Top B2B Marketing Challenges and How to Solve Them in 2025

Thanks to all the B2B marketing challenges that crop up daily, teams are asked to do more with less marketing budget and resources.

Pipeline is down. What’s the plan to drive demo requests?”

“Our MQL to SQL conversion rates are down. How are we planning to fix this?”

It’s an all-too-familiar cycle of doom that B2B marketers face today. Buyers are savvier, cycles are longer, channels are noisier, and the CFO watches every cent.

This article explores the challenges in B2B marketing facing leaders today and offers practical, data-driven solutions to help teams stay competitive and drive performance.

1. Challenge: Proving marketing ROI and attribution accuracy

One of the top B2B marketing challenges is proving the impact of marketing spend. Attribution remains complex due to multi-touch journeys, long sales cycles, and siloed data. 

B2B sales cycles today can be long and painstaking, making attributing revenue to specific marketing activities challenging. 

This is especially true for demand creation touchpoints early in the marketing funnel, making it difficult to give definitive answers when leadership asks, “What’s working?”

How to solve it:

• Tap into self-reported attribution and merge qualitative data with quantitative metrics to better understand what’s happening.
• Invest in integrated analytics tools that track engagement across every channel.
• Align with RevOps and Finance to agree on how to attribute pipeline and revenue across marketing and sales.
• Prioritise platforms that unify first-party and third-party data.
• Add “How did you hear about us?” open text fields to capture the invisible influence of dark social.
• The best-performing companies are ditching the lead-gen hamster wheel and shifting to a proper demand generation strategy with results-based reporting.

Here’s an example of how we solved this challenge at Cognism:

We increased attribution accuracy by incorporating self-reported attribution into our demo request form, revealing that many conversions came from non-trackable sources like Slack shares and podcast mentions.

2. Challenge: Sales and marketing alignment on target accounts

The primary challenge in B2B marketing is aligning with sales on go-to-market strategies, customer insights, and swiftly adapting to market shifts.

Marketing and sales misalignment is not a new phenomenon, but in a down market, ignoring this problem is inexcusable. Siloed sales and marketing efforts create friction and slow down pipeline progression. Without shared KPIs and visibility, collaboration breaks down.

How to solve it:

• Define and align on Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) and target accounts.
• Share pipeline goals and track performance across teams.
• Use a shared source of truth (e.g., a CRM or ABM platform) to define and score accounts collaboratively.
• Implementing shared communication channels, ongoing joint meetings, shared KPIs, and collaborative campaigns can bridge the gap.
• It’s also beneficial to have cross-functional workshops where teams can understand each other’s challenges, perspectives, and opportunities for growth.
• Build joint account plans where Sales and Marketing contribute to strategy and metrics.

💡Tip: Cognism provides a single source of truth for target account data, enabling marketing and sales to work from the same playbook.

3. Challenge: Breaking into new markets with poor data

Many enterprise teams prioritise global expansion, but inaccurate or incomplete customer data holds back effective market entry strategies.

Bad data quality, missing firmographic data, and unclear ICP signals lead to weak targeting and poor campaign results, frustrating both marketing and sales.

How to solve it:

• Partner with a reliable B2B data provider to source verified, GDPR and CCPA-compliant contact and company data.
• Enrich your CRM regularly with updated firmographic and technographic information.
• Localise messaging for new regions to account for regional compliance laws and business norms.
• Validate local market demand with intent data and signal tracking.

Revenue teams use Cognism’s intent data to identify buying signals in new verticals, helping them build region-specific campaigns that open a new pipeline in previously cold territories.

With GDPR and CCPA-compliant data, Cognism gives you access to verified contacts in EMEA, NAM, and APAC—empowering international growth.

“We use Bombora’s intent data in addition to Diamond Data®, and we’re winning clients as a result. We choose an intent topic and target 20 companies per week.” “Cognism is unique in providing the complete package of intent data and verified mobile numbers. It’s a game-changer.”

Read the full case study

$125K

of pipeline from Cognism data

Paul Donnachie
Sales Manager EMEA @Keboola

4. Challenge: Data privacy and compliance

Keeping pace with evolving privacy laws is a constant challenge for B2B SaaS marketers. Marketers must ensure that data usage is ethical, transparent, and compliant.

