The Modern B2B Buyer Journey: 11 Touches, 94 Days, 7 People.

The research

We tracked 1,840 closed-won B2B deals across 14 client programs, with full attribution going back to the first known touch for each account. Account-level attribution (not just lead-level) — meaning every meaningful touch from anyone on the buying committee counted.

Headline findings

The modern funnel is non-linear

The "awareness → consideration → decision" model doesn't match the data. Instead we see:

• Initial research moments. Individual contributors do early research — often months before anyone in sales knows the account exists. 42% of first touches are on content pages that aren't gated.
• Problem framing. Multiple people in the account search the same category 2-6 weeks later. They're independently discovering the solution exists.
• Vendor comparison. Someone — usually not an executive — runs an evaluation. /vs/ pages, G2, Reddit, YouTube reviews. This phase accounts for the biggest content touches per deal.
• Internal selling. The internal champion starts selling to peers and executives. Content shared here is high-value: ROI calculators, implementation guides, customer stories at similar companies.
• Purchase decision. This is where sales shows up. By this point the technical evaluation is often largely complete.

What content types drove deals

Ranking content types by frequency of appearance in won-deal journeys:

• Comparison pages (/vs/, alternatives, "best of" lists): appeared in 71% of won deals
• Case studies for similar-industry/similar-size: 68%
• Product tour / demo video content: 61%
• Technical documentation / implementation guides: 54%
• ROI calculators / cost estimators: 48%
• Pricing pages (visited multiple times): 44%
• Thought leadership / executive content: 38%
• Research reports: 32%
• Webinars / events: 27%

The "dark funnel" problem

42% of first touches are on content pages where the user hasn't yet converted on any form. These are entirely invisible to most CRM-first measurement approaches. The research insight: the "dark funnel" isn't a tracking failure — it's actually where most of the buying journey happens.

Teams that treated the dark funnel as a measurement problem (and tried to force gated content earlier) saw worse pipeline. Teams that treated it as a strategic reality (and invested in ungated top-funnel content, podcast appearances, YouTube) saw better pipeline. The signal matters more than the lead.

Practical implications

• Build /vs/ pages first. They appear in 71% of won deals and compete for buyers already evaluating.
• Multiple case studies, segmented. One generic case study is less valuable than three segmented by industry/size.
• Invest in dark-funnel channels. Podcasts, YouTube, LinkedIn org content. You can't attribute them cleanly; they still work.
• Measure at the account level, not the lead level. Lead-first attribution misses most of the signal.