Key Trends in B2B Buying Behavior

Every sales leader I talk to at the moment is struggling with some version of the same issue. The symptoms are different, but the underlying cause is the same. - Sales cycles elongating - Deal slippage - Prospects not showing up to meetings - An uptick in ghosting - Poor forecast accuracy - A drop in deal volumes - A drop in conversion rates What's actually happening out there in Buyer land? I've been delivering win-loss reviews for B2B companies around the world since 2011 and I'm seeing buyer behaviours I've never observed before... Let me break down some of them quickly for you and share some guidance on how to use these lessons to your advantage: Trend #1: Risk has jumped up the decision tree in order of importance, to the very top of the list for many clients, even more so when it's a new vendor. Action: Go deeper on risk in your discovery conversations, recognise that risk is both organisational and personal...find ways to better manage, mitigate and share risk with your clients...Be the low risk option. Trend #2: Value for Money, Responsiveness and Cost are consistently selected as the most important decision criteria by many clients. Action: Responsiveness should be an easy one to get right, but many sellers are stretched too thin right now...do less, but do it better. Trend #3: Change in Strategic Direction is the most frequently cited reason for customers coming to market for a new solution at the moment. Action: Try to reverse engineer this reason, to understanding what caused this change in direction and what it actually means for the business. These are your keys to the kingdom, when building a rock solid business case. Trend #4: Feedback from Peers and Colleagues has emerged as the most trusted information source for almost all respondents. Action: Case studies and customer references are losing their luster...find ways to tap into the trust which prospective clients have in their own peer network, as a way to unlock deeper connections and build trust. Trend #5: Customers are demanding more detail in the proposal documents, tender responses and business cases which they are receiving. Action: Put in the work, avoid the cookie-cutter responses, find your win themes and weave them in, share the detail they need to make an informed decision. I haven't got a crystal ball, so I can't tell you if/when the pendulum will swing back the other way, from a buyer behaviour perspective. What I can tell you with a high degree of certainty is that prospective customers have raised the bar, in terms of their expectations from their vendor partners. It's our job now to to elevate the preparation, patience and professionalism of B2B sellers everywhere, to meet these changing needs and maintain our relevance to the customers we serve.

The telephone took 75 years to reach 100 million users. The internet took 7 years, and ChatGPT reached 100 million users in just 2 months. The tools reshaping how you sell, buy and compete are moving faster than any business transformation in history. After years of watching B2B commerce evolve, from EDI systems to digital storefronts to AI-powered ecosystems, the pace of change has never felt more urgent. The businesses that thrive in the next three years won't be the ones with the best product. They'll be the ones who saw what was coming and moved first. Here are 5 things every B2B leader needs to be thinking about right now. 1. AI isn't just informing your buying and selling. It's about to start doing it. We're moving from AI as a research tool to AI as an operator. Autonomous purchasing agents. Digital sales reps that never sleep. Intelligent post-purchase assistants that flag problems before your customer even notices them. The shift to agentic AI won't happen overnight, but 2026 is the year it moves from concept to commercial reality. 2. Your buyers are younger than you think, and they have zero patience for friction. Over 71% of B2B buyers are Millennials or Gen Z. They grew up buying on Amazon, and they expect the same clarity, speed, and personalisation from their business suppliers. Three-quarters say they'd switch to a competitor that simply offers a better online experience. That's not a marginal risk. That's churn waiting to happen. 3. The way buyers discover your products is changing, and most businesses aren't ready. Zero-click commerce is real. AI tools like ChatGPT and platforms like TikTok are becoming primary research channels for procurement teams. If your product data isn't structured for AI and algorithms to find, interpret, and recommend, you're becoming invisible. SEO alone won't cut it anymore. The new frontier is Answer Engine Optimisation. Start building for it now. 4. Your tech stack either scales with you or it holds you back. B2B is complex by nature: multi-step purchases, large catalogues, tiered pricing, custom contracts. Layer AI-driven traffic on top of that and your infrastructure gets stress-tested fast. The businesses that will win are those building modular, cloud-native architectures today, not scrambling to retrofit tomorrow. 5. You don't need a perfect plan. You need a starting point. The B2B leaders I admire most right now aren't waiting for a flawless strategy. They're learning fast and iterating faster. FLEETLOOP built a full digital rental platform across Europe in 3 months. LabelVie launched a mobile commerce channel in 5 months and hit €60,000 a day in revenue within weeks. Speed beats perfection. Always. The B2B landscape is being rewritten in real time. The question isn't whether to act. It's whether you'll be the one leading the change, or the one reacting to it. For more insights, sign up for my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/ergDQtiK