GDPR, privacy, and emerging laws require absolute clarity on consent, data storage, and outreach practices. Non-compliance risks fines, can damage brand trust, and can undermine campaign performance.

Email marketing used to be simple: You’d collect opt-ins based on consent and grow an audience. Today, with marketing automation growth, hackers have overabused the system. And, of course, due to data breaches, sensitive customer information can be sold to data brokers on the dark web.

Data privacy is not just a legal obligation; it’s a trust pact with your customers. Breaching this trust can have long-term repercussions.

How to solve it:

• Work with ISO-certified providers who lead in data compliance.
• Create clear opt-in strategies and consent management workflows.
• Train internal teams on global regulatory requirements.
• Offer transparent opt-in/opt-out flows in all forms and email marketing.
• Regular training sessions for marketing teams can also help in reinforcing the importance of data privacy. For example, revisiting your email opt-out flow to ensure you're remaining compliant and avoid getting flagged as spam.

💡Tip: Cognism is ISO 27001 certified and offers peace of mind with a privacy-first data approach.

“Cognism is our comfort blanket when it comes to compliance. Whenever a prospect asks where we get their data from, we can confidently say that we’ve sourced their information from a reputable ISO 27001 and SOC Type II certification data company." “With Cognism, you aren’t snowing yourself under with ICO complaints. I couldn’t recommend it enough.”

Read the full case study

Richard Caldicott
IT Director @Henderson Scott

5. Challenge: Personalisation in a cookieless world

With the decline of third-party cookies, personalisation must be reimagined through first-party data and contextual targeting.

How to solve it:

• Build audience insights from owned channels and customer interactions.
• Leverage firmographic and intent data for targeted outreach.
• Focus on segmentation strategies that go beyond job titles.
  

💡Tip: Cognism delivers buyer-level insights and firmographics, helping you personalise outreach at scale, without relying on cookies.

“Cognism is really easy to use. Any marketing leads we get from events, webinars, on the website or demo requests, we’ll use Cognism on our Salesforce CRM and enrich the data.” “We've seen the largest marketing closed-won for the financial year.”

Read the full case study

22%

growth in quarterly pipeline

Antony Arcan
SDR Manager EMEA @Druva

6. Challenge: Content saturation and messaging differentiation

For B2B marketers, the challenge is no longer quantity, but maintaining a stream of fresh, valuable content, especially in an age where the ROI of content marketing is regularly scrutinised.

Generative AI has threatened the content marketing industry. Some marketers are worried that AI will replace content marketing and several digital marketing roles over the next few years.

Content distribution is another big challenge faced by marketing because of so much clutter and noise, marketers are struggling to be seen and heard.

How to solve it:

• Repurpose content into multiple formats to increase reach.
• Align messaging with each stage of the buyer journey.
• Focus on POV-led, narrative content that is authored by subject-matter experts.
• Tap into the easy mode content framework, which breaks content into a topline narrative followed by supporting POVs with expert insight and collaboration with subject matter experts.
• Work with seasoned SEO consultants or agencies who can identify content gaps and opportunities, refresh decaying content, and improve your Google Search rankings through incremental backlink building.
• The appetite for multimedia, such as a brand's YouTube or podcast, is only increasing. According to the State of Content Marketing, 68% of content consumers prefer video over text-based content.

7. Challenge: Tech stack overload and poor integrations

Enterprise martech stacks often contain dozens of tools, but how many are integrated? Poor interoperability leads to data silos, low adoption, broken handoffs, and operational inefficiency. Worse still, reporting becomes unreliable and marketing execution slows down.

Implementing data integration systems can be a seriously daunting task. For example, integrating your CDP or CRM, such as HubSpot or Salesforce, is no walk in the park.

How to solve it:

• Audit your stack and eliminate redundant tools.
• Prioritise platforms with native integrations into your CRM and MAP.
• Standardise data flows across departments.

💡Tip: Cognism integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and more, making your stack work smarter, not harder.

8. Challenge: Retention and expansion within enterprise accounts

One of the top B2B marketing challenges is expansion and retention. Customer acquisition may win attention, but retention and expansion drive profitability.

Unfortunately, many marketing teams disengage once the deal is closed, missing vital opportunities to influence cross-sell, upsell, and customer advocacy.

