Key performance indicator weaknesses at every stage of the marketing funnel affect the ability of organizations to achieve business goals, according to a study released by PR 20/20. The 2014 Marketing Score Report looks how 318 professionals rate their organizations across more than 130 factors.

The report features analysis of how high performers excel in key marketing metrics; offers insight into 2014 marketing strategies; and identifies tips to improve overall marketing performance.

360Chestnut, a company that connects energy efficient contractors and homeowners, has improved its ability to deliver quality content to its audience as a result of using an integrated solution from Curata and HubSpot.

Tapping into the capabilities of Curata’s business-grade curation platform, coupled with HubSpot’s inbound marketing engine, enables marketers to efficiently fuel their content marketing engine while better engaging with their audience to establish thought leadership and gain buyer trust, company officials noted.

Just one month removed from being a Titanium sponsor of Salesforce’s Dreamforce event, a check of the Salesforce AppExchange shows that Marketo’s listing is no longer on the public portion of the site.

Several Marketo partners who did not want to be identified also confirmed that Marketo will not be invited to participate in Dreamforce next year.

Bandwidth.com, an Internet and telephone service provider, announced that it has partnered with Invoca to enhance Invoca’s back-end call marketing automation software.

The partnership was established to help improve Invoca’s API call marketing efficiency and user interface, while also supporting real-time optimizations that will provide call marketing to its current and future customers.

Oracle has agreed to acquire Responsys, a cloud-based marketing software and services provider, for approximately $1.5 billion. The purchase is expected to be finalized by Q2 2014.

The move broadens Oracle’s reach into online marketing automation. The company acquired marketing automation vendor Eloqua a year ago and content marketing software provider Compendium earlier this year.

A common mistakemarketers make while hosting an event is not creating a thriving community across channels to engage prospects before, during and after the show.

Whether it is a live event, or an on-demand webinar, improving accessibility across channels is essential to maximizing the effectiveness — and attendee rate — of events.

According to a survey from Infogroup Targeting Solutions (ITS), nine out of 10 marketers plan on investing in Big Data solutions and 54% have already done so.

Conducted at the Direct Marketing Association’s 2013 Annual Conference, the survey polled nearly 400 mid-and upper-level marketing professionals on their plans for 2014, attitudes toward technology adoption and budget considerations. Of those who have already invested in Big Data, a majority (85%) are already seeing returns. By contrast, 33% who described themselves as “uncertain” about the role of Big Data estimate that they will invest in five years or more.

While B2B buyers strategically browse social media discussions during their research, web search remains a top source of information.

Additionally, nearly two thirds of buyers indicate that content had a significant influence on a decision. While the buying process is getting longer and buyers continued to wait to engage with sales, B2B buyers are more satisfied with the process than they were a year ago.

Those are just some of the preliminary results of Demand Gen Report’s2013 B2B Buyer Behavior Survey. A total of 150 B2B buyers were involved in a major purchase during the past 12 months, revealing some striking trends observed during the purchasing process.