Demand 2024 Event: Capturing Attention Over Leads – 2024 B2B Buyer Trends and 2025 GTM Strategies
The landscape of B2B marketing is undergoing a profound transformation. Traditional lead-based approaches are losing ground, giving way to account-based strategies that better address the complexities of today’s buyer journey. Avishai, Trendemon’s CEO and Founder, shared valuable insights on this shift at the recent Demand 2024 event hosted by Metadata.io, shedding light on why lead generation strategies are increasingly insufficient and how B2B marketers can adapt by adopting account-based KPIs to better predict and prioritize GTM success.
The Decline of Traditional Lead Generation
The decline of traditional lead generation methods is evident in recent buyer behavior patterns. 84% of buyers make significant purchasing decisions before even contacting a seller. By the time they initiate contact, they are already well along in their journey, often leaving sales teams with minimal influence over the final decision. Our 2024 mid-year report on B2B journeys shows that the trend towards buyer anonymity continues to intensify, with only 5.31% of companies having known contacts in 2024, down from 6.3% in 2023. This trend underscores the importance of early engagement and the need for strategies that can capture buyer attention effectively, even as the typical number of known contacts continues to decline.
Embracing Account-Based KPIs for Better Pipeline Predictions
To address these challenges, we advocate for a pivot away from traditional lead indicators and toward account-based KPIs, which are more predictive of pipeline outcomes. Key among these indicators are Account Qualified Leads (AQLs) and Intent Qualified Accounts (IQAs). AQLs identify accounts aware of a brand’s existence, a better predictor of pipeline potential than traditional leads. Meanwhile, IQAs reflect accounts showing clear, intent-driven engagement with content, signaling a stronger likelihood of conversion. By focusing on account engagement rather than simple lead counts, marketers can gain earlier insights into GTM performance and optimize their efforts accordingly.
Key Questions for Shaping the New GTM Strategy
A central component of adapting to this account-based model is revisiting fundamental GTM questions. First, marketers need to ask if their target accounts—or Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs)—are even aware of their brand. Without this awareness, efforts to drive engagement may fall flat. Then you need to measure consistent engagement with content, as capturing attention is the new indicator for pipeline. Finally, it is critical to assess if accounts truly understand a brand’s value proposition well enough to explore its offerings further, as this understanding is key to sustained engagement.
Back to Basics: The Essentials for 2025
2025 is all about back to basics. As 3rd-party cookies phase out, Marketers need to invest in 1st-party data to build proprietary audiences and data assets. Brand, content, and communication fundamentals will be crucial to fostering strong engagement and nurturing meaningful connections in a world that is more focused on self-directed research. Transforming account-based engagement data into actionable insights is another priority, as it can help marketing teams make better-informed decisions and streamline next steps in the pipeline-building process.
The Road Ahead for B2B Marketing
The evolution from lead-based to account-based marketing marks a strategic shift designed to improve GTM success and predictability. By emphasizing account engagement, investing in core data fundamentals, and refining content to engage target accounts more deeply, B2B marketers can not only stay competitive but also adapt to buyers’ evolving preferences. For those interested in exploring account-based strategies further, Trendemon offers tools like the GTM Explorer, which provides insights to support this critical transition.
View the full session video here: