Over the past 12 months, we've seen a series of high-profile studies that establish the relationship between marketing automation, marketing ROI metrics and successful lead-generation strategies. This week, there's an especially notable addition: the 2012 Lenskold Group/The Pedowitz Group Lead Gen Marketing Effectiveness Study.

The study (conducted with assistance from Demand Gen Report) polled more than 370 professionals working for B2B marketing organizations. About 80% of the respondents were U.S.-based marketers, ranging from companies with less than $5 million in annual revenue to enterprises with $50 million or more in revenue.

Silverpop, a digital marketing technology provider, today announced a partnership with Janrain to collect email addresses of prospects who register for offers using their LinkedIn credentials.

“Social Sign-In benefits both buyers and marketers, making registration processes simpler, thus decreasing the possibility of form abandonment while also getting the marketer closer to the social behaviors of each contact,” said Bryan Brown, Product Strategy Director at Silverpop, in a company press release. “For B2B marketers, while the information collected from social networks like Facebook and Twitter is certainly valuable, the likelihood of attaining a contact’s business email address is low. With LinkedIn accounts, individuals are more likely to include their business-related information.”

Demand Gen Report has released its “All Star Apps ’12: Must-See Solution Providers At Dreamforce”—a profile of top solution providers at the Dreamforce 2012 Cloud Expo. Each profile includes a product or service description, a rundown of key features, reviews and vendor contact information.

Eloqua, an on-demand marketing automation and Revenue Performance Management (RPM) solutions provider, announced the promotion of Alex Shootman to President of the company. In his new role, Shootman will be responsible for customer-facing activities including account management, customer success, sales and support, and will report to Joe Payne, Chariman and CEO of Eloqua.

BlueBird Strategies, a marketing automation solution provider, has announced new hires and client relationships. The company has also expanded its services by opening offices in the Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest and the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina.

The new staff additions have helped BlueBird extend its client base over Boston, Northern and Southern California, Chicago, New York City, North Carolina, Paris and Washington, D.C.

B2B buyers are using a wider variety of sources to research their purchases, and social media continues to play a more important role in the purchasing process, according to the 2012 Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey.

The survey, which included more than 170 responses, was designed to gauge the latest trends in how, when and why B2B buyers engage with sellers, move through the marketing process and consume B2B-focused content. This year's study also included a number of questions designed to weigh the impact of social media on the B2B buying process.

HootSuite, the developers of a popular social media management platform, announced late last week that it has acquired Seesmic, a competing social media platform. The acquisition was announced in a HootSuite blog post published Thursday.

Both companies offer cross-platform applications for managing social media activities across multiple networks, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. While both companies have worked to establish themselves with business customers, including enterprise B2B marketers, HootSuite is generally viewed as the more successful of the two companies.