B2B marketing is getting your company onto the shortlist before a buyer ever talks to sales, then making it easy for a group of people to agree on you. Most of that happens without you: in one large survey, buyers made first contact with sellers about 61% of the way through their buying process. I'm a marketing consultant on the Central Coast, NSW, working with B2B companies across Australia. Most B2B accounts I look at count leads. I'd rather count which leads turn into deals, and work back from there.
Written by Dan Picken, founder. Last checked 28 October 2026.It's a global survey, not Australian, but the pattern is hard to ignore: the decision is mostly made before your sales team hears about it. And most buyers aren't in the market at all right now. LinkedIn's B2B Institute and Ehrenberg-Bass call it the 95:5 rule: at any time, most of your future customers aren't buying yet. Being remembered matters as much as being found.
Source: 6sense 2025 Buyer Experience Study (via CustomerThink)
How B2B buyers find a supplier
The person who found you on Google isn't the one who signs. A manager asks a peer, someone in finance asks ChatGPT, someone else reads the reviews. By the time anyone fills in your form, they've mostly decided.
The psychology
B2B buyers aren't just spending money. They're putting their name to a decision in front of colleagues. Most of the worries are about risk to them, not price.
01
People weigh a loss more heavily than an equal gain. For a buyer, the loss is also personal: their judgement, in front of the boss.
Show them: How you handle problems, what onboarding looks like, and who they can call. Make the safe choice obvious.
02
Samuelson and Zeckhauser found people stick with the current option far more than they should, even when a better one is on offer.
Show them: Exactly what switching involves, how long it takes, and what you do for them. Make the change feel smaller.
03
Without a number from you, buyers anchor on a competitor's price, or the most expensive story they've heard.
Show them: A price range or starting point, and what moves it. Even a range qualifies people in or out.
04
Proof works best when it comes from people like you. A company the same size, in the same industry, beats a famous logo from a different world.
Show them: Who you work with by type and size, and examples that match the buyer. Named only with permission.
05
Anything that moves risk from the buyer to the seller lowers the bar to saying yes, and gives the buyer something to tell their colleagues.
Show them: A pilot, a trial, a small first project, or a clear way out if it doesn't work.
From my audits
Most B2B accounts I look at have the same few problems. Nearly all of them come from measuring leads instead of deals.
Marketing reports leads, sales complains they're rubbish, and nobody connects the two. The ad platforms keep finding more of the leads that never buy.
Google and LinkedIn only know a form was filled in. Send back which leads became deals, and the bidding learns to find more of them. See tracking setup.
Someone 30% into their research has no reason to talk to sales yet. Give them something useful to do instead: a guide, a calculator, a price range.
Every guide needs an email address, so the people still deciding leave, and the ones who sign up aren't ready. Gate less, and keep the form for the things worth it.
Pages describe the product the way the company sees it, not the problem the buyer typed into Google.
A demo request sits in an inbox for two days. In the Harvard study of 1.25 million leads, contact within an hour made a lead nearly seven times as likely to qualify.
Calculator
Most B2B marketing is judged on cost per lead, and most leads never become a deal. This works out what a lead is worth at each stage, so you can see what you can afford to pay for one, and where improving a stage is worth more than buying more leads. The starting numbers are examples. Use your own from your CRM.
What each stage is worth to you
Break-even means first-year gross profit only. If customers stay for years, a lead is worth more. If sales time is expensive, it's worth less.
AI search
B2B buyers already do most of their research alone. More of it now happens in ChatGPT, Copilot and Google's AI, asking 'what are the options for a company like ours?'. Whoever those tools name is on the shortlist before a buyer visits a single website.
ChatGPT searches the web, sharing the question with providers such as Bing, and Copilot is built on Bing. For B2B buyers who live in Microsoft 365, Bing matters more than most companies think.
Google's AI runs related searches behind each question, so a comparison or 'who it suits' page that answers the follow-up questions has more chances to be used.
What to do now
My take: in B2B, AI is replacing the analyst report and the 'ask a peer' email for the first round of research. The companies that publish plain, specific, honest information will get named. The ones hiding everything behind 'contact us' won't.
Australian rules
B2B doesn't get a free pass. These are the rules I see trip up B2B companies most, checked on 28 October 2026.
The Spam Act applies to business inboxes too. The ACMA says commercial messages need consent, your real business details and a working unsubscribe.
Uploading customer lists to LinkedIn or Google, or tracking visitors with pixels, can involve personal information. The OAIC has guidance on tracking pixels and privacy obligations.
Misleading claims are illegal under Australian Consumer Law whether the buyer is a person or a business. 'Saves 40% on costs' needs evidence behind it.
A marketer's summary, not legal advice. Check with the regulator or a lawyer for your situation.
The channel mix
The b2b hub
Work it out from your own numbers: first-year deal value times margin, times the chance a lead becomes a deal. The calculator on this page does it at every stage. Most companies find a lead is worth far less than a deal, and a qualified lead far more than a lead.
Often, for reaching the right roles and companies, which no other platform does as well. Clicks typically cost more than on Google or Meta, so judge it on deals, not lead counts. It works best for being remembered by people who aren't buying yet, not only for capturing the few who are.
The Spam Act applies to business addresses too. The ACMA says you need consent, accurate sender details and a working unsubscribe. Check the rules on inferred consent with the ACMA before you start.
A range or a starting point usually helps. Buyers have ranked their shortlist before they contact anyone, and with no price at all you may never make it on.
Gate less than you think. Ungated guides and tools help more buyers shortlist you. Keep forms for things worth an email address, like a proper assessment or a tailored quote.
A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is someone marketing thinks is a fit. A sales qualified lead (SQL) is one sales has checked and agrees to pursue. The gap between the two is where most B2B budgets leak.
Keep going
Takes a minute. Audits come back within 1 to 2 business days. For anything else, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
What happens next