Source: NetLine Corporation
NetLine Corporation recently published its “2026 State of B2B Content Consumption & Demand Report.” NetLine has been conducting this research for ten years, and its annual reports have consistently provided a wealth of real-world insights about how business professionals actually consume marketing content.
NetLine operates a content syndication platform, and the 2026 report is based on data from 7.2 million content registrations on the platform in 2025. The NetLine research is particularly valuable for two reasons.
First, it captures the real-world content consumption behaviors of business professionals. The data used for the NetLine report was not derived from surveys or interviews, but rather from actual engagements with B2B marketing content.
And second, the report is based on first-party data. The business professionals who use the NetLine platform voluntarily share information about themselves and the organizations they work for in exchange for access to the content resources available on the platform.
For these reasons, the NetLine report provides detailed information about the business professionals who are consuming B2B marketing content and the actual consumption behaviors of those professionals. I encourage you to review the full 35-page report.
Content Consumption Declined in 2025
Overall B2B content consumption fell 8.6% in 2025 compared to 2024, as measured by registrations on the NetLine platform. However, NetLine’s data shows that total demand for B2B gated marketing content has grown 57.6% since 2021.
Content consumption by C-level executives increased in 2025, up 4% year-over-year. In 2025, C-level executives accounted for 14.5% of the total demand on the NetLine platform.
Demand for content about artificial intelligence continued its dramatic growth in 2025. The explosive growth began in 2023 when demand for AI-related content increased 6.6x compared to 2022. In 2025, demand for such content grew 28.5% year-over-year.
Most Popular Content Formats
The ten most requested content formats in 2025 were:
eBooksCheat SheetsGuidesWhite PapersResearch ReportsArticlesTips and Tricks GuidesOn-Demand WebinarsLive WebinarsPlaybooks
NetLine noted in its report that six of the ten most popular content formats saw year-over-year declines in registration volume in 2025. Registrations for eBooks, the most popular format, fell 16.7% last year, but they still accounted for nearly half (48.8%) of all 2025 content registrations.
Among the ten most popular formats, on-demand webinars had the largest increase in demand in 2025, with the number of registrations growing by 46.2%
The Consumption Gap Widens
One of the most useful insights provided by the NetLine report relates to the consumption gap, which is defined as the time between the moment a content resource is requested and the moment it’s opened for consumption. This data point is important because it provides a guide for timing follow-up contact with potential buyers.
In 2025, the average consumption gap was 47.7 hours, up from 38.5 hours in 2024. The consumption gap has varied over the years. Before 2024, the largest gap recorded by NetLine was 33.3 hours in 2021, and the smallest was 27.1 hours in 2018. The lesson here is that you should wait at least two days before you try to follow up with people who have requested your content via NetLine.
Purchase Timing
Overall, the B2B professionals using the Netline platform in 2025 were 17.7% more likely to indicate they would probably make a purchase within the next 12 months, compared to 2024. The purchase time frame that saw the largest year-over-year increase was 6 – 12 months, which grew 78.6% in 2025.
Content Consumption and Buyer Purchase Intent
For the past few years, NetLine’s research has revealed correlations between the content format a potential buyer chooses to consume and purchase timing. In the 2025 report, NetLine identified five content formats that are more likely to be associated with a buying decision within the next 12 months – trend reports, playbooks, case studies, newsletters, and infographics.
One format that is notably absent from this list is eBooks. Despite being the most frequently requested type of content in 2025, eBooks were not strongly associated with shorter-term purchase intent. This shouldn’t be surprising because most eBooks are designed to appeal to potential buyers who are in the earlier stages of their buying journey.
