For our What's Working Right Now report, using Wynter we surveyed 100 marketing leaders from B2B SaaS companies with $50M+ in revenue to understand what's actually driving results.
Not theory or speculation, just what these leaders are investing in, what they're cutting, and why.
The data reveals clear patterns: which strategies are worth doubling down on, which channels have lost their effectiveness, and where the real opportunities lie.
Here's what we found:
LinkedIn continues to dominate the B2B channel mix in 2025. Yes, people complain about the algorithm and reach has dropped for many teams. But no, that hasn’t changed the fact that it’s still the best place to reach decision-makers at scale.
20% of marketing leaders said it's growing in importance for them, for targeted paid campaigns (18%), and thought leadership content (10%) and Thought Leader ads (6%).
The algorithm updates of precision targeting, and the rise of founder-led content is helping marketing leaders put their message directly in front of decision-makers.
“LinkedIn thought leader ads have been incredible performers for us – generating 300x more reach and engagement for the same budget.”
Marketing teams are seeing strong results from a hybrid approach: pairing organic thought leadership with paid campaigns and founder-led content. It works because it builds brand awareness and also helps create trust at every stage of the funnel.
“We’ve put more of an emphasis on digital ads – especially on LinkedIn. We have found that we can hit our target audience with top and bottom of funnel messages.”
The majority of teams are putting expertise first, promotion second. Right now, audiences are rewarding value over volume, and our research shows that's not changing anytime soon.
Webinars are having a quiet renaissance. Why? Because they convert.
18% of marketing leaders said webinars have grown in importance over the past year. What makes the biggest impact? Using real stories, real customers and addressing actual pain points. The key takeout: Make it about the audience, not your product.
In 2025, the trending strategy is stopping talking about yourself.
"We've had success using webinars with a customer as the main presenter to drive pipeline. I know webinars don't always deliver but we've found when they are focused on a challenge and feature a real client they do well."
For 6% of teams, webinars became their most significant growth channel, and they're repurposing the recordings across campaigns, seeing them as evergreen assets rather than one-off events.
“Most significant channels in terms of growth and ROI have been our website and webinars. Webinars have wide reach and recyclability with little investment."
The platform game is evolving too. While Zoom still dominates hosting, teams are discovering LinkedIn Live helps drives better engagement and event discovery:
"We had typically run traditional webinars via Zoom but have found the LinkedIn Live platform encourages more engagement and has generated higher registration to attendee percentages."
Our take? Webinars have transformed from another boring powerpoint to a rich source of insight for (potential) customers. If you get them right, and publish them on-demand, they're a powerful pipeline engine that can continue to generate leads for months afterward.
With digital fatigue setting in, in-person events are making a serious comeback. 16% of marketing leaders said these events are their most reliable pipeline generator, outperforming email sequences, paid ads, and even webinars.
"We find it particularly good to help speed up deal cycles and for prospects in an open opportunity to increase the close rate.”
What’s working now isn’t trade shows or massive expos. It’s small, focused gatherings where people can have actual conversation.
“With ad costs rising, AI content overload and general digital fatigue, in-person presence creates a competitive advantage that algorithms can't replicate.”
The strategy here is simple: show up where your buyers are. Have real conversations. And treat events as relationship accelerators, not just lead gen.
Organic search is far from dead, but it is evolving.
Marketing leaders told us their investments in long-form, evergreen content are seeing high-intent traffic that converts faster than traffic from other sources.
"The organic traffic just has so much more acceleration through the funnel and more intent already. It just makes sense and it is one of the hardest channels to grow but when you find something that works on it you'll get the biggest rewards for it.”
But as LLM-based search gains traction, optimizing for AI-generated answers is becoming as crucial as traditional Google rankings.
Already, 20% of marketing leaders have made significant changes to their search strategies, with 12% actively shifting focus toward LLM-based search optimization
"In the past 3 months we have seen an explosion in traffic from LLM-based search, and we are now optimizing for it."
We discovered search is evolving in both platform allocation (e.g. Google vs. Bing) and content structure (comprehensive answers vs. keywords), but the main goal for marketing leaders right now? To position themselves properly for the rise of LLM discovery.
Anything that can’t prove its worth.
Our research shows 24% of teams are cutting back on paid social outside LinkedIn. Facebook, Instagram, and X are getting cut for low ROI and poor targeting.
“Stopped doing FB, just worthless ROI. I think we were doing IG as well, but also stopped doing that but more because the audience wasn't there.”
Organic social is also fading. 10% of teams said it’s no longer a priority.
“We do have a basic strategy in place but transparently it's only to keep the accounts alive and credible. Marketing-wise, there are no goals or targets for organic social.”
Another 22% are pulling back on underperforming digital ads more broadly.
"They are not creating or driving demand and we have seen more success by shifting this budget into channels we know our ICP is actually on, such as podcasts and newsletters they read."
Other channels facing cuts include content syndication (6% reducing spend due to low-quality leads and attribution challenges), print advertising (6% eliminating it entirely as circulation declines), and cold calling (4% abandoning it because of dismal connect rates).
The shift is clear: marketing leaders are moving away from one-size-fits-all tactics toward more strategic, data-informed approaches.
They're focused on maximizing ROI by aligning their messaging with actual buyer needs and showing up where their customers already consume content.
The marketing teams finding success aren’t the ones who are everywhere. They’re the ones who show up in the right places with content their buyers actually want and owning the channels that matter.
They've accepted the rules have changed and that it's not neccasirly about who shows up the most. It's about who shows up with the most relevance and clarity, on the platforms their buyers actually use, with memorable messages that resonate and solve real problems.
Our take? Go for precision. And don’t underestimate the power of showing up in person as real relationships are making a real comeback.
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