Why Your B2B Marketing Return on Investment is Disappointing, and What You Need to Do About It
- Gordon G. Andrew
- Jun 28
- 2 min read
If you're the owner or managing partner of a B2B company with 25 to 250 employees, chances are you're investing in marketing, but not seeing the return you hoped for.
Maybe you have a head of marketing (or fractional CMO), and perhaps an outside agency supporting your campaigns. You’ve poured money into your website, SEO, ads, content, maybe even webinars. But the results still feel… underwhelming.
According to new research from McKinsey, you’re not imagining things. And here’s the key insight: your marketing challenges aren't just tactical. They're structural.
McKinsey’s article focuses on large enterprises, but it underscores some hard truths that absolutely apply to mid-market firms as well. Let’s break them down—and outline four recommendations you can act on right now to get better business results from your marketing spend.
The Reality at Midsize B2B Firms
You likely don’t have a “Chief Customer Officer” or “Head of Digital Experience.” Instead, your head of marketing is already wearing those hats, along with branding, email campaigns, content production, vendor management, and reporting.
And because they’re stretched thin, the marketing function often becomes more reactive than strategic. They are focused on “doing more” rather than “driving more.”
The good news? With a few structural changes, your existing marketing investment can produce more consistent, measurable business value.
4 Ways to Get More Return from your B2B Marketing Investment
Redefine the marketing role as a growth role—not a communications role. Stop thinking of marketing as “content creators” or “brand managers.” Make growth the primary mandate. Whether it’s pipeline, leads, demos, or renewals, you need to tie marketing's success to metrics that matter to your business.
Tighten alignment between marketing and sales leadership. If sales and marketing aren’t in sync, your campaigns will fall flat. Create shared goals, shared definitions of qualified leads, and a process for consistent feedback. You don’t need more leads. You need better collaboration that will drive engagement.
Give your head of marketing permission to say “no.” When marketing tries to serve everyone it becomes diluted. Prioritize efforts based on revenue potential. Focus matters more than volume.
Track and share business outcomes, not marketing outputs. Your CMO or marketing lead should be reporting on sales pipeline influenced, cost-per-qualified-lead, customer acquisition cost, not just impressions and email opens.
The Bottom Line on B2B Marketing
Marketing isn’t broken...but your expectations and operating structure might be.
By empowering your marketing leader to focus on growth, aligning your teams, and tracking what actually matters to the business, you can turn marketing from an overhead line item into a profit center.
It's time to rethink the role of marketing, not as a cost of doing business, but as a driver of sustainable B2B growth.
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If you’ve felt frustrated by marketing ROI, what’s been your biggest challenge? I’d love to hear how you’re tackling it.