Director of Demand Gen @ finally | Scaling B2B brands using Paid Ads & Growth Marketing💰🚀 | Managed $30M+ in Ad Spend | Digital Marketing Leader, Speaker & Instructor
2024 is almost over... And wow, what a year it’s been! A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of sitting down with the amazing Ashley Faus in the incredible studio set up by the team at 97th Floor 🙌 Honestly, I walked in completely unprepared. No script. No notes. Nothing. But Ashley, being the encouraging and inspiring person she is, said, “Let’s just start talking about….” So, we hit record—and had a great conversation about the future of paid and growth marketing in B2B. We covered what’s ahead in 2025, and here are 4 growth and paid marketing trends we believe will shape B2B next year: 1️⃣ Influencer Marketing and UGC Will Explode in B2B B2C businesses have already proven the power of influencer marketing—it’s authentic, relatable, and highly effective. But in B2B? It remains largely untapped. That’s about to change in 2025. Partnering with creators and influencers—whether they’re industry experts, loyal customers, video creators, or micro-influencers—will shift from being a “nice-to-have” to a must-have strategy. Here’s why: 👉Lower your acquisition costs 👉Build trust with your ICP 👉Scale your lead generation Ultimately, people buy from people, not businesses. 2️⃣ Offline Conversion Tracking & Optimization Will Be a Game-Changer Think tracking ad performance is tough now? It’s only going to get harder with stricter privacy regulations. Most B2B conversions already happen offline—so why not use that to your advantage? By feeding offline data—such as sales stages from CRMs like HubSpot or Salesforce—back into platforms like Google and Meta, you can: 👉 Optimize your campaigns to drive higher-value conversions. 👉 Reduce your CAC This approach isn’t optional anymore—it’ll be table stakes for running efficient campaigns. 3️⃣ The Biggest Growth in Performance Will Come From Outside Ad Platforms Let’s be real: A/B tests on ad platforms are great, but their impact is limited. Want a 10-15% lift? Tweak your ad copy, creative or targeting. Want a 30-50% jump? Focus on making changes outside the platforms. Where to start? 👉Revamp your landing pages. 👉Simplify your sign up funnel. 👉Experiment with your core offer and pricing. 4️⃣ Rising Ad Costs Demand a Top-of-Funnel Strategy Ad costs are rising—CPCs, CPMs, all of it—and this trend will continue in 2025. The solution? Stop over investing in paid search and invest in top-of-funnel strategies to build brand preference early. Channels like YouTube, Meta, and Reddit are perfect for creating awareness and familiarity. Here’s why it matters: Familiarity breeds preference. When your prospects recognize and trust your brand, they’re far more likely to choose you over competitors. These trends 📈 are only the beginning. While some of the changes ahead might seem scary, they also bring opportunities for your brand. I’m genuinely excited for what’s to come in 2025! 💥
I couldn’t agree more on the need for greater investment in TOFU. It’s always the first to get cut, but that approach will only hurt brands long term. Beyond your point about rising BOFU costs, TOFU builds trust and familiarity, which drives down costs over time. With AI pushing quantity over quality in marketing, consumers’ blinders are growing stronger. Breaking through the noise means being the brand they know and trust when it’s time to buy (just as you said). TOFU is the only way to make that happen, and we need more creative strategies to stand out. I’m especially excited about experiential marketing as a way to cut through. It’s going to be a key focus for brands that want to win in 2025.
Ashley Faus
1w
Loved chatting with you, you had some great insights!
Great insights (as always)! 100%—Your ‘internal’ influencers are your biggest brand advocates. It’s so interesting that when marketers think about working with influencers, their minds instantly gravitate toward content creators, but they often overlook the power of influence that rests within their peers…
Liz Reuth
1w
wonderful insights!
I was impressed watching you and Ashley record this and I’m impressed watching it back now!
Manu Menon
1w
Well put, Kaushik! 👏
Insightful!
So cool, way to go Kaushik Kumar! great insights!
Great insights Kaushik!
Marketing Director & Growth Leader | Advisory Board Member | Demand Generation | ABM | Go To Market | Marketing Strategy & Operations | (ex Sage, ex Google)
1wGreat points. High propensity and intent models should be layered across all your paid channels and your tech stack already should be connected to optimze towards LTV and actual high revenue generating converion points that shorten the sales cycles. Search behavior has massovely changed with GenAI engines. It would be a huge mistake to ignore GEO and ad opps on the likes of perplexity. Also GTM approach for SaaS has to change, old playbooks are not the revenue generating schemes anymore. PLG already has befome the go to for effective CAC. Churn and retention and customer marketing need an overhaul. Qouting stats from research companies and papers is not enough for securing top of funnel budgets. You do need CasualAnalytcis and what if planning if CFOs will approve demand creation budgets. We still have a lot of work to do in 2025:)