Our team spent two days at Forrester’s B2B Forum EMEA in London a couple of weeks ago. One phrase stayed with us long after the sessions ended: the B2B buyer journey is now about “confirmation, not selection”. The research Forrester presented there showed that 68% of B2B buyers have a preferred vendor when the buying process starts, and 80% of those buyers end up choosing it. That mirrors what we see with our own clients: by the time a buying group speaks to a supplier, much of the decision has already been made. So the real question for marketing and sales teams is how to understand a buying group well enough to influence it while it is still forming. Leading buyer insights at LeadFabric, I’ve found the answer is to start with a real understanding of the people in that group, and then use it to pick up the signals that matter.
Buying has moved out of sight
Buyers prefer to guide themselves, share less personal information and buy in larger, more complex groups. A growing share of their research now happens in AI tools. In Europe, 56% of business buyers already use AI search or AI tools to support a purchase, and click-through from AI search sits between 1% and 5%, compared with around 42% for traditional search results.
In conversations at the event, we heard the same concern again and again. Leaders told us their tech stacks have grown fragmented, and that they no longer fully trust the data in their CRM. When much of the journey happens out of sight, every reliable view of the buyer becomes more valuable.
Start with the buying group
Before any team can pick up the right signals, it needs to know what to look for. That knowledge comes from understanding the buying group itself:
- Who sits in the buying group, and what role does each person play?
- What problem are they trying to solve, in their own words?
- What does each role look for, and what do they need to see before they back a decision?
- How do they see you compared with the alternatives?
The answers come from talking to buyers: interviews, surveys, win and loss conversations and what sales teams hear on calls. This is the work our buyer insights team does every day. It tells you which roles to watch, which topics they research and which moments suggest a group is starting to form.
Where signals fit in
Signals are the next step, and they become far more useful once that picture is in place. A team that knows a finance lead looks for proof of return, or that IT checks integration early, can define the signals that point to those moments and ignore the noise around them. This is where the right technology comes in. Signal and data platforms help teams gather and enrich the signals that match each role in the buying group, fill in the members they have not yet identified, and reach each one with something relevant.
Insight defines what to look for, signals show when it is happening, and orchestration turns both into action. The result is personalisation that is behaviour based, signal driven and aware of the whole buying group.
AI visibility starts with the questions buyers ask
As research moves into AI tools, appearing in the answer matters as much as ranking in search. Organic B2B website traffic is expected to fall by 50% to 75% over the next 12 to 18 months. The visitors who do arrive from answer engines tend to convert three to four times better, according to data shared at the event.
That changes what teams should track. Rankings, clicks and traffic give way to visibility, citations and sentiment: how often you appear in answers, how often your content is cited and how favourably you are described. Much of what AI says about a company comes from other people, which makes experts, peers and the wider buying network part of your visibility.
Buyers' questions have also become longer and more specific. We find the most reliable way to learn those questions is to ask buyers directly. Interviews with each role in a buying group show what finance, IT, procurement and end users want to know, and supply the evidence and language for content that answers them. My colleague Mihaela Bisnel makes a related case in How to win the content game in 2026: build an intelligence layer on buying groups, triggers and pain points before scaling content with AI.
Preference is won before the buying process starts
If most buyers choose the vendor they preferred at the outset, preference is one of the most valuable things marketing can build. We think about it in three steps: build preference, measure it, then act on what you find. In the grid below, you can see how each account is placed by market preference and buying group engagement. Pole position accounts are defended and expanded, contenders need demand activated, underdogs need trust built first, and long shots are tested or let go.
Measuring preference is where many teams get stuck. Only 37% of B2B marketing decision makers trust their measurement to inform decisions, and most of the criteria used to judge marketing are based on engagement. Preference lives in buyers' heads. If a competitor is the buyers' first choice, the number that matters is how your solution's preference rating moves.
Where to start
- Understand one buying group. Speak to recent customers, lost deals and prospects in a priority segment, and map the roles, their questions and what each needs to see.
- Define the signals that matter. Use what you learned to decide which roles, topics and moments to watch, then set up the data to capture them.
- Put it to work in one programme. Shape content and outreach for each role, then track how preference develops alongside your engagement metrics.
Buyers now decide earlier and more independently. The teams that do well will be those that understand their buyers best and know exactly what to listen for. If you'd like to understand your own buying groups better, get in touch with our buyer insights team.
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