, Performance, and Priorities for the Year Ahead: B2B Marketing Monitor
54 percent of B2B brands face difficulty connecting with customers on the emotional level needed to increase brand engagement, while only 22 percent of B2B enterprises say they excel when it comes to customer experience (CX) — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers in recently-released survey data. MarketingProfs

Micro Influencers Still À La Mode in 2021
From micro and macro to mega, non-paid, affiliate and celebrity, the influencer types that enterprise marketers prefer working with runs the gamut, however the overwhelming majority — some 90 percent — want to work with micro-influencers who have between five and 100,000 followers, up from 77 percent in 2020, according to newly-released study data. [Survey]MarketingCharts

What B2B Buyers Say Sellers Can Do to Influence Their Purchase Decisions [Report]
71 percent of B2B buyers see client desires and needs as the leading influences on purchase decisions, while 68 consider showing what’s possible or how to solve a problem as being the biggest influence — two of several statistics of interest to B2B marketers in recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts

U.S. Ad Market Turns In Best March Ever: Up 25% Vs. 2020, 7% Vs. 2019
March saw the U.S. ad market grow nearly 25 percent since the same time last year, and even managed to increase 7.2 percent from pre-pandemic March 2019 levels, according to newly-released Standard Media Index (SMI) data. MediaPost

Twitter Launches Initial Test of ‘Professional Profiles’ for Brands and Creators
Twitter has begun testing new brand and creator professional profiles, which include information about a business, verification badges, and which may feature galleries and other elements, the social media platform recently announced. Social Media Today

These Are Marketers’ Top Organizational Priorities Right Now
45 percent of CMO Council members expect to upgrade or recruit for go-to-market execution and operations, while 38 percent say they’ll do so for content and demand-gen, followed by some 33 percent who plan to upgrade digital interactive marketing efforts — the top three spots in recently-released CMO organizational priority survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts

The Buzz On B2B: Email Is Tops For Both Acquisition And Retention
Half of B2B marketers have seen email click-through rates (CTRs) remain steady during the first quarter of 2021, while 28 percent saw higher CTR than during 2020, according to recently-released survey data, which also showed that by early 2022 some 40 percent of marketers expect to restore their marketing spending to regular levels, with 25 percent doing so in early 2021. MediaPost

Vast Majority of Consumers Associate High-Quality Creative with Brand Trust
85 percent of U.S. adult consumers in a recent survey said that well-designed ads help build brand trust, while 64 percent said that brands with poor creative design were less trsutworthy, according to the Celta survey. MarketingCharts

B2B Myopia: Brands And Visitors Disagree On What Works On Websites
59 percent of B2B marketing customers say they like reviews and testimonials on websites, compared with just 37 percent of B2B marketers, while 44 percent of marketers viewed compelling brand messaging as important when it comes to creating a powerful website experience, compared to only 24 percent of website visitors — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers contained in recently-released survey data. MediaPost

Pinterest Kicks Off ‘Be Their Next’ B-to-B Campaign
Pinterest has launched its first global B2B campaign aimed at advertisers is the U.S. and five other countries, seeking to bolster B2B brand involvement on the visual-oriented social media platform, and shared survey data showing that Pinterest users are 25 percent more likely to tell others about new products, the firm recently announced. Adweek

More B2B Tech Content Marketers Successfully Building Trust, Loyalty
86 percent of B2B technology marketers have said that they rate their content marketing efforts as being successful, while 88 percent attributed that success to providing content that offers value — two of several findings of interest to digital marketers in recently-released report data. MarketingCharts

B2B Buyers Prefer Email Over Other Channels, Especially Older Generations, Study Finds
Email is the leading overall communication channel among B2B decision makers, preferred by 54 percent of millennials and 60 percent of members of older generations, while 51 percent of millennials said they see digital purchasing channels as fostering more personalized solutions, according to newly-released survey data. MediaPost

Instagram Announces That Stories Drafts are Coming Soon
Facebook-owned Instagram will roll out a new scheduling option that will provide a helpful change for digital marketers who are using the native Instagram Stories interface, the firm recently announced. Social Media Today

B2B Highlights From “The CMO Survey”
51.3 percent of B2B marketers said they were more optimistic in January 2021 than during the fourth quarter of 2020, while 77 percent said it isn’t appropriate for their brand to take a stance on politically-charged issues — two of numerous findings of interest to digital marketers in new CMO survey data. B2B Marketing Directions

Longer Articles Associated with More Traffic, Shares
Longer articles tend to get greater numbers of views and shares, with 7,000-plus word articles the most likely to be shared and garner the most page-views, according to recently-released SEMrush data examining some 1.2 million blog articles. MarketingCharts

Gartner: 75% of VCs will use AI to make investment decisions by 2025
Study data looks at how shifting from gut-feel decisions to artificial intelligence-based investment has begun to affect venture capital, while moving from a pilot program to production is a top data science and machine learning challenge, newly-released report data shows. VentureBeat

Livestreaming finds a home among influencers
Live-stream content usage by influencers has remained steady during the pandemic, with some 37 percent of U.K. and U.S. social media users who follow influencers noting that they actively watched the live-stream influencer content, in surveys conducted both in May and September 2020, according to recently-released report data. eMarketer