B2B Marketing

B2B marketing is increasingly expected to deliver the level of experience buyers are used to having as consumers. Success depends on marketers adapting — and quickly. Explore our B2B marketing insights to stay ahead.

Discover how Forrester supports B2B marketing leaders.

Insights

Blog

Predictions 2027: The Pursuit And Peril Of Control

Sharyn Leaver 1 day ago
More control won’t always mean better outcomes. Leaders who know where to set guardrails and how to deftly blend AI with human judgment will have a clear advantage in the year ahead.
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Predictions 2027: B2B Go-To-Market Teams Must Adapt As AI Shifts Control To Buyers

Karen Tran 1 day ago
AI is reshaping B2B buying and exposing weaknesses in traditional go-to-market strategies. Explore three predictions for 2027 and what providers must do to compete on credibility, adoption, and trust.
Blog

Ten Rules For Building A Sustainable B2B Webinar Program

Conrad Mills 2 days ago
Webinars are one of the most effective ways to engage audiences at scale and should be a critical component of an integrated event strategy. Yet many B2B marketers still treat them as standalone broadcasts, focusing on delivery while underinvesting in audience development, follow-up, and content activation. In contrast, leading practitioners connect the live event to […]
Blog

Greater Pressure And Influence Define B2B Marketers’ Outlook

Matthew Selheimer 7 days ago
Now that we’re well into the second half of the year, we wanted to share some insights into how B2B marketing leaders are feeling about the state of their business and the profession. After Q2, we polled senior decision-makers in our B2B marketing online community and their responses tell a nuanced story. Business performance has […]

Frequently Asked Questions

What is B2B marketing? ​

B2B marketing refers to strategies and tactics that firms use to reach, engage, and influence business buyers or organizations rather than individual consumers. It often involves longer buying cycles, multiple stakeholders, and more complex decision criteria. The goal is to generate demand, build relationships, and support revenue growth.​

How has B2B marketing evolved in recent years?​

B2B marketing now demands the level of personalization, agility, and experience that customers expect in consumer settings. Today’s buyers are more informed, independent, and digitally driven. Marketing leaders must embrace new tools, data, and cross-functional alignment to stay competitive. ​

What are the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers?​

Common challenges include poor data quality, misaligned business and marketing goals, and lack of trust in measurement. In addition, marketing must adapt to the complexity of buying groups, rapidly shifting customer expectations, and AI-driven search.​

What key metrics should B2B marketers track?​

Though funnel metrics such as lead conversion, pipeline influence, and marketing-generated revenue remain the most common, marketers should also track brand perception and preference, engagement metrics, account-level outcomes, customer retention, and customer lifetime value. ​

How does Forrester support B2B marketing leaders?​

Forrester offers research, frameworks, and advisory services to help B2B marketers refine their strategies, improve execution, and measure impact. We guide clients in integrating marketing with sales, applying data and AI, and evolving in complex environments.​

Blog

Portfolio Marketing’s AI Honeymoon Is Over — Now The Real Work Begins

John Buten October 15, 2026
Most portfolio marketers have experienced their first AI victory — and probably their second, maybe even their third. They’re producing content faster. Competitive analysis is much easier. They may have even created a synthetic buyer persona. Nailed it! Mission accomplished! MBO unlocked! But not so fast. We still need to answer the question, “How should […]
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As AI Adoption Surges In B2B Marketing, Work Is Changing

Ian Bruce September 29, 2026
Across B2B marketing, AI is no longer an emerging technology for experimentation or being tested on the sidelines. It’s now a core part of how marketing organizations operate, and it is already reshaping marketing teams. AI Is Nearing Majority Adoption Across Marketing Use Cases Forrester’s latest research shows that AI is now widely in production […]
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The Forrester Wave™: Localization Services, Q3 2026 — Keep The LSP, Change The Relationship

Kathleen Pierce September 28, 2026
Language AI has changed what businesses can localize, who can do it, and where it happens. It has also raised an obvious question: Do enterprises still need localization service providers (LSPs) when translation is being built into everyday applications? Last week, we published The Forrester Wave™: Localization Services, Q3 2026 to help answer that question. […]
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Performance Marketing Is Dead — Here’s Why

Kelvin Gee September 25, 2026
Most B2B marketers track engagement and intent, but those signals don’t reveal whether buyers actually prefer their company. Learn how Forrester’s Preference Marketing Matrix combines market preference and buying group interaction to help organizations prioritize investments and improve growth outcomes.
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Do You Champion The Marketers Who Champion Your Customers?

