IDG Connect’s survey of more than 400 enterprise respondents involved in IT purchase decisions shows that social networking is popular among B2B IT buyers in making technology purchase decisions. According to the report, titled Connecting Conversations To Content, 86% of B2B IT buyers are currently using social media networks in their purchase decision process.

Search is used by 58% of respondents, followed by social networking (57%); professional networks (51%); video sharing (38%); and reviews and recommendations from peers (38%).

The Act-On for Agencies solution from Act-On Software has been adopted by To The Point Marketing (TTPM), an interactive marketing agency that works with B2B and B2C brands. The solution allows TTPM to manage, provision and share marketing assets across accounts while reducing the resources needed to complete the tasks, leading to increased efficiency, company official noted.

Marketing automation vendor Salesfusion received $8.25 million in Series B backing to continue the growth it experienced in 2013, when the company more than doubled its revenue and gross profits. The funding also will be used to build a new headquarters in Atlanta.

The practice of ad retargeting — displaying targeted messages to visitors who have left your site when they view other sites — has been a page in B2C marketers’ playbooks for quite a while. Today, however, B2B marketers are embracing retargeting even more warmly, and for good reason: It is a cost-effective way to keep your brand in front of B2B decision makers during what is typically a long buying cycle.

The average click-through rate online for display ads is .07%, while the average click-through rate (CTR) for retargeted ads is about 0.7%, according to research from Criteo, a company that specializes in performance display advertising. Criteo studies also found that visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert than those who are not retargeted.

Leadspace unveiled a targeting feature designed to help B2B marketers and sales teams more accurately target companies that are most likely to purchase.

The application mines the web for targeted social indicators such as products and technologies already being used in the company. Leadspace’s predictive lead targeting system filters, segments and scores prospective companies based on their purchase likelihood. The capability is part of the latest version of Leadspace’s SaaS platform.

Ifbyphone, a voice-based marketing automation solutions provider, announced that it has raised an additional $9 million from investors. The announcement brings the company’s total to more than $30 million in venture capital funding.

The funding will be used to help further lengthen its client-base. With 70% of mobile searchers calling a business directly from search results — according to a 2013 study by Google — voice-based marketing automation is still a requirement for many SMBs.

Callidus Software, a provider of sales and marketing effectiveness cloud software, announced today that Violin Memory, a vendor of memory-based storage solutions for enterprises, has selected seven suite solutions to transform sales results.

Full Circle CRM, announced that Xactly, a provider of cloud-based incentive compensation and performance management solutions, as its latest customer to implement the Marketing Performance Management application for Salesforce.com.

The application provides Xactly with the tools to effectively measure the value of individual marketing and sales campaigns, maximize its marketing budget and analyze demand generation programs to see which ones are more effective than others, according to company officials.