Appboy, a provider of marketing automation for mobile apps, launched conversion tracking capabilities designed to enable marketers to set custom campaign goals and monitor user interactions with messages.

The feature is designed enable marketers analyze the path to purchase and enhance future retargeting. Additionally, campaigns triggered by Appboy's API allow marketers to measure campaign effectiveness outside of the Appboy platform.

As 2014 comes to a close, personalized and relevant content played a pivotal role in Demand Gen Report’s top 15 articles of the year. The importance of identifying what content prospective buyers prefer to consume throughout the buying process shined through various other talking points — including retargeting strategies, social selling and buyer personas.

Here are Demand Gen Report’s top 15 articles from 2014:

ON24 launched its Webcast Elite Video Portal, designed to help users B2B marketers present past webinar content in a YouTube-like portal.

The portal is positioned to enable content marketers to promote completed webcasts to larger target audiences, increasing overall reach and ROI.

Ektron, a provider of digital experience management software, added integrations with Pardot, Eloqua and Silverpop marketing automation systems to its library of out-of-the-box data connectors.

By integrating data in real time from sales and marketing systems, Ektron is positioned to offer marketers a platform to deliver data-driven, personalized online experiences and targeted content to their prospects, leads and customers.

Tellwise, a cloud-based sales acceleration technology provider, unveiled a platform designed to automate the sales lead tracking process and enhance engagement between prospective buyers and the sales rep.

The platform, which is integrated with Salesforce, is positioned to combine email, instant messaging, collaboration, and analytics in one location. It is also intended to deliver highly-focused content that relates and resonates with prospective buyers.

QuickPivot, a real-time cross-channel marketing platform, added Program Palette, a customer lifecycle planning and execution module, to its suite of tools.

The module, which is designed to simplify the deployment of customer lifecycle marketing programs, is positioned to provide a holistic, real-time view of customers’ journeys.

While the role of digital marketing grows more prominent, in-person events continue to receive a significant portion of overall B2B marketing budgets. According to Forrester, trade shows still constitute the biggest line item on a B2B marketers budget, with nearly 20% of spend being committed to live events.

While progressive B2B marketers are seeking to measure the overall return on their investment in events, the numbers can be elusive, according to Laura Cross, Research Director for Demand Generation Strategies at SiriusDecisions. “It's difficult because marketers are being asked to prove the value from more than just a marketer's point-of-view. There has to be less focus on how many people are there, and more focus on the overall experience of the event.”