CyberTheory Releases New 2025 CISO Engagement and Decision Drivers Study

Proprietary Intent Data Reveals Cybersecurity Content Patterns; AI Dominates Security Content

Princeton, NJ – CyberTheory, the premier marketing intelligence firm dedicated to cybersecurity vendors, today announced the release of the 2025 CISO Engagement and Decision Drivers Study, developed in partnership with Cyentia Institute.

The study distills millions of engagement signals from ISMG subscriber activity, showing content consumption patterns and trends across multiple variables, including topic, company size, industry, asset format, role, region, and more. These insights can be used to develop more effective cybersecurity marketing and content strategies.

CyberTheory and Cyentia Institute also provide in-depth analysis and actionable takeaways, such as how today’s cybersecurity professionals consume content, engage with critical topics like AI and OT security, and respond to account-based marketing (ABM) strategies.

“As buyer behavior continues shifting toward self-guided discovery before engaging with sales, traditional approaches to demand generation see diminishing returns. It’s more important than ever for marketers to develop influential content,” said Mike D’Agostino, general manager at ISMG. “This report reveals data-driven insights to help marketers create engaging assets that resonate with buyers and drive action.”

Top insights emerging from the study include:

• AI dominates cybersecurity content: 56% of users interacted with content on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, leading all other topics in engagement by more than 20 percentage points. AI-related content assets also increased sixfold from 2022 to 2024.
• Sponsored content on OT cybersecurity lags behind demand: Despite a 51% year-over-year increase in editorial OT content during 2024, sponsored content on OT security declined by 53% from the first to the second half of 2024.
• Contact-level intelligence shows hidden buyer behaviors: Non-sponsored content saw 13 times more engagements than sponsored content within one large financial services organization. Since many marketers use ABM strategies to reach key prospects, the study shows how contact-level intelligence can be used to reveal these normally hidden buyer behaviors within target accounts.
• Event attendance supercharges content engagement: When one or more person from an organization attends an event, overall content engagement jumps an average of 1,400% across the organization. This provides marketers with an ABM road map for event sponsorship, prospect engagement and follow-up promotion.
• Webinars and editorial articles surpass other content formats for CISO engagement: Among CISOs and high-level executives, webinars outperformed all other content formats for engagement, followed closely by editorial articles in second place.

“AI content clearly outperformed other themes, which signals a major opportunity for marketers,” said Julie Jordan, executive director at CyberTheory. “Including AI in your content plans as soon as possible is the fastest way to spark more engagement, especially when combined with the other performance drivers emerging from the study,” she added.

CyberTheory leveraged its exclusive access to ISMG’s intent and engagement data, spanning a media network of 38 online properties and a subscriber base of more than 2 million cybersecurity professionals. The behavioral signals come from over 500,000 daily user interactions across 300-plus cybersecurity topics. Additional data sources include ISMG’s roster of global events, as well as the CyberEdBoard community, CyberEd.io education platform and CyberTheory’s first-hand market intelligence.

“By diving deeply into ISMG’s user engagement data from across its vast subscriber base and media network, this study offers much more than trend analysis. It provides the critical insights and foresight needed to inform tactics in this rapidly evolving, highly competitive space,” said Wade Baker, co-founder and partner at Cyentia Institute.

Download the free report here. For more information on the report or to request a consultation, contact info@cybertheory.io or visit www.cybertheory.io.

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About CyberTheory
CyberTheory is a marketing advisory firm built for cybersecurity. We help vendors turn market signals into strategy, campaigns into results, and content into conversations that matter. We support some of the world’s largest cybersecurity and IT solution providers with end-to-end strategy, content, media planning, tactical execution, and more.

About ISMG
Information Security Media Group (ISMG) is the world’s largest media organization devoted solely to cybersecurity, information technology, artificial intelligence and operational technology. Each of our 38 media properties provides education, research and news that is specifically tailored to key vertical sectors including banking, healthcare and the public sector; geographies from North America to Southeast Asia; and topics such as data breach prevention, cyber risk assessment, OT security, AI and fraud. Our annual global summit series connects senior security professionals with industry thought leaders to find actionable solutions for pressing cybersecurity challenges.

About Cyentia Institute
Cyentia Institute delivers high-integrity, high-quality, data-driven research which provides meaningful marketing content for clients to drive sales and attain greater visibility in competitive markets. Cyentia’s partnership with ISMG provides robust, data-based research and analysis to help the cybersecurity community reduce risks and confront the latest threats.

Contact
Mike D’Agostino
General Manager, ISMG
Phone: (609) 356-1499
Email: info@cybertheory.io