New Report from Clearbit Provides Critical Insight into the State of B2B Marketing in 2023

As companies work to reconfigure teams with smaller headcounts, tighter budgets, and ever-increasing expectations, marketing teams are under pressure to deliver profitable growth

Clearbit, a leader in B2B marketing intelligence, has released a new report on the state of B2B marketing in 2023. Using anonymized data from Clearbit, the report analyzed more than 900,000 marketers in over 54,000 B2B tech companies in North America to provide insights into the structure, roles, and software of marketing teams in the current business climate.

“The landscape has shifted considerably this year, and B2B marketing teams are under more pressure than ever to deliver profitable growth,” said Kevin Tate, CMO, Clearbit. “With this report, we wanted to help marketing leaders answer key questions about team size, structure and tools adoption – especially as they make decisions about spending in the second-half of 2023.”

Some key findings from the report:

• More than 50% of marketing teams are now leveraging productivity and analytics tools before they reach their first million in annual revenue
• Today’s B2B marketing departments make up about 5% of total employee count
• More than 40% of one-person marketing teams rely on the help of a content management system
• By the time marketing teams reach a headcount of five, over 25% of them have advertising, analytics, content management, customer relationship management, marketing automation, and productivity tools to power their martech stack

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The report also provides insights into the structure of B2B marketing teams, including team size, common titles, and seniority within a team across various company sizes and earnings, for example:

• Senior-level marketers are expected to have a wide range of marketing knowledge, with seven out of the top 10 marketing titles being marketing generalists
• VP of Product Marketing is the only executive title in a specialized role to reach the top 50 list of marketing titles at number 23
• Product marketing shows up as a key function across B2B marketing teams of all sizes
• Creative specialties – such as copywriting and social media – tend to be performed by individual contributors or consultants, regardless of company size

Additionally, the report found that despite increased demand for video over the past few years, more than 50% of B2B marketing teams have yet to invest in video and image technology solutions. The timing and scale of marketing technology investments like these are being evaluated through a new lens in 2023.

Overall, the report’s findings highlight the challenges and key spending decisions facing B2B tech companies as they navigate changing team structures and tool requirements in a rapidly evolving business environment.

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