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.
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?”
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.
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.
💡Tip: Cognism provides a single source of truth for target account data, enabling marketing and sales to work from the same playbook.
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.
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.
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.
💡Tip: Cognism is ISO 27001 certified and offers peace of mind with a privacy-first data approach.
With the decline of third-party cookies, personalisation must be reimagined through first-party data and contextual targeting.
💡Tip: Cognism delivers buyer-level insights and firmographics, helping you personalise outreach at scale, without relying on cookies.
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.
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.
💡Tip: Cognism integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, Salesloft, and more, making your stack work smarter, not harder.
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.
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.
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.
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.
💡Tip: Cognism provides deep data coverage across key verticals, helping you build hyper-relevant, sector-specific campaigns.
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.
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:
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. 👇