In our latest State of B2B Brand Marketing report, we surveyed 100 marketing leaders using Wynter. What we found: not one of them (zero out of 100) feels confident in their brand data.

Despite this complete lack of confidence, these same marketers continue measuring, reporting, and making decisions based on data they don't trust.

Here's everything they told us

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The confidence breakdown

The numbers reveal an industry in denial:

• 43% actively distrust their brand metrics
• 20% have given up trying to understand if metrics work
• 26% have "some" confidence at best
• 11% doubt their data
• 0% strongly believe their data

Nearly half of B2B marketers make decisions based on data they actively distrust. Another 20% have no idea if their metrics mean anything.

One marketing leader captured the struggle:

"Brand marketing is not always quantitative in ROI, so it makes it increasingly difficult to justify adding spend beyond doing what 'feels' directionally correct."

Feels directionally correct. That's the foundation of current B2B brand strategy.

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How B2B marketers actually measure brand today

When confidence in metrics collapses, companies don't fix their measurement systems. They default to whatever feels manageable, even when they know it's not perfect.

• The majority give up (52%): Over half abandon measurement entirely. No tracking, no surveys, no attempt to quantify brand impact. ‍
• Share of search (33%): A third rely on share-of-search as their primary metric. Google Trends becomes the brand dashboard - it's free, simple, and shows movement. But as one marketer admitted:

"Even share of search does not directly track to revenue or pipeline."

• ‍Rigorous approach (13%): These companies believe in rigorous brand measurement. They pay to track awareness, consideration, and preference among their target audience. Keeping a close eye on brand metrics over time helps them spot trends and issues early.
• Marketing mix modeling (11%): Even though it claims to reveal exactly which channels drive results, MMM demands enormous datasets and often generates contradictory insights. For B2B companies with complex buyer journeys, it can be an expensive gamble that rarely gives clear direction.

• Incrementality experiments (9%): The most sophisticated run incrementality experiments, comparing test and control markets. They're deeply engaged with measurement, but even they struggle to connect experimental results to broader brand strategy.

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Why they're struggling with B2B brand measurement

1. Invisible buyer behavior. Most buyer activity and research happens in the dark. You can't measure what you can't see, no matter how hard you try.
2. Time lag challenge: Brand impact compounds over years. Today's campaign might influence a deal in 2026. By then, everything has changed. Even the most sophisticated attribution models break down over these timescales.
3. Current platform shifts: As buyers shift from Google to ChatGPT, years of measurement expertise becomes out-of-date. The ground keeps shifting and many are struggling to keep up.
4. Resource reality: Most spend less than $10K annually on measurement - under $835 monthly. This isn't enough for the tools and expertise needed to measure properly.
5. Leadership skepticism: Even when marketers want to measure, leadership often doesn't buy in. When the C-suite doesn't believe in brand measurement, resources and support simply aren't an option.

‍"High sensitivity to ROI, ignorance of exec team of value of brand,"

‍"I'm tired of educating leadership over and over again on how marketing works."

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The cost of being stuck in measurement paralysis

While marketers debate how to measure brand, the market doesn't wait. The research reveals what's actually happening while companies struggle with metrics:

Competitors continue to build: Every quarter spent perfecting measurement systems is a quarter competitors spend building awareness. They're capturing mental real estate while you're capturing more data requirements.

Budget flows to false certainty; When brand metrics feel unreliable, money gets prioritized to channels with "clear" attribution:

‍"I'm stuck investing in bottom of funnel performance campaigns."

The compound effect works against you: Brand builds like interest and it might feel slow at first but as one leader noted:

"The better our brand, the greater market pull and less reliance on marketing push."

But this only works if you start before you're certain.

Teams optimize for reporting, not impact: When brand measurement becomes impossible to trust, marketing teams pivot to what they can defend.

"I'm expected to deliver a very consistent number of MQLs each month."

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What the confident 26% do differently

They use multiple lenses: Rather than seeking one source of truth, they engage with multiple data streams - search trends, surveys, sales feedback, win/loss analysis. Pattern recognition replaces precision.

They act on real data: They've learned that 70% confidence acted on beats 95% confidence analyzed forever.

"We measure what we can, acknowledge what we can't, and invest anyway."

They track movement: Rather than obsessing over absolute numbers, they monitor direction. Rising or falling? Gaining or losing to competitors? Movement matters more than position.

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The cost of disengaging

The 52% who've given up on measurement entirely face three hidden costs:

Flying blind: Without any measurement, brand investment becomes pure guesswork. They might be winning or losing - they'll never know. Competitors with even basic measurement have an advantage.

Budget battles lost: When asked to justify brand spend, they have nothing. CFOs allocate budget to what can be measured, even imperfectly. No measurement means no defense.

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Re-engaging with reality

So what now? The data’s messy, the metrics aren’t always perfect but ignoring it altogether is worse. Here’s how teams can start re-engaging with brand measurement in a way that actually works.

Start somewhere: The 52% measuring nothing need to start, even minimally. A basic quarterly survey beats total darkness. Google Trends beats guessing. Some data beats no data.

Connect to business logic: Find the link between brand metrics and business outcomes. If awareness rises and RFPs increase, that's a connection worth tracking, even if it's not perfect.

Build measurement muscle: Regular engagement with metrics, however flawed, builds organizational capability. You learn what works, what doesn't, what to ignore.

Two paths emerge from the research:

Path 1: Disengage completely. Join the 52% who've given up. Make decisions based on gut feel and hope. Accept that you'll never know if brand investments work.

Path 2: Engage despite imperfection. Join the 26% who measure what they can, learn from patterns, and build confidence through consistency. Accept uncertainty but reduce it systematically.

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Where this leaves you

Most B2B marketers don’t trust their brand data,  but some teams are still making it work. They use the data they have, look for patterns, and build experience over time.

It’s about being consistent, paying attention, and learning what actually moves the needle.

Meanwhile, others are stuck waiting for perfect attribution, for total clarity. But brand doesn’t work that way, and neither does measurement.

The teams that make progress are the ones who realize what matters most is whether buyers think of you when they’re ready to buy. And if you’re not paying attention to how your brand is landing, you’ll never know if you’re heading in the right direction.