B2B marketing is entering a new phase. As artificial intelligence reshapes how buyers discover suppliers, evaluate solutions and make purchasing decisions, marketers are being challenged to rethink where they invest, how they build trust and what they measure.
The outlook for 2027 is encouraging from a budget perspective. According to Forrester’s 2027 Budget Planning Guides, 89% of B2B marketing decision-makers expect their budgets to increase. However, greater investment alone will not guarantee better results. Marketers must also address fragmented data, outdated processes and the growing gap between producing content and demonstrating its commercial value.
At the same time, buyers are increasingly turning to AI-powered tools to research potential suppliers, while professional networks such as LinkedIn are becoming important spaces for building credibility and influencing purchasing decisions.
For B2B brands, this means moving away from simply doing more marketing and towards making existing investment work harder.
So, what should marketing teams prioritise when planning for 2027? Here are six trends to consider.
1. AI-first buyer discovery will reshape B2B visibility
Search engines and company websites have traditionally played a central role in B2B discovery. However, generative AI is changing how buyers research their options, compare suppliers and shortlist potential partners.
Forrester’s 2026 research into B2B buying found that 94% of business buyers use AI during the buying process. Buyers are increasingly using these tools to gather information and inform decisions before engaging directly with a vendor.
For marketers, the implication is clear: being visible in traditional search results is no longer the only consideration. Brands also need to provide clear, credible information that AI-powered answer engines can understand and reference.
This is where answer engine optimisation (AEO) comes in. Alongside traditional search engine optimisation, AEO focuses on making a brand’s expertise and information more accessible to AI-powered discovery tools.
In practice, this means creating well-structured website content, answering specific customer questions, publishing credible research and maintaining consistent messaging across digital channels. LinkedIn can support this strategy by providing another platform for experts to share insights and establish a recognisable point of view.
What should B2B marketers do?
Audit the questions buyers ask at each stage of the purchasing journey. Create useful, evidence-backed answers on your website, supported by FAQs, case studies, expert commentary and original research. Then reinforce these themes through LinkedIn posts and articles, ensuring your messaging is consistent across channels.
2. Original thought leadership will become a stronger differentiator
AI has made it easier than ever to produce blog posts, social media updates and other marketing assets. But when every brand can generate similar content, publishing more of it is unlikely to be a sustainable competitive advantage.
The real differentiator will be the insight behind the content.
Buyers need more than generic explanations of industry challenges. They want evidence, informed perspectives and practical advice that helps them understand their problems and make better decisions.
This is particularly important in B2B marketing, where purchases can involve significant investment, complex requirements and multiple stakeholders. Original research, customer experiences and the perspectives of people working directly in an industry can help brands demonstrate the depth of their knowledge.
The increasing availability of AI-generated content makes a distinct human perspective more valuable.
LinkedIn offers a natural platform for this. Senior leaders can share their views on market developments, technical experts can explain emerging challenges, and customer-facing teams can offer insights drawn from their experience.
The aim is not to publish opinions for the sake of it. Thought leadership should demonstrate a clear understanding of the audience, offer a useful perspective, and give readers a reason to trust the brand.
What should B2B marketers do?
Build a thought leadership programme around genuine expertise. Interview internal specialists, commission original research, gather customer insights and encourage senior leaders to contribute their perspectives. Use AI to support research and editing where appropriate, but make sure the final content reflects your organisation’s own knowledge and experience.
3. LinkedIn will play a greater role across the full funnel
LinkedIn has long been associated with professional networking, lead generation and targeted B2B advertising. In 2027, marketers should consider its wider role in shaping buyer perceptions throughout the purchasing journey.
Before a prospect fills in a form or books a meeting, they may already have encountered a brand through an executive’s post, an employee’s commentary, a customer recommendation or a paid campaign.
These interactions can help establish familiarity and credibility before a sales conversation begins.
Factors.ai benchmark research published in June 2026 and highlighted by LinkedIn in September 2026 highlights the potential cross-channel value of this exposure. Among ideal customer profile (ICP) accounts exposed to LinkedIn advertising, paid search conversion rates were 46% higher, meeting-to-deal for sales representatives outbound improved by 43% when accounts saw LinkedIn ads first, and conversions from website content pages increased by 112% for accounts exposed to LinkedIn ads. These are reported associations from the benchmark, rather than guaranteed results for every campaign.
The findings suggest that LinkedIn’s contribution should not be assessed solely by the leads it generates directly. Its influence may also be reflected in how effectively other marketing and sales activities perform.
This makes an integrated approach particularly important. Organic thought leadership can establish expertise, employee advocacy can extend reach, and paid campaigns can reinforce relevant messages among priority accounts.
What should B2B marketers do?
Treat LinkedIn as part of an integrated marketing strategy. Align organic content, executive communications and paid campaigns around shared priorities. Use organic insights to identify themes that resonate, then consider how paid activity can extend their reach among relevant decision-makers. Evaluate performance alongside search, website engagement and sales outcomes rather than in isolation.