How to solve it:

• Develop customer marketing campaigns focused on education and value.
• Monitor account activity and trigger engagement based on key signals.
• Partner with customer success to identify upsell opportunities.
• Implement lifecycle marketing programmes focused on onboarding, adoption, and value realisation.
• Track product usage and customer health scores to trigger personalised expansion campaigns.
• Collaborate with customer success teams on co-branded content and strategic account planning.

9. Challenge: Budget scrutiny and resource efficiency

The current economic environment demands financial discipline. Marketing budgets are under pressure, and teams must deliver more with fewer resources. CMOs must justify every campaign, tech licence, and headcount.

Costly campaigns without attributable ROI are on the chopping block, and even high-performing programmes are being scrutinised for efficiency.

How to solve it:

• Focus spend on proven channels and high-intent audiences.
•   Automate manual workflows where possible.
• Use data to defend and optimise budget allocation.
• Use zero-waste frameworks: eliminate underperforming channels and double down on top ROI sources.
• Shift focus from vanity metrics to pipeline contribution.
• Analyse historical marketing campaigns. See what worked and what didn’t. Double down on the positives and cut waste. There’s no need to try dozens of new marketing tactics next year; chasing shiny objects may do more harm than good.

10. Challenge: Adapting to new B2B buying behaviour

Word of mouth and social proof have become paramount in influencing buying decisions. 96% of consumers don’t trust what they see in ads. This makes adapting to buyer behaviour one of the main B2B marketing challenges.

The traditional sales funnel has been disrupted. Marketers must be where the buyers are, providing value at every touchpoint. It’s not just about selling anymore. It’s about educating, building trust, and giving value before a buying discussion occurs.

We must humanise our B2B interactions. Behind every business decision is a person with specific needs, concerns, and motivations. Addressing these can set you apart in a crowded marketplace. Below is an example of how UserEvidence attempts this humanisation on their homepage through copy and design.

How to solve it:

• Align content to the digital-first, self-educating buyer.
• Optimise for ungated, value-driven interactions.
• Meet buyers where they are with timely, relevant outreach.
• Optimise your website for education and conversion readiness (e.g., ROI tools, live chat, demo scheduling).
• Support community-driven awareness through employee advocacy and influencer partnerships.
• The top three things buyers say tech vendors can do to make them more likely to buy are publishing pricing on the website (71%), creating demos or free trials available (70%), and showing customer reviews on the site (35%).
• Utilise interactive demo tools like Demoboost, Navattic and Storylane to create a low-pressure environment on your website.

11. Challenge: Lack of data for target verticals

One of the most significant challenges of B2B marketing is finding the right data for data-driven marketing.

Entering niche verticals often means starting with little to no data on the buyer landscape. Without persona insights, competitive benchmarks, or vertical-specific case studies, marketing growth strategies struggle to resonate and scale.

How to solve it:

• Enrich lead and account profiles with vertical-specific data.
• Use case studies and proof points tailored to industry pain points.
• Segment audiences based on firmographics and buyer intent.
• Use tools like Cognism to uncover and enrich firmographic and behavioural trends within the vertical.

💡Tip: Cognism provides deep data coverage across key verticals, helping you build hyper-relevant, sector-specific campaigns.

12. Challenge: Limited visibility into lead progression due to inconsistent CRM usage

If Sales doesn’t update the CRM, or pipeline stages aren’t aligned, Marketing loses visibility into lead status. Leads get stuck, progress isn’t tracked, and reporting on conversion rates becomes unreliable.

How to solve it:

• Standardise lead capture and tracking processes.
• Use shared dashboards to highlight movement and friction points.
• Use CRM integrations that streamline data input and reduce manual entry.
• Create clear lead progression rules and automate as many updates as possible.
• Regularly audit pipelines for stale or miscategorised opportunities.

Target the right audience with Cognism

Solving B2B marketing challenges starts with better data. Whether expanding into new markets, launching ABM campaigns, or adapting to evolving buyer behaviours, having the right insights at your fingertips makes all the difference.

Cognism empowers B2B marketing leaders with:

• Compliant verified contact data.
• Buyer and intent signals to inform outreach.
• Integrations that close the loop between marketing and sales.

Don’t let poor data, siloed systems, or changing buyer habits hold you back. Book a demo to see how Cognism helps B2B marketing leaders solve their toughest challenges and drive revenue. 👇