Amy Bills September 24, 2026
All B2B companies tout their focus on customers. But not all reflect customer obsession in their priorities, actions, and metrics. Call it “lip service” or “all hat, no cattle.” Data from Forrester’s new State Of Customer Retention, Growth, And Advocacy Survey, 2026 shows that customer marketers see the gap. Customer Value: Many Say It; Not […]
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Why Some B2B Experiences Change Behavior And Others Don’t

Christina Schmitt September 24, 2026
Why do some B2B experiences change behavior while others are ignored? The answer lies less in gamification mechanics and more in the value an experience creates for buyers and customers.
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Your Buyers Are Asking AI. Will Your Content Answer Their Questions?

Jennifer Bilec September 23, 2026
Visit the hub at B2B Forum EMEA to learn how Forrester AI, paired with Forrester’s Total Economic Impact™ content, can help marketers identify the questions shaping buyer preference and answer them with credible economic evidence.
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Your AI Productivity Gains Are Creating More Work

Lisa Gately September 22, 2026
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke recently warned employees against tossing “AI slop grenades” to coworkers: using AI to generate something quickly, then shifting the burden of reviewing, interpreting, or fixing it to someone else. Marketing leaders should pay attention. It’s not enough to worry about AI slop reaching customers and burying editors, creative teams, and other […]

Who Controls AI In 2027?

As AI transforms B2B go-to-market strategy, technology, security, and customer experience leaders must balance control with adaptation. Forrester’s Predictions 2027 guides, blogs, and webinars reveal what that requires.

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Private AI Will Beat Public AI For B2B Marketing Use Cases

Mark Ogne September 11, 2026
Since Everyone Has Access To Increasingly Capable AI, Where Is Your Differentiation? When it comes to AI, B2B marketing leaders often focus on chatbots, prompts, content creation and agentic use cases, and model selection. Those topics are understandably relevant and where most of my AI client conversations begin. But in my experience, they aren’t usually […]
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B2B Growth Is A Team Sport: Winning The Buying Group Era Requires Every Function To Play Together

Jeremy Schwartz September 11, 2026
Learn why B2B growth depends on cross-functional alignment, buying group strategies, and shared revenue goals to improve customer outcomes, accelerate pipeline, and drive growth.
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How Leading Organizations Are Rethinking B2B Event Strategy

Conrad Mills September 11, 2026
B2B event teams are operating under increasing pressure. Budgets remain constrained, audience expectations continue to rise, and CMOs want clearer evidence that events contribute to business impact — yet not all event programs respond in the same way. Our analysis of Forrester’s Q1 2026 State Of B2B Events Survey reveals that the highest-performing organizations set […]
Blog

The World That Spawned RevOps Is Unrecognizable

Ross Graber September 10, 2026
Over the past decade, B2B go-to-market (GTM) organizations have grown increasingly complex and fragmented. Revenue operations (RevOps) functions emerged to drive consistency, efficiency, and alignment across the GTM processes and systems that connect sales, marketing, and product functions. While never seamless, RevOps managed the mission. It standardized processes, improved data quality, drove common metrics, and brought much-needed discipline […]
Blog

Companies Get The Marketing They Expect

Craig Moore September 10, 2026
Marketing’s role is shaped less by strategy documents than by the expectations executives place on the function. New research reveals a significant gap between how companies currently view marketing and how marketing leaders believe the function should contribute to growth, strategy, and business performance.

Your Next Buyer Might Be An AI Agent

Agentic buying will touch 75% of B2B purchases by 2027. Explore Forrester's 2027 Predictions guide for B2B leaders to uncover five shifts needed to maintain trust and control.

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AI Agents For Marketing Are Here: Are You Ready?

Joe Stanhope September 8, 2026
AI agents for marketing are no longer a future state — they have arrived. Eighty-three percent of B2C marketing decision makers report actively implementing agentic AI into their workflows, and 85% agree that it’s delivering meaningful business value in their marketing efforts. With the rise of AI platforms like Claude and ChatGPT, and the majority of […]
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AEO Will Be Won With Solutions That Provide Intelligence, Orchestration, And Outcomes

Nikhil Lai September 2, 2026
Answer engines such as ChatGPT, AI Mode, and Claude mediate brand growth. They institutionalize word of mouth, determine consideration sets, and increasingly monetize. Marketers eager to influence how answer engines perceive their brands are rushing to enact answer engine optimization (AEO) best practices, connect roles critical to AEO, and mature AEO competencies. As they do, […]
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Meet The Winners Of The 2026 B2B Awards And Hear Their Stories Live At B2B Forum EMEA

Christina Schmitt September 2, 2026
In London, we’ll celebrate two organizations that have raised the bar for how to operate, collaborate, and grow. Get a preview of their stories and join us later this month to learn more.
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