As B2B buyers turn to AI-powered search to evaluate solutions, CMOs are facing a universal pain point: pipeline quality has decoupled from pipeline quantity.

In IDC’s recent expert panel, Addressing the Pipeline Conversion Gap, analysts discussed the impact on lead capture and how marketing organizations can modernize their processes to fit the new discovery paradigm.  

After the discussion, our analysts took a deeper dive and answered your questions about improving pipeline conversion.

Which marketing roles own the lead pipeline transformation?

IDC recently completed research about CMOs and their approach to a new operating model for the AI era. One interesting finding is that the leaders who are furthest ahead in the maturity cycle aren’t focused on specific teams like content, operations, or SEO. Instead, they’re first reframing what marketing should look like – and their vision is to create an integrated marketing organization.

To influence change, marketing will need the help of other functions. CMOs should think about how to bring in the CFO, CIO, and CRO, as well as legal and compliance, into the conversation. They can align upon specific outcomes and gain a clear understanding of the metrics and KPIs for each function. Real change happens when everyone is working together toward the same goals.

How do you measure ROI on AI?

The tricky part of calculating ROI on AI is that the traditional formula – how much revenue you make divided by the cost – no longer works.

AI is not just about tangible impact. You also need to translate indirect impacts into financial terms. Revenue is one of the elements, but there are other KPIs to evaluate, including: employee experience, customer experience, security, trust, and more. The other big element is risk in each of the AI use cases.

The first step for calculating ROI is to apply the business value equation to specific use cases, rather than the technology itself. Then, you can assess the risk for each use case. If you need help, IDC has developed a full AI business value assessment framework to help clients maximize their ROI.

Is it possible to target buying committees on LLMs?

Every AI engine is looking at how to monetize with advertising, but this area is still evolving. Right now, vendors’ early attempts at advertising offer limited targeting, where the focus is on the top of the funnel. We expect this to change quickly, as vendors leapfrog to the opposite extreme. Segmentation will become much more advanced than even today’s demand platforms and programmatic tools, because LLMs are better at capturing the specific intent of buyers.

And intent data is powerful fuel for reaching buying committees.

That’s because buyers aren’t simply interested in running shoes. Their prompts are much more specific. They want size 10 running shoes suitable for a specific marathon and that also address their foot problems. That’s the kind of intent data vendors will be able to provide advertisers in the form of very specific audience segments.

Is there risk in sharing pricing before understanding the customer problem and establishing a value-based solution?

Opaque pricing tells a sophisticated buyer one of three things: you’re going to price discriminate based on perceived budget, you don’t trust them to self-qualify, or your products are too expensive.

Pricing is tricky any way you go about doing it because it is both mathematical and psychological. Just like pricing strategies need to be tailored to specific business needs, the way this information is exposed will also need to be calibrated in a strategically optimized manner.

It’s almost impossible to give one-size-fits-all guidance about this topic, but there are more clever ways to handle this than just a static form.

So, what’s the best alternative to ‘Contact Us’ for B2B pricing?

Any alternative depends on why your organization needs to talk to the buyer. For example, software pricing has too many dependencies and variables about scope of work, so a custom quote is often necessary.

One option for surfacing this information is with agentic AI. A chatbot can provide a custom quote using the rules already stored within your configure, price, quote (CPQ) software or CRM. Unlike salespeople, who can break the rules – sometimes to the detriment of the company – an AI agent will follow them to the letter, making this a very efficient way to handle 80% or 90% of your custom quote needs.

You can also rethink the customer journey and redesign a more modern workflow that is not based on patience, but readiness to buy. Prospects should be able to get answers they need at the right moment – while they’re on your site and ready to purchase. This contactless flow reduces friction and is more likely to convert.

Can FAQ documents and chatbots assist in combatting the gated content issues?

With gated content, you’re trading a white paper for an email address from someone who could have asked an AI for the same information in 30 seconds. The marketing team’s goal now is to help buyers get the details they need without having to click away.

An FAQ and chatbot can serve that need – but not the typical ones we’ve become accustomed to. This change is reminiscent of the early web, where informational – not marketing – content drove most of the engagement. Each product detail page, for example, should have its own mini-FAQ. However, this just scratches the surface. The content model will need to be much more technically mapped to appeal to AI agents, including schema updates and metadata adjustments.

Could we engage buyers by offering both gated and passive contact options? For example, could we have a “can we call you?” box and a “subscribe to our email” box?

That’s still too passive. It’s much better to encourage engagement right on the website via chat and then use that chatbot to collect and present the relevant information. The goal is to give the prospect greater access to the information they need and avoid forcing them to browse your site.

Remember, today’s buyer journey is much more compressed. There are fewer touch points to be seen and heard, which means you have to make every single one of those encounters really count.

An inversion of the traditional qualification model is what’s really needed. Instead of making buyers prove that they’re serious, you let them prove it to themselves and then contact you when they’re ready to buy. You can do that by front loading with a little bit more content.

While these are the questions attendees had, we understand you might want to dig deeper into this topic. Contact IDC today to request an analyst briefing.