The B2B funnel isn’t a straight line anymore—it’s a zig-zag of solo research and invisible touchpoints. In our recent webinar, “The Messy Middle: How Buyers Are Making Buying Decisions Today,” we sat down with experts from G2 and LinkedIn to decode the modern B2B buyer journey and walk through new purchase behavior insights from SurveyMonkey research. We looked at what it actually takes to win today, from targeting out-of-market buyers to optimizing for AI discovery. 

Key data to guide your strategy: 

Target the out-of-market B2B buyer

The traditional B2B journey has changed fundamentally. As Brooke Spath, SurveyMonkey senior manager of customer marketing, put it: “Buyers are getting better and better at tuning us out until they’re ready to hear us.” 

To handle this shift, Derek Yueh, partner lead at LinkedIn's The B2B Institute, suggested that instead of throwing the funnel out, we should turn it on its side. He pointed to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s 95-5 rule to explain why marketing needs to move away from constant persuasion and toward long-term brand-building. Since 95% of buyers aren't looking to buy today, the goal isn't to break through their filters with a sales pitch—it's simply to be the first brand they think of when they eventually enter the market.

For many B2B marketers, this requires a mindset shift. “Stop thinking about discovery as something that buyers are actively doing,” Yueh urged. “And start thinking of it as something that passively happens to them.” 

Optimize your brand for AI discovery and chatbots

The way buyers find new solutions has shifted toward AI chatbots, creating a new stage of the journey that marketers can't easily track. Palmer Houchins, VP of marketing at G2, notes that this has turned traditional discovery on its head. 

“The biggest invisible touchpoint today is whether you show up credibly inside AI-generated answers,” Houchins explained. “AI runs on trust, and it’s all about building trust at scale so you can get discovered there.” Because AI models prioritize third-party signals, your presence in these answers depends on your broader reputation, not just your own website copy.

To see where you stand, Houchins suggests a reality check: ask ChatGPT or Claude who the best vendors are in your category. Spath echoed that this is urgent—if you aren't seeding the market with trustworthy info and reviews, you won’t even make it onto those critical AI-generated shortlists.  

Build trust through peer validation and social proof

While AI is transforming discovery, peer validation is still the cornerstone of trust. SurveyMonkey research shows that nearly a third of B2B buyers spend several weeks in a solo research phase before reaching out to a vendor. “By the time someone fills out a form on your website,” noted Houchins, “they may have already done hours of research elsewhere.”

In our research, when buyers were asked which sources they trust most, peer validation consistently beat out everything else. Yueh emphasized that you have to shape this trust early on: “Are you only showing up for buyers when they’re double-checking their instincts, or are you actively shaping what they trust before they do the double-check?”

By empowering your happy customers to share their experiences in professional communities, you can influence buyers long before they ever talk to your sales team. Or as Spath said: “Your single best marketing asset is a happy customer.”

Track brand recall, not just clicks

Moving away from traditional metrics like MQLs is a tough shift for B2B teams, but it's the only way to see the full picture. Houchins and Yueh both argued that late-stage attribution doesn't show you the signals that actually convinced the buyer in the first place. 

Yueh suggested that if you focus on measuring memory, your success metrics actually become clearer: “Is your brand associated with the right customer pain points? Do buyers recall you in the right buying situations?”

Houchins agreed, advising marketers to look upstream at brand trust. In his view, measuring only the end of the journey misses the signals that win the deal before it even starts.

Create citation-worthy B2B content

Our panelists agreed that standing out requires content that turns complex pain points into something memorable. Houchins pointed to Spotify’s Spreadbeats campaign as a masterclass in creative storytelling, while Yueh highlighted Rippling’s Super Bowl ad for making a pain point “tangible, funny, and memorable in the right buying context.”

Beyond big-budget ads, Yueh recommended centering your strategy on creating dense, citation-worthy content. “LLMs weigh third-party signals heavily,” he said. “Having a canvas dense with signals should be your North Star—not hitting a specific word count.”

To build this canvas, Yueh suggests using LinkedIn for rapid iteration to see what resonates before scaling a campaign. Whether you’re running experiments on social media or taking a cue from ClickUp and using SurveyMonkey for ad testing, validating your ideas early ensures your message actually sticks in the messy middle of the buyer journey. 

Actionable steps for marketers

As Spath concluded, “The buyer journey hasn’t disappeared, but it has evolved. The organizations that win will meet buyers where they truly are.”

Stay on top of B2B trends

Keep up with your buyers and get real-time insights with automated market research solutions.