# Content Marketing Statistics 2026: Strategy, Budgets, AI, ROI and Formats

Updated 2026-11-02. Checked by StatisticsGlobal editorial team. Surveys by Content Marketing Institute, Orbit Media Studios, Ahrefs and HubSpot, plus an Ahrefs crawl of 900,000 new pages, 7 source documents.
Canonical: https://statisticsglobal.org/content-marketing-statistics/

97% of B2B marketers had a content strategy in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute, and 61% said it improved in the past year. AI is now near universal. Four 2025 and 2026 surveys put AI use between 80% and 95%, an average of 88.6%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. Results lag effort. Only 13.9% of content marketers say their blog delivers strong results in 2026, an all-time low, according to Orbit Media Studios. For 2026, B2B marketers were 5 times as likely to plan more spend on AI tools as on their own people.

## Key statistics

- 97% of B2B marketers had a content strategy in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute.
- The average of four 2025 and 2026 surveys puts AI use among content marketers at 88.6%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute, Orbit Media Studios, Ahrefs and HubSpot data.
- 13.9% of content marketers said their blog delivered strong results in 2026, an all-time low, according to Orbit Media Studios.
- B2B marketers were 5 times as likely to plan more investment in AI tools as in their own people for 2026 in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data.
- 58% of B2B marketers rated videos among their most effective content types in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute.

## Content marketing statistics 2026

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and MarketingProfs run the longest annual survey of B2B content marketers. The 2026 edition was fielded in mid-2025 and covers 1,015 B2B marketers, mostly in North America.

Having a content strategy is now close to universal in B2B. 97% of B2B marketers had one in 2025, up 2 points from 95% in 2024, according to CMI. The bigger change is in how marketers rate it. 61% said their strategy improved over the past year and only 9% said it declined, a net score of plus 52 points, calculated by StatisticsGlobal.

CMI's respondents mostly credit people, not tools. 74% pointed to strategy refinement as a driver of improvement, against 51% who credited new technology. The hard problems are familiar. Getting content to prompt action, finding resources and measuring effectiveness top the list, as they did a year earlier.

The two CMI surveys used different rating scales for strategy quality, so the 2024 and 2025 effectiveness scores cannot be compared directly. In 2024, 29% called their strategy extremely or very effective. In 2025, CMI switched to asking whether it improved or declined.

- 97% of B2B marketers had a content strategy in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 95% of B2B marketers had a content strategy in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- The share of B2B marketers with a content strategy rose 2 percentage points between 2024 and 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 61% of B2B marketers with a content strategy said it improved over the previous 12 months in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- Net content strategy improvement was plus 52 points among B2B marketers in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 74% of B2B marketers pointed to strategy refinement as a driver of content strategy improvement in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 51% of B2B marketers credited new technology with improving their content strategy in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 40% of B2B marketers named creating content that prompts a desired action as a top content challenge in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 39% of B2B marketers named resource constraints as a top content marketing challenge in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 33% of B2B marketers named measuring content effectiveness as a top content marketing challenge in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research

Table: Top content marketing challenges named by B2B marketers, 2025 (top three choices)

| Challenge | Share of B2B marketers |
|---|---|
| Creating content that prompts a desired action | 40% |
| Resource constraints (time, people, budget) | 39% |
| Measuring content effectiveness | 33% |
| Creating enough quality content | 28% |
| Differentiating content from competitors | 24% |
| Aligning content with the buyer's journey | 23% |
| Cross-department collaboration | 21% |
| Understanding audience information needs | 20% |
| Developing a content strategy and plan | 16% |
| Aligning with sales objectives | 15% |

Source: Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026. 1,015 B2B marketers, fielded 24 June to 14 August 2025.

## Content marketing budget statistics

Neither CMI nor the other main surveys publish average content budgets in dollars. What they do publish is where marketers plan to add money.

AI tools lead planned spending for 2026. 45% of B2B marketers named them as a top area to grow, according to CMI. Events (33%) and owned media (32%) follow. Owned media leads paid media by 7 points, so marketers are putting money into channels they control.

People come last. Only 9% plan to raise spending on salaries, training and development. That makes AI tools 5 times as likely to get extra money as the team that uses them, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. CMI's own data shows effective teams credit skills (53%) far more than budget (20%).

The year before, budget expectations were steady. 46% of B2B marketers who knew their budget expected it to rise in 2025, close to the 45% a year earlier. Video was the top planned investment for 2025, cited by 61%. CMI changed its list of investment areas between the two surveys, so the rankings do not line up one to one.

