4 Ad Trends and Opportunities for B2B Growth in 2023

As we kick off the New Year, the 2023 Outlook Survey from IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) highlights the leading ad trends to expect as well as the best opportunities and strategies for leveraging them. Here are my four top takeaways from the survey along with my thoughts on how B2B marketers can use this knowledge to fuel business growth this year:

• Ad Spend Is Up

Survey respondents project overall 2023 ad spend to increase 5.9% year over year, indicating businesses are still allocating a significant part of their budget to advertising. But ad spend growth is down compared to the 9% increase from 2021 to 2022. Projected ad spend varies significantly across categories, with B2B leading the pack at 20.8% YOY projected increase for 2023.

• Digital Increasing

Ad budgets are doubling down on digital. The survey noted that every digital channel is projecting ad spend growth in 2023, while traditional channels such as radio, print, direct mail and broadcast TV are expected to decrease. As customer expectations continue to increase, omnichannel marketing—reaching audiences across channels for a seamless experience—is becoming even more important.

• Reevaluating Budgets

Inflation and other economic concerns mean media budgets are being evaluated much more frequently. Roughly 63% said they are evaluating and reforecasting more frequently, with 65% of those respondents saying they will reevaluate at least monthly.

• Customer Acquisition

Looking at goals for media investment, 61% of respondents list customer acquisition in their top three goals. The economic environment has buyers (including your current customers) reevaluating their budgets, too. Customer retention is important, but in this climate it's vital to seek out new customers to balance out possible attrition.

As you move forward with your marketing campaigns for the year, I encourage you to keep these trends and other marketing studies—such as OMI’s survey with Ascend2 on how enterprise marketers use email—in mind. If you’re looking to reach new audiences, OMI’s third-party B2B marketing data can fuel those acquisition campaigns.

Our high-quality B2B business contact data is used by Fortune 1000 firms and start-ups alike to drive modern digital marketing initiatives—from intent monitoring and email marketing to omnichannel campaigns utilizing display, social media and more. We can also build an audience based on your existing customer attributes to reach your ideal prospects. Contact my team today to learn more.

 

Did you know? Over 75 million of OMI’s 100 million manager- and professional-level and above contacts are matched to the LiveRamp RampID graph, including 65 million records from our SMB and medical market databases. Contact us today to learn more about building a custom audience.