4. Video will become an increasingly important B2B format
B2B marketing often involves explaining complex products, technical processes or services that require careful consideration. Video offers a way to make these subjects easier to understand while putting the people behind a brand front and centre.
LinkedIn reported in October 2024 that video uploads on its platform had grown by 34% year over year. The platform also highlighted the role of expert-led content in helping buyers discover and understand business solutions.
While this growth does not guarantee that every video will perform well, it signals an opportunity for marketers to make video a more deliberate part of their content mix.
Short, insight-led videos can be particularly useful for sharing expert perspectives, answering common customer questions and explaining developments in an industry. They can also help audiences get to know the people behind a business, adding a human dimension to otherwise technical communications.
The key is to prioritise usefulness over production value. A concise video explaining a customer challenge may be more valuable than a highly polished brand film that offers little practical insight.
Video should also complement other formats. A discussion with an industry expert can become a short LinkedIn clip, a longer article, a set of social posts and a resource for the sales team.
What should B2B marketers do?
Experiment with short videos of around 60–90 seconds, each built around one clear idea. Invite senior leaders and subject-matter experts to explain a trend, answer a frequently asked question or share a practical lesson. Add captions, make the opening relevant to the audience and repurpose useful insights across your wider content programme.
5. Content strategies must account for the entire buying committee
B2B purchases rarely depend on one person’s opinion. Depending on the complexity of the decision, a buying group may include senior executives, technical specialists, procurement teams, security professionals and end users.
Each stakeholder has different priorities. An executive may need to understand the commercial case, while a technical evaluator needs evidence that a solution meets specific requirements. Procurement may focus on cost and contractual terms, while security teams assess risk and compliance.
Forrester’s 2026 State of Business Buying research highlights the growing complexity of these decisions. Its findings indicate that a typical buying decision involves 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers.
This makes it difficult for a single campaign or generic persona-based message to address every concern.
Instead, marketers need to think about the questions stakeholders must answer before they can progress a purchase. The objective is to provide the right information to the right people, helping the entire buying group build confidence in a decision.
LinkedIn can help brands reach different professional audiences, but the wider content strategy must support their needs beyond the platform.
What should B2B marketers do?
Map the key stakeholders involved in your customers’ purchasing decisions. Develop an executive-level business case, technical documentation, procurement resources, security information and relevant customer case studies. On LinkedIn, vary your content to reflect these different priorities while maintaining a consistent core message.
6. Measurement will shift from activity to commercial influence
For years, B2B marketing teams have tracked metrics such as impressions, clicks, follower growth, leads and content engagement. These indicators remain useful, but they do not always explain whether marketing is helping the business grow.
As buying journeys become more complex and activity spans multiple channels, marketers need a clearer picture of how their work contributes to commercial outcomes.
This means looking beyond the immediate conversion to understand whether marketing is improving account engagement, supporting sales conversations, increasing pipeline quality or contributing to stronger conversion rates.
LinkedIn’s June 2026 findings on cross-channel performance reinforce the importance of this wider view. If exposure to LinkedIn advertising is associated with higher conversion rates in paid search, content marketing and sales meetings, a last-click model may fail to capture some of its contribution.
Attribution will not always provide a definitive answer, particularly when several channels and stakeholders influence a purchase. Nevertheless, a combination of account-level reporting, CRM data, campaign analysis and feedback from sales can give marketing teams a more useful view of performance.
The goal is not to abandon activity metrics. It is to connect them to outcomes that matter to the organisation.
What should B2B marketers do?
Agree on shared marketing and sales measures before launching campaigns. Track engagement among target accounts, sales meeting quality, content-assisted pipeline, opportunity progression and revenue outcomes. Where possible, use controlled tests or other appropriate methods to assess incremental impact. Review results regularly and redirect investment towards the activities that demonstrate meaningful value.
Planning for 2027: What should B2B marketers prioritise?
These six trends point towards a broader shift in B2B marketing. AI is changing how buyers find information, but the fundamentals of building trust, demonstrating expertise and understanding customer needs remain essential.
Forrester’s 2027 budget guidance makes the wider challenge clear: increased spending must be accompanied by stronger foundations, better ways of working and a more deliberate approach to investment.
For marketing teams, this means prioritising a few connected capabilities rather than treating every emerging trend as a separate initiative.
Start by strengthening your AI readiness and making your expertise easier to discover. Build a distinctive thought leadership programme, supported by the voices of your leaders, employees and subject-matter experts. Use LinkedIn to reinforce credibility and reach relevant buying groups, while ensuring your wider content strategy addresses the questions stakeholders need answered.
Finally, connect marketing activity to commercial outcomes. Better measurement will help you understand which channels and messages are contributing to progress, where investment is being wasted, and what deserves greater attention.
Need help with your B2B marketing in 2027? Book a call with our team to see how we can help you.