- 45% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in AI-powered marketing tools for 2026, in a 2025 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 33% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in events and experiential marketing for 2026, in a 2025 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 32% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in owned media such as content, website, blog and email for 2026, in a 2025 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 25% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in paid media for 2026, in a 2025 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 9% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in salaries, training and development for 2026, in a 2025 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- B2B marketers were 5 times as likely to plan more investment in AI tools as in their own people for 2026 in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- Owned media led paid media by 7 points as a planned 2026 investment area among B2B marketers in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 78% of B2B marketers allocated budget to experiential marketing in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 46% of B2B marketers who knew their budget expected content marketing spend to rise in 2025, in a 2024 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 61% of B2B marketers expected their organisation to raise investment in video in 2025, in a 2024 survey by Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025

Table: Areas where B2B marketers plan to increase investment in 2026 (top three choices)

| Investment area | Share of B2B marketers |
|---|---|
| AI-powered marketing tools | 45% |
| Events and experiential marketing | 33% |
| Owned media (content, website, blog, email) | 32% |
| Paid media | 25% |
| Content personalisation | 24% |
| Tech infrastructure (martech, analytics, CRM) | 21% |
| Social and earned media | 20% |
| Agency and outsourcing | 19% |
| Research and insights | 15% |
| First-party data capabilities | 12% |
| Human resources (salaries, training, development) | 9% |

Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026. Survey fielded June to August 2025.

## AI in content marketing statistics

Every major survey now finds most content marketers use AI. They disagree on how many, partly because each asks a different question. For wider AI marketing data, see our [AI in marketing statistics](/ai-marketing-statistics/).

Reported AI use ranges from 80% to 95%, a 15-point spread, and averages 88.6% across the four surveys, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. CMI's 95% is the widest measure, because it counts any AI-powered application at the organisation. HubSpot's 80% is the narrowest, because it asks only about content creation. Read each figure with its question.

Adoption climbed fast. CMI found 72% of B2B teams used generative AI in 2023 and 81% in 2024, a 9-point rise in one year. Orbit Media, which has asked bloggers since before ChatGPT, says use went from virtually zero to 93% in three years.

The gains are mostly speed. Among B2B marketers using AI for content, 87% say productivity improved but only 39% say content performance improved, a 48-point gap. Quality nets out positive, with 58% saying it improved and 12% saying it fell. Ahrefs found AI users publish a median of 17 articles a month against 12 for non-users, 5 more.

AI content is now the norm on the web, but pure AI pages are rare. Ahrefs found 74.2% of new English-language pages in April 2025 contained AI content. Only 2.5% were pure AI, which is 3.4% of the pages with any AI. Only 16% of companies using AI tell readers they do.

- 95% of B2B marketers said their organisations used AI-powered applications in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 92.4% of content marketers used AI for blogging in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 87% of marketers used AI to create or help create content in 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- 80% of marketers used AI for content creation in 2026, according to HubSpot. Source: HubSpot, The 2026 State of Marketing Report (2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
- Reported AI use in content marketing ranged across a 15-point spread in 2025 and 2026 surveys, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute and HubSpot data. Source: HubSpot, The 2026 State of Marketing Report (2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
- The average of four 2025 and 2026 surveys puts AI use among content marketers at 88.6%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute, Orbit Media Studios, Ahrefs and HubSpot data. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 75% of marketers used AI for media production in 2026, according to HubSpot. Source: HubSpot, The 2026 State of Marketing Report (2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
- 61% of marketers believed AI was causing marketing's biggest disruption in 20 years in 2026, according to HubSpot. Source: HubSpot, The 2026 State of Marketing Report (2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
- 81% of B2B marketers said their teams used generative AI tools in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 72% of B2B marketers said their teams used generative AI tools in 2023, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- Generative AI use among B2B marketing teams rose 9 percentage points between 2023 and 2024, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 89% of B2B marketers using AI used it for content creation tools such as copywriting in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 87% of B2B marketers using AI for content creation said productivity improved in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 58% of B2B marketers using AI for content creation said content quality improved in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 12% of B2B marketers using AI for content creation said content quality decreased in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- Net AI impact on content quality was plus 46 points among B2B marketers in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 39% of B2B marketers using AI for content creation said content performance improved in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- AI users were 48 points more likely to report better productivity than better content performance in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 28% of B2B marketers experimented with AI agents in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- Marketers using AI published a median of 17 articles a month in 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- Marketers not using AI published a median of 12 articles a month in 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- Marketers using AI published a median of 5 more articles a month than non-users in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Ahrefs data. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- Only 16% of companies using AI for content disclosed that use in 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- 44% of marketers used ChatGPT for content creation in 2025, ahead of Gemini at 15% and Claude at 10%, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report] (11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
- 74.2% of new English-language web pages contained AI-generated content in April 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, 74% of New Webpages Include AI Content (Study of 900k Pages) (19 May 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/
- Only 2.5% of new English-language web pages were pure AI content in April 2025, according to Ahrefs. Source: Ahrefs, 74% of New Webpages Include AI Content (Study of 900k Pages) (19 May 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/
- Only 3.4% of new web pages containing AI content were pure AI in April 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Ahrefs data. Source: Ahrefs, 74% of New Webpages Include AI Content (Study of 900k Pages) (19 May 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/