Research is catching up to what we can see about how B2B buying is changing. The 3rs: 𝗥elationships, 𝗥ecommendations, and 𝗥elatability factors are taking centre stage. While product features, price, or brand recognition are in decline. Research from Warc reveals that emotional factors are more consequential in B2B buying decisions than rational levers. • Recommendations from similar customers or trusted colleagues are 3x more likely to tip the balance than cheaper prices • These recommendations are also 3x more influential than products promising better performance So cultural, social signals, and emotions are shifting decision-making. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁? 2/3 of big-ticket B2B buyers are now millennials or Gen Z. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸: This isn't about giving old tactics new names. It's about recognising that B2B buyers (especially younger ones) make decisions based on what their peers say and who they trust, not just specs and prices. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘁? Stop treating B2B buyers like robots comparing spreadsheets. Focus on the right places to build relationships. LinkedIn (not spam), WhatsApp groups, Slack communities, industry events. Focus on getting more recommendations, and broadcasting them. Create customer communities where peers validate each other's decisions. Avoid the BS: fake testimonials, aggressive automation, undisclosed paid recommendations. Most B2B marketers still pump budget into feature comparisons. Your prospects aren't asking "what does it do?" They're asking "who else like me uses this?" Track where your best deals come from. It's not the trade show booth. It's Sarah telling James at drinks that your product saved her quarter. That's your real marketing channel now.

Data Dumpling is at the Canva Co Lab in SXSW London today and we’re talking about the seismic shift in B2B buyer behavior happening right now, which most marketing teams are missing. Zero-click searches have become the new norm. Eg. When prospects search for cybersecurity solutions, they're increasingly satisfied with AI-generated summaries and never clicking through to vendor websites. Here's what the data reveals: → Click-through rates have dropped up to 30% in B2B software categories → 85% of B2B buyers purchase from their "day one" list of vendors → Traditional search influence strategies are losing effectiveness So for cybersecurity GTM leaders, this creates a critical challenge: How do you get on that day one list when buyers aren't visiting your content? The answer isn't just about SEO anymore. It's about brand presence at the exact moment buyers form their initial vendor shortlist—before they even begin their formal evaluation process. This shift demands new thinking around: • Intent signal detection beyond traditional web analytics • Multi-touch attribution models that account for zero-click behavior • Brand awareness strategies that work outside traditional search funnels • Content strategies optimized for AI summarization 💭 The buyers in your pipeline today likely researched you months ago through channels you're not tracking. Understanding this invisible journey is becoming the difference between being considered and being overlooked. This what GTM teams talk about when they get together- curious what changes are you seeing in your buyer research patterns?

Something strange is happening in B2B buying. Deals are being won and lost before sales calls even happen. Not because of features. Not because of price. But because of something most B2B companies barely think about. Dentsu's massive 2024 B2B buyer study - over 14,000 interviews - reveals a shift that's rewriting the rules of how enterprise software gets purchased. And most companies are completely unprepared for it. The shift? Brand marketing now drives more revenue than most companies realize. And the ROI is measurable, predictable, and massive. B2B buyers only evaluate 2-5 vendors on average, according to TrustRadius's 2024 B2B Buying Disconnect Report. That's it. Once you make that shortlist, you have a 71% chance the buyer sticks with their initial favorite. The entire "evaluation process" often just validates a choice they've already made. But here's the ROI kicker: TrustRadius found 78% of buyers select products they've heard of before starting their research. Forrester's Business Trust survey found 77% of purchase influencers consider a vendor's brand awareness as a key factor in whether they trust that organization. The revenue impact? Forrester found 83% of B2B influencers who trust a supplier plan to continue doing business with them. That's not just win rate - that's lifetime value. The LinkedIn B2B Institute and Ipsos research confirms the pricing power: buyers explicitly state they'll pay premiums for trusted brands because it mitigates risk in complex B2B deals. Brand marketing doesn't just win deals. It wins them at higher prices with better retention. Brand marketing isn't a cost center - it's a revenue multiplier. When 78% of buyers choose from brands they already know, awareness directly equals pipeline. Yet only ~30% of B2B marketing budgets go to brand. We're investing backwards. Meanwhile, 68% of buyers say all vendors sound identical (Dentsu). And every $1 cut from brand investment costs $1.85 to rebuild (BCG). Smart companies track brand perception religiously. They know which buying situations trigger their brand. They measure if messages actually change perception. But 79% of CFOs see no clear metrics connecting brand to revenue. Because most companies guess instead of measure. You should do brand tracking at minimum once a year. You can run one with Wynter and gets results in 2 days https://lnkd.in/dV2umFPy

