Latest Trends in B2B Marketing: GA4, Generative AI and Video

At 3 Aspens Media, we don’t just keep up with trends in B2B marketing because it’s our bread and butter. We keep up because we’re obsessed. And, of course, because we want to provide the most relevant, effective content and services for our clients.  

Since we apply these trends in real-time with a diverse set of clients in our industries, we have a good sense of how trends actually pay off over time – and which might be worth adding to your arsenal. In the spirit of sharing, here are three trends strongly affecting us and our clients right now.  

GA4 Caused a Bit of Panic – But It’s Okay  

Mid-2023, companies had to shift from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Most of us knew it was coming. It was looming in the distance, and perhaps our SEO and analytics folks handled it for us. However, it’s an important change for B2B marketing that’s worth understanding at a high level.  

Though it can seem like a strenuous change, try to look on the bright side: How you can use it to improve your marketing, optimize the user experience, better understand customers and how they interact with your brand, discover if you’re hitting your target market and target markets more efficiently. 

GA4: 

• Allows you to see customer data from multiple devices and the ways they interact with you, not just your website. 
• Measures engagement differently, categorizing all user activities as events so you can see more than just pageviews. 
• Has more robust, intuitive reporting capabilities. 
• Allows you to generate custom reports. Check out this great guide to custom reports in GA4 from Moz. 
• Has a comprehensive search function so you can ask more intuitive questions. 

The marketing world thus far is a big fan of the new engagement and retention reports in GA4. The improved funnel analysis is also a favorite. 

Check out Google’s resourceful guides and videos for using and leveraging GA4 in their Analytics Help Center.  

Majority Already Rules on Generative AI 

Three out of four B2B marketers use generative AI tools, and many predict it will play a starring role in content marketing in 2024 (Content Marketing Institute). Of course, this isn’t hard to believe as we close out 2023. 

After over a year of seeing what generative AI can do, a few clear concerns have come to light for B2B marketers: 

• The use of AI will likely make capturing search traffic more challenging. 
• Many businesses and organizations already using AI do not have guidelines or processes for doing so, such as how to develop prompts or conduct fact-checking. 
• Forrester warns that low-quality content produced using AI could “degrade the purchase experience” for B2B buyers – and frustrate them. To combat this, Forrester suggests B2B marketers “invest in fresh buyer and customer persona interviews and use the transcripts to guide their content personalization efforts.” 

According to the Content Marketing Institute, the top content-related use cases for generative AI in B2B marketing are: 

• Brainstorming topics 
• Researching headlines, keywords, etc. 
• Writing drafts