Putting Revenue First: How B2B Marketers Can Lead with ROI

We don’t have to look at the macroeconomic figures to understand what’s happening inside B2B marketing teams. We just need to ask them. And two-fifths (41 percent) told us economic uncertainty is their No. 1 concern, with just a third claiming their budget has increased this year.

This aligns with a new Harris Poll, which reveals that almost all (96 percent) B2B marketing leads are updating their strategy to battle stronger economic headwinds. The message is clear: To join their high-performing peers, B2B marketers must prioritize revenue and ROI above all else.

How Bad Is It?

Although inflation continues to slowly come down in the U.S., fears of a recession are returning, consumer sentiment has dropped sharply this year, and ongoing tariff volatility is adding to broader economic instability . GDP even contracted slightly in the first quarter as U.S. firms stocked up ahead of a massive, anticipated hike in import taxes.

This kind of uncertainty does not bode well for B2B marketers. Aside from flatlining or shrinking budgets, we found that some are being forced to cut headcount, with nearly a third (29 percent) citing resource issues as one of their top three challenges. This echoes a Marketing Week study from last October, which reveals that many B2B marketers have been asked to deliver more with fewer resources (59 percent), adapt to team restructures (42 percent) and find ways to meet challenging new targets (41 percent).

Economic challenges aren’t confined to B2B marketers, of course. They also reflect the state of the market as a whole, as buyers get more risk-averse and delay purchases due to short-term cost pressures. We found that 70 percent of U.S. marketers tell us that sales cycles are lengthening, in part due to finance team stakeholders entering late in the buying process. Longer-standing difficulties with audience engagement only compound these challenges.

Out With Vanity Metrics, in With ROI

The result? Whether it’s the CMO, the CFO, or the board, every stakeholder wants to know the same thing: “Are we getting value for money for our marketing spend?” That’s why vanity metrics like impressions and page views are being sidelined. Half of high-performing teams now say revenue is their main KPI.

They’re also far more likely than their low-performing counterparts to track MQAs, SQOs, and MQLs, among other metrics. In fact, leading marketers track more—3.5 metrics on average vs. 2.4 for low performers. In times like these, visibility can help to drive much-needed agility.

What This Means for Strategy

Measuring ROI is one thing. Increasing it is quite another. To get there, marketers must do more with less. AI can be an invaluable ally here, by empowering even small teams to personalize content at scale for different audiences. How do they know who to target? AI can also help, by surfacing customer insights for smarter segmentation.

B2B marketers should also pay close attention to data accuracy and compliance. That means obtaining proper consent from individuals, maintaining accurate records, deploying strong data security controls, and putting processes in place for data deletion on request. And making sure all partners do the same. Data accuracy, quality and compliance have always gone hand in hand. They don’t just help to mitigate the risk of major compliance fines and reputational damage, but also increase the likelihood of conversions. Inaccurate, non-compliant data only wastes time and resources.

Streamlining the Stack

Another useful way to drive ROI is to refocus efforts on the tech stack. U.S. marketers are more satisfied with their martech than global peers, with 38 percent describing it as "streamlined and effective.” But that still leaves plenty of room for improvement. In many organizations, siloed solutions add complexity and often don’t deliver the capabilities promised at time of purchase.

That opens the door to optimization of the tech stack by integrating existing tools and prioritizing those that align with business outcomes. Better still, teams could outsource their demand-gen pipeline completely to a managed service provider. This will eliminate spending on expensive software licenses and products that don’t deliver true value. It will remove the cost of training team members on these products. And it will usher in a new pay-for-performance model.

Demand-as-a-service (DaaS) offerings like this deliver real, measurable outcomes like leads and revenue, rather than vague promises about future gains. Some 69 percent of B2B marketers agree that they’d prefer delivered insights and services like these over additional tools—rising to 81 percent of high-performing teams. When times get tough, it’s time to put outcomes over under-performing tools.

Matt Hummel is chief marketing officer at Pipeline360. Hummel is a marketing innovator known for building high-impact strategies that drive growth and strengthen brands. He has led transformative initiatives at leading companies including Demandbase, RealPage, and Thomson Reuters, and is recognized for his expertise in demand generation, brand strategy, and data-informed decision making.

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