According to a survey of business-to-business (B2B) marketers, owned media wins the highest share of marketing budgets.

A study from Demand Gen Report (DGR) found that B2B marketers put 24% of their spending toward earned media, and 25% toward paid media. Owned media accounts for 32%.

The study, sponsored by Cision, an earned media software provider, was based on a survey of 169 respondents from a variety of business sectors.

B2B marketers have relatively clear objectives for the use of earned media. Fully 89% of those polled said they relied on earned tactics to drive brand awareness, making it the most commonly named goal.

DGR found that creating "share-worthy" content was the most highly prioritized tactic for improving earned media effectiveness. That was followed by optimizing social channels, generating case studies/success stories, regularly sending press releases and, finally, testimonials.

Meanwhile, about two-thirds used the strategy to drive sales down the pipeline, while half wanted earned media to bump up their revenues.

eMarketer predicts that US digital ad spending in the B2B sector will grow from $4.07 billion this year to $4.60 in 2018, a bump of 13.0%.