As per Gartner’s survey of 646 B2B buyers (Mar ‘26) - 67% said they prefer a rep-free buying experience. 73% actively avoid vendors who send irrelevant outreach. Not ignore. Avoid. As in, form a negative impression of your brand before you’ve said hello. And the part that should make every B2B marketer rethink their funnel - as per the 2026 B2B Buyer Behavior Report by Consensus, which analysed 6 million real buyer interactions: 80% of the decision-making happens before a seller even enters the room. Buyer journeys are becoming more self-directed and digitally mediated. This is the actual shift. B2B buying now looks a lot like consumer buying. People research independently, trust peer signals over brand claims, and only reach out when they’re close to decided. As per Gartner’s Buying Journey research - buyers spend just 17% of their total purchase journey actually talking to vendors. Split that across ~3 shortlisted suppliers and you’re getting about ~5% of their attention. What wins the other 95%? Your digital footprint. Your content. Your reputation. What people say about you in rooms you’ll never be in. Pipeline is a lagging indicator. Reputation is the leading one. And reputation is just another word for brand. So no, brand marketing was never meant to be the soft, optional, hard-to-measure thing to do when the performance budget has some room. In a world where 80% of the buying decision happens before you show up, brand is the only thing shaping the sales velocity, when no one’s watching. It was always the key. We just convinced ourselves that what we could measure was what mattered. Priya Vajpeyi #B2BMarketing #BrandMarketing #MarketingStrategy

99% of sales teams sell as if their executive buyer is a Boomer with a cigar. They’re wrong. Gen Y and Z have officially taken over B2B as the Decision Makers. Here are 5 things most sellers get WRONG about today's buyers: BACKGROUND: Both Forrester and Gartner write about this shift. Gen Y (Millennials) and Gen Z who were born after 1981... Are now 71% of the B2B Buying Group. Yes, you read that right. Not a suit-and-tie top-down DM who’s calling the shots. These are digital and social power users. With far different expectations as buyers. A generational shift has taken place and it changes everything for sellers: ——— 1. They find buying friction unacceptable You can’t afford to show up unprepared. You can’t just leave it up to them to figure out why to buy from you based on generic demos and follow-ups. You have to become a valuable resource or you’re toast. They self-research, they self-serve, and they consult with their peers above all else. 2. They are not convinced by financial value alone As opposed to older buyers, it’s not only about the ROI. You have to build MORE VALUE into the business case. How you reduce risk, create functional value (i.e. making tasks easier), experiential value (i.e. customer experience), and symbolic value (i.e. a sense of status or belonging). 3. They decide in groups; The sole DM concept is dead Even though there’s always an economic buyer who can vote on a purchase, these modern buyers prefer to decide in groups. They are working to achieve consensus, not make top-down decisions. This is why closing is so hard right now and multi-threading is necessary. 4. They make great champions who want to co-create This was refreshing to see. Forrester says that these younger buyers want to co-create/innovate with them on how to solve their problems. That's why building a committed champion/s is how both Enterprise AND SMB deals should run today. 5. They are far more likely to ghost you if you don’t get them Even though they make great champions, they are: a) more than twice as skeptical of seller’s claims, and b) highly comfortable doing their own research. This goes back to point # 1 (you have to do 10x better so they find you valuable), and # 4 (you have to make them champions). ——— How much we all love nostalgia! But the world is changing. It belongs to Gen Y and Z. Time to come up with a new sales playbook.