Table: AI use in content marketing by survey, with how each defines use

| Source | Share using AI | What was asked | Sample | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content Marketing Institute | 95% | Organisation uses AI-powered applications | 1,015 B2B marketers | 2025 |
| Orbit Media Studios | 92.4% | Uses AI for blogging | 1,042 content marketers | 2026 |
| Ahrefs | 87% | Uses AI to create or help create content | 879 marketers | 2025 |
| HubSpot | 80% | Uses AI for content creation | Not disclosed on landing page | 2026 |

Sources: Content Marketing Institute (fielded June to August 2025), Orbit Media Studios (published September 2026), Ahrefs (published June 2025), HubSpot 2026 State of Marketing. Spread and average calculated by StatisticsGlobal.

## B2B content marketing effectiveness

Effectiveness is self-reported in every survey here. CMI asks about marketing as a whole, while Orbit Media asks bloggers whether their blog delivers strong results. The answers look very different.

59% of B2B marketers rated their marketing at least somewhat effective in 2025, according to CMI, but only 12% exceeded their goals. Enterprise marketers did better, with 68% rating their marketing effective, 9 points above the wider B2B group. Effective teams credit content relevance and quality (65%) and team skills (53%) ahead of tools.

Orbit Media's blogging survey is far less upbeat. Only 13.9% of content marketers said their blog delivered strong results in 2026, an all-time low. That is down 12 points from 26% in 2022, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. A further 18% did not know whether their blog worked at all. More data from that survey is on our [blogging statistics](https://statisticsglobal.org/blogging-statistics/) page.

The two sources do not contradict each other. CMI's 59% counts anyone who met most goals across all marketing. Orbit's 13.9% counts only strong results from a blog. Both point the same way on one thing, though. Orbit finds AI use does not correlate with strong results, and CMI finds AI lifts productivity far more than performance.

- 59% of B2B marketers rated their marketing at least somewhat effective over the past 12 months in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 12% of B2B marketers rated their marketing highly effective, exceeding goals, in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 65% of effective B2B marketing teams credited content relevance and quality for their results in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 68% of enterprise marketers rated their marketing highly or somewhat effective in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, Enterprise Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (21 January 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/enterprise-research/enterprise-content-marketing-research-findings
- Enterprise marketers were 9 points more likely than all B2B marketers to rate their marketing effective in 2025, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, Enterprise Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (21 January 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/enterprise-research/enterprise-content-marketing-research-findings
- 22% of B2B marketers called their content marketing extremely or very successful in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 13.9% of content marketers said their blog delivered strong results in 2026, an all-time low, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 26% of content marketers said their blog delivered strong results in 2022, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- The share of bloggers reporting strong results fell 12 percentage points between 2022 and 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Orbit Media Studios data. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 18% of content marketers did not know whether their blog delivered results in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/

Table: How B2B marketers rated their marketing effectiveness over the past 12 months, 2025

| Rating | All B2B marketers | Enterprise marketers |
|---|---|---|
| Highly effective (exceeded goals) | 12% | 15% |
| Somewhat effective (met most goals) | 47% | 53% |
| Neutral (mixed results) | 31% | 24% |
| Somewhat ineffective | 7% | 6% |
| Highly ineffective | 3% | 2% |

Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B and Enterprise Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026. 1,015 B2B and 296 enterprise marketers from the same 2025 survey.

## Content marketing ROI statistics

No survey here measures revenue return in money terms. They report what marketers say content achieves and which practices go with better results.

Content works best at the top of the funnel. In CMI's 2024 survey, 87% of B2B marketers said content built brand awareness, 74% said it generated demand or leads and 52% said it grew customer loyalty. Awareness beats loyalty by 35 points, calculated by StatisticsGlobal.

