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Bottom-funnel is saturated. Escape the crowd or drown in it.
Almost every B2B marketing dollar now chases the ~5% of buyers who are in-market. Per The CMO Survey (Fall 2024), 68.8% of budgets go to short-term performance tactics — up from 59.9% a year earlier. More money hunting the same few buyers means rising costs and flat conversion. The escape isn’t a better funnel. It’s being remembered before the funnel.
Where is everyone’s B2B budget actually going?
To the same place. That’s the problem.
The CMO Survey (run by Duke, Deloitte and the AMA) asked 260 US marketing leaders how they split their budgets in Fall 2024: 68.8% went to short-term performance tactics, and brand-building’s share fell to 31.2%. A year earlier the split was about 60/40. Here’s the good part: the same marketers said their *ideal* split was 50/50. They know. They’re doing it anyway.
So picture the bottom of your funnel. Search ads, retargeting, intent data, outbound. Now picture every competitor’s budget arriving at the same spot, at the same time, aimed at the same buyers.
Why does performance marketing keep getting more expensive?
Because only about 5% of your buyers are in-market at any moment — the 95:5 rule (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute). Performance channels don’t create those buyers. They auction them.
And an auction with more bidders and the same inventory does one thing: prices go up. Ask anyone running B2B paid search what their cost per lead was five years ago. Watch them wince. Costs climb year after year while conversion rates stay stubbornly flat, and every new intent tool sells your competitors the exact same “secret” list of in-market accounts.
That’s not a channel failing. That’s a crowd. The channels work fine. There are just forty of you in them, bidding on the same 5%. Creative budgets got cut. Media budgets didn’t explains how budgets got herded here.
What’s the way out?
Stop fighting where everyone is. Start building where almost no one is.
The research on B2B budget balance comes from Les Binet and Peter Field, who studied effectiveness cases across decades: B2B companies grow best spending roughly 46% on brand-building and 54% on activation. Nearly half on brand. The average B2B company today isn’t anywhere near that. (Fair note: researcher Byron Sharp disputes the precision of these ratios. Nobody serious disputes the direction — that near-zero brand investment stunts growth.)
There’s also a well-documented relationship called share of voice — in plain words: how much of your category’s advertising is yours. B2B brands whose share of the category’s advertising exceeds their market share tend to grow, roughly 0.7 points of market share for every 10 extra points of voice (LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2019). While your competitors crowd the bottom of the funnel, the voice up top is cheap to own.
And the 95% aren’t a waiting room. They’re where the shortlist gets written. When they finally hit the problem you solve, roughly 90% pick from the vendors already in their head. Why awareness comes first
How we help you own the quiet part of the market
This is why freeB2Bads.com is built the way it is.
Video Brothers makes ads the out-of-market 95% actually remember — problem-first, funny, built to pass the Friday night test. Elite Media Group puts them in front of your exact buyers and keeps measuring what lands. One system, aimed at the part of the market your competitors are ignoring while they bid each other up downstairs.
And because the creative is funded by the media budget you already have, you don’t need a new line item to escape the crowd. See how one roof works
Frequently asked questions
Is performance marketing dead in B2B?
No — it harvests in-market demand and you should keep running it. The problem is balance: 68.8% of budgets now chase the ~5% of buyers who are in-market (The CMO Survey, Fall 2024), which bids up costs without creating a single new buyer.
What is the ideal brand vs. performance split in B2B?
Binet & Field’s effectiveness research puts it around 46% brand-building, 54% activation. The precision is debated (Byron Sharp’s critique is fair to note); the direction isn’t. Most B2B companies today are closer to 30/70 — and the same CMOs say their ideal is 50/50.
Why are my B2B ads getting more expensive?
More budgets are chasing the same small in-market audience. Auctions with more bidders and fixed inventory raise prices — so costs climb while conversion stays flat. The fix isn’t a better bid strategy; it’s demand that arrives already preferring you.
What is share of voice?
Your slice of your category’s total advertising. When it’s bigger than your market share, you tend to grow — in B2B, roughly 0.7 points of share per 10 extra points of voice (LinkedIn B2B Institute). It’s the closest thing brand advertising has to a physics law.