The B2B Buyer Journey Research:

How B2B SaaS CMOs Buy Software in 2025

Today’s marketing leaders face a flood of software choices. Every tool promises to solve their problems, but picking the wrong one can cost their company time and money.
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Using Wynter, we asked 100 top CMOs from companies with 200+ employees how they make these choices.
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This year, we learned the rules of B2B software buying have changed.

Here’s your map to the new territory.

Building the consideration set starts with peers, review sites, and searching on Google

CMOs tend to follow a clear pattern. We’ve named it the three pronged approach.

72% start by asking people they trust before moving to public sources.
54% then use review sites to validate peer recommendations.
51% go on to Google to further verify what they’ve learned.

CMOs play a crucial role in decision making

79% of CMOs emphasize team involvement in software evaluation.
39% of CMOs have a stage-based process, where the team does the initial shortlisting and the CMO gets involved when it’s down to the final few vendors.
We found the CMO’s role is more orchestrator than delegator - setting direction, empowering teams, but staying deeply involved in strategic decisions.

Buyers self-educate:
88% will come to a sales meeting already familiar with the vendor

100% will check out the vendor's website.

46% use interactive demos or other virtual ways of checking out the tool (sandbox, trial).

Only 12% will have minimal familiarity.

Here’s what’s new: 24% of CMOs are now using AI tools

In last year’s version of this report, we had zero mentions of AI. We predict it’s going to more than double next year.
AI isn’t replacing talking to peers, but it is becoming an extra helper in the shortlisting process. 76% of CMOs still prefer getting advice from other (real) people.

How B2B SaaS CMOs Buy Software in 2025

Building the consideration set starts with peers, review sites, and searching on Google

CMOs play a crucial role in decision making

Buyers self-educate: 88% will come to a sales meeting already familiar with the vendor

Here’s what’s new: 24% of CMOs are now using AI tools

Get the full report here

Buyers self-educate:
88% will come to a sales meeting already familiar with the vendor