Proving return is still hard. 56% of B2B marketers struggled to attribute ROI to content in 2024, and a third still named measurement a top challenge in 2025. Where marketers do measure, targeted programmes look strong. 65% of account-based marketing users say it beats traditional marketing, and 51% of those measuring say experiential touchpoints shorten the sales process.

Orbit Media's data suggests the return depends on effort, not on volume. Marketers using six or more proven strategies were 9.75 times as likely to report strong results as those using one or none. No respondent used all eight. Influencer collaboration, the single best predictor, fell from 25% of marketers in 2017 to 7% in 2026.

- 87% of B2B marketers said content marketing helped create brand awareness in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 74% of B2B marketers said content marketing helped generate demand or leads in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 52% of B2B marketers said content marketing grew loyalty with existing customers in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- Content helped B2B brand awareness 35 points more often than customer loyalty in 2024, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 56% of B2B marketers found it hard to attribute ROI to content efforts in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 65% of B2B marketers using account-based marketing said it outperformed traditional marketing in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 51% of B2B marketers who measured it said experiential touchpoints shortened the sales process in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- 39% of content marketers using six or more proven strategies reported strong results in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 4% of content marketers using zero or one proven strategy reported strong results in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- Content marketers using six or more proven strategies were 9.75 times as likely to report strong results as those using one or none in 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Orbit Media Studios data. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/

Table: Share of content marketers reporting strong results by number of proven strategies used, 2026

| Strategies used | Report strong results |
|---|---|
| 0 to 1 | 4% |
| 6 or more | 39% |
| All respondents (benchmark) | 13.9% |

Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026. 1,042 content marketers. Strategies include influencer collaboration, keyword-focused long-form articles, original research and webinars.

## Most effective content formats

CMI asks B2B marketers which content types they used and which worked best. Orbit Media tracks the length of blog posts and the time it takes to write them.

Video is the format B2B marketers rate highest. 58% named it among their most effective content types in CMI's 2024 survey, 15 points ahead of short articles, calculated by StatisticsGlobal. Yet short articles remain the most used format, at 92%. Research reports show the widest gap the other way. Only 36% used them, but 45% rated them among the most effective.

Blog posts are getting shorter and quicker to write. The average post was 1,312 words in 2026, 8.1% shorter than the 2023 peak of 1,427 words. Writing time fell 20% from 4 hours 10 minutes in 2022 to 3 hours 20 minutes, according to Orbit Media Studios data.

For thought leadership, LinkedIn leads. 76% of B2B marketers named it among the most effective channels in 2025, ahead of email newsletters (54%) and speaking events and webinars (52%). For more on B2B channels and buyers, see our [B2B marketing statistics](https://statisticsglobal.org/b2b-marketing-statistics/).

- 58% of B2B marketers rated videos among their most effective content types in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 53% of B2B marketers rated case studies and customer stories among their most effective content types in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 45% of B2B marketers rated research reports among their most effective content types in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 43% of B2B marketers rated short articles and posts among their most effective content types in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- Video was rated effective by 15 points more B2B marketers than short articles in 2024, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Content Marketing Institute data. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 92% of B2B marketers used short articles or posts in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 76% of B2B marketers used video content in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 36% of B2B marketers used research reports in 2024, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025 (9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
- 76% of B2B marketers named LinkedIn among the most effective thought leadership channels in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute. Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026 (8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026) https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
- The average blog post was 1,312 words long in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- The average blog post peaked at 1,427 words in 2023, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- Average blog post length fell 8.1% between 2023 and 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Orbit Media Studios data. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- The average blog post took 3 hours and 20 minutes to write in 2026, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- The average blog post took a peak of 4 hours and 10 minutes to write in 2022, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- Average time to write a blog post fell 20% between 2022 and 2026, calculated by StatisticsGlobal from Orbit Media Studios data. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
- 7% of content marketers collaborated with influencers in 2026, down from 25% in 2017, according to Orbit Media Studios. Source: Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works (8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026) https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/

Table: Content types used and rated most effective by B2B marketers, 2024

| Content type | Used | Rated most effective |
|---|---|---|
| Videos | 76% | 58% |
| Case studies and customer stories | 75% | 53% |
| E-books and white papers | 51% | 45% |
| Research reports | 36% | 45% |
| Short articles and posts | 92% | 43% |

Source: Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025. 980 B2B marketers, fielded June to August 2024. CMI does not say whether effectiveness was asked of all respondents or only users of each type.

