Metric Monday: Ten Insights from our 2024 B2B Buyer Identification Benchmark

saraboostani

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year, we surveyed over 500 B2B professionals to understand how their organizations identify potential buyers. As announced in this post, we analyzed their responses and compiled a report with key insights. Here are 10 takeaways:

• Group-Based B2B Purchasing: Typical B2B purchases are made by groups of 10 individuals, with larger deals involving bigger teams. Marketers understand this but still underestimate buying group sizes for lower-cost solutions.

• Research and Anonymity: All buying team members conduct online research, but most remain anonymous. The average form-fill rate is 3.7%, indicating that most buyers do not disclose their identities.

• High Reliance on Form-Fills: Despite form-fill rates being low, form-fills are the signal marketers rely on most, suggesting a disconnect between how buyers buy and how marketers identify them.

• Go-To-Market Strategies: Forty-three percent of marketers use Account-Based Marketing (ABM) alone or with Inbound, Outbound, or both. Another 22% use a mix of Inbound and Outbound, 21% solely focus on Inbound, and the remaining 15% only use Outbound strategies.

• Buying Group Visibility: Seventy-two percent of marketers prioritize accounts where multiple buying group members complete forms on their websites, an 11% improvement from 2022.

• Tools & Data Sources: Marketers use tools including CRM systems, marketing automation platforms (MAP), and third-party intent data to find potential buyers. Surprisingly, they underutilize CRM and MAP systems for account data.

• Buying Signal Utilization: Large buying teams generate a sea of signals across nearly two dozen channels. However, most marketers access fewer than 7 of these channels.

• Buying Signal Dissatisfaction: Marketers are not satisfied with the buying signals they use (usefulness rating below 40%), with many marketers finding them less useful than desired.

• Challenges in Signal Mix Optimization: Time, technology, process, skill, and budget score as equivalent challenges to using a better mix of buying signals.

• Budgeting Insights: Organizations allocate 13.4% of their annual revenue to marketing, varying by industry and target audience. Demand and ABM strategies occupy 30% or less of the overall marketing budget. Higher marketing budgets correlate with better financial performance. 

You can find the full report by clicking the link below!

https://6sense.com/research/b2b-buyer-identification-benchmark/

@Kerry

Kerry

And, btw, for many of these findings, it's year two - meaning that these findings are steady across two completely different years and samples of marketers. You can count on the above.