Today's B2B buyers have more information than ever before, and less confidence in their decisions.   We surveyed 2,300+ B2B leaders for INFUSE Outlook, and the findings reveal a paradox reshaping how we think about demand generation.   The data tells a story: - 70% of the buying journey happens before your sales team knows a prospect exists - 81% of buyers have already chosen their preferred vendor before the 1st contact - Yet 86% of B2B purchases stall during the process - And 40-60% of deals end in no decision at all   This is not an information problem; it's a confidence problem.   The buyers navigating your pipeline are not struggling to find data. They are struggling to trust their own conclusions. They are paralyzed by the weight of getting it wrong.   In 2026, the teams that win are not those with the loudest brand. They are the ones building what we call trust architecture: a systematic approach to buyer enablement that transforms invisible research into confident decisions.   The question is no longer "How do we get discovered?" It is "How do we help buyers trust what they discover?"   INFUSE Outlook 2026: outlook.infuse.com

In the last 2 weeks, Amit Vasudev and I spoke with 50+ B2B executives about how they buy software. They cumulatively signed ~$10M in SaaS purchases in 2024 and there was one common complaint—buying tech is a HUGE pain. Here are 7 things about buyers that every salesperson needs to know. 1. The SaaS surge has made buying harder, not easier With over 25% YoY growth in SaaS vendors in the last decade; the search cost for buyers is skyrocketing. AI is only amplifying the noise further. Choosing the right tech isn’t their main job, yet the effort required is growing exponentially. 2. Buyers aren’t rewarded for Buying While the sales team prioritizes closing deals, most buyers don’t have OKRs tied to purchases. This urgency gap often leads to misaligned expectations. Focus on identifying urgent buyers - but practice empathy and patience with the rest. 3. Trust > Efficiency B2B purchases are emotional. Buyers told us repeatedly that trust and consistency far outweighed gaps in product fit. If you’re not building trust, you’re losing deals. 4. Stop asking for 30 min calls A live call gives AEs a positive signal on the deal, but buyers expressed frustration with the sheer volume of calls needed to close a deal. They felt many calls were unnecessary and could have been handled over email. Deliver value asynchronously to earn their trust. 5. Review sites are losing credibility Buyers found the review sites great for product discovery and social proof. But the general feeling was that the reviews were rigged in favor of the sellers and nobody had time to read 100’s of reviews anyways. 6. Buyers trust their network not your pitch From LinkedIn conversations to peer recommendations, buyers are leaning more on social proof and recommendations from people they trust (Slack forums, Linkedin conversations, B2B Influencers, Trusted Referrals, Peers). Are you part of those conversations? 7. Lack of personalized content is a deal breaker Buyers need content tailored to their unique use cases - quickly and in multiple formats. Generic decks and pitches don’t work anymore. Personalized content built trust and yet most sellers are not delivering on this. TAKEAWAY Minimize friction for the buyers. Complex sales cycles are a tax on the buyer. Be present where buyers do research (social networks and communities). Deliver tailored content that speaks directly to buyer use cases. And build trust through empathy and consistency. P.S. Which of these insights resonate most with you—whether as a seller or a buyer? Have you noticed any of these patterns in your own sales process?

Your B2B SaaS funnel is broken. Here's what's replacing it. At Software Finder, we connect thousands of buyers with software solutions monthly. What we've observed: the traditional sales funnel doesn't match how people actually buy software. Here's what we see every day: 𝟏. 𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞 They arrive already knowing their problem and potential solutions. Your "awareness stage" content? They've moved past it. The funnel assumes control you never had. 𝟐. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 "𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥" 𝐈𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧 Slack channels. Private communities. Peer recommendations. Most software buying decisions happen in conversations you can't track or influence. 𝟑. 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐌𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 IT wants security details. Finance wants ROI. Users want simplicity. Each enters your ecosystem with different questions at different times. Linear funnels can't handle non-linear buying committees. 𝟒. 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥 𝐕𝐬. 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 Buyers resist being "funneled" through predetermined steps. They prefer platforms that let them explore, compare, and decide on their timeline. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞'𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: - Buyers research at their own pace - Multiple entry points based on specific needs - Peer reviews and comparisons accessible upfront - Direct vendor connections when they're ready, not when we decide 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥: - Content ecosystems that support non-linear exploration - Community-driven discovery through peer recommendations - Contextual engagement based on actual buyer behavior - Flexible experiences that adapt to different stakeholder needs The winners are building trust networks. Stop pushing prospects through your process. Start showing up where they're already making decisions. How are you adapting to non-linear B2B buying?