## How these sources measure content marketing

Almost all content marketing data comes from surveys run or sponsored by companies that sell to marketers. That does not make it wrong, but it shapes what gets asked and who answers.

CMI's survey is the anchor for B2B data. It has run for 16 years and reports on about 1,000 B2B marketers each year. Its respondents skew to North America, technology firms and agencies, and its sponsor changed from The MX Group in 2024 to Storyblok in 2025. In 2025 it moved from benchmarks to maturity stages, which limits year-on-year comparisons.

Orbit Media's survey is narrower but deeper on blogging. Its long run of data since 2014 is useful for trends such as post length and writing time. Its results measure blogs, not all content marketing.

The Ahrefs page study is the only source here that measures content directly rather than asking marketers. It depends on Ahrefs' own AI detector, which can misclassify pages. HubSpot's 2026 report gives no sample size or fieldwork dates on its public page, so we use only its headline figures. Where sources disagree, we show each figure with its own scope and question.


Table: Main sources on this page, their samples and limits

| Source | Method | Sample | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, Insights for 2026 | Online survey, June to August 2025, sponsored by Storyblok | 1,015 B2B marketers (296 enterprise), mostly North America | Self-reported; maturity scales changed from the 2024 survey |
| Content Marketing Institute, Outlook for 2025 | Online survey, June to August 2024, sponsored by The MX Group | 980 B2B marketers, mostly North America | Different question wording from the 2025 survey |
| Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026 | Annual survey of bloggers since 2014, 24 questions | 1,042 content marketers | Blog-focused; strong results are self-rated |
| Ahrefs survey | Online survey, published June 2025 | 879 marketers | Ahrefs sells AI content tools |
| Ahrefs page study | AI detector run on newly crawled pages, April 2025 | 900,000 English-language pages, one per domain | No AI detector is fully accurate |
| HubSpot, 2026 State of Marketing | Vendor survey | Not disclosed on the report landing page | Full method sits behind an email form |

Sources: methodology notes published with each report.

## Frequently asked questions

### What percentage of B2B marketers have a content marketing strategy?

97% of B2B marketers had a content strategy in 2025, according to Content Marketing Institute, up from 95% in 2024. 61% said their strategy improved over the past year.

### How many content marketers use AI in 2026?

Between 80% and 95%, depending on the survey. HubSpot puts AI use for content creation at 80% in 2026, Orbit Media at 92.4% and CMI at 95%. The four-survey average is 88.6%, calculated by StatisticsGlobal.

### Is content marketing still effective compared with last year?

Results look weaker. Only 13.9% of content marketers said their blog delivered strong results in 2026, an all-time low, according to Orbit Media Studios. In CMI's 2025 survey, 59% of B2B marketers rated their marketing at least somewhat effective.

### Why are content marketing results falling?

Orbit Media Studios links it to marketers dropping effective practices such as influencer collaboration, original research and keyword research. Influencer collaboration fell from 25% of marketers in 2017 to 7% in 2026. AI use itself did not correlate with better results.

### What content format works best for B2B?

Video. 58% of B2B marketers rated videos among their most effective content types in 2024, followed by case studies at 53%, according to Content Marketing Institute. Short articles are the most used format at 92%.

### Where will content marketing budgets go in 2026?

AI tools first. 45% of B2B marketers planned to raise investment in AI-powered marketing tools for 2026, followed by events (33%) and owned media (32%), according to CMI. Only 9% planned more spend on their own people.

## Sources

1. Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026, 8 October 2025, accessed 2 November 2026. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research
2. Orbit Media Studios, Blogging Statistics 2026: What 1,042 Content Marketers Told Us About What Works, 8 September 2026, accessed 2 November 2026. https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blogging-statistics/
3. Content Marketing Institute, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2025, 9 October 2024, accessed 2 November 2026. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/b2b-research/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research-2025
4. Ahrefs, Marketers Using AI Publish 42% More Content [+ New Research Report], 11 June 2025, accessed 2 November 2026. https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-using-ai-publish-more-content/
5. HubSpot, The 2026 State of Marketing Report, 2026, accessed 2 November 2026. https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
6. Ahrefs, 74% of New Webpages Include AI Content (Study of 900k Pages), 19 May 2025, accessed 2 November 2026. https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/
7. Content Marketing Institute, Enterprise Content and Marketing Trends: Insights for 2026, 21 January 2026, accessed 2 November 2026. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/enterprise-research/enterprise-content-marketing-research-findings