Only 9% of B2B SaaS marketing leaders based their last big decision mainly on research with the buyers they're trying to win. We surveyed 100 of them to find out what the other 91% used instead.
We asked leaders to describe their most recent significant marketing decision (messaging, budget, channels, a launch) and what it was mainly based on. We coded every answer by its main input.
Leadership judgment beat every other input. Internal performance data came second. Direct research with target buyers, the people the decision is meant to win, came fourth, behind customer and sales feedback.
"Asked sales what they think, we argued about our opinions, and no one bothered to ask anyone in our target audience. We defaulted to guessing like we usually do."
AVP Product Marketing, enterprise SaaS
"Most of this was a gut call from leadership rather than informed by anything specifically. The rebrand was heavily based on leadership preferences."
AVP Marketing, enterprise SaaS
Voice-of-customer research is close to universal. Research with buyers who haven't bought from you is not.
Frequency tells the bigger story. Customer feedback flows in constantly through sales calls and account teams. Market research mostly happens once a year, if at all.
53% research non-customers once a year or less. Only 8% do it monthly. Customers are the people your messaging already worked on. The buyers it failed on, or never reached, mostly go unheard.
80% of leaders ticked at least one box for non-customer research in the past year: testing ideas with them, surveying them, or measuring market perception.
Earlier in the survey, before seeing that list, we asked them to describe the last time their team tried to understand what buyers think or need.
51% of those who said they research non-customers described only customers or internal sources when asked what they actually did last time: customer calls, the advisory board, sales feedback, internal discussions.
That's not dishonesty. It's what happens when market research is occasional: the annual survey gets remembered as "we research the market," while week-to-week learning comes from people who already bought.
We asked how teams learn about people in their target market who aren't customers yet.
The common sources share a limit. Events reach whoever showed up. Sales calls reach buyers already in the pipeline. Desk research and AI tools summarize what's already published. Only 42% mentioned any structured research that reaches the market directly.
"We don't currently have a program to help with this. It's a gap and largely due to budget constraints. However there is also a cultural component: we've grown without it, so why invest now?"
VP of Marketing, mid-market SaaS
"What I don't do enough of today is direct research with people who aren't already in our network or pipeline."
VP of Marketing, mid-market SaaS
Several leaders described research that existed but didn't change anything, because it was too slow, too complex, or outranked by an opinion.
"We did a lot of research in the last 12 months, but truthfully, we didn't really listen to it or apply it to decision making. Leadership chose to go with their guts."
Interim CMO, B2B SaaS
"The most comprehensive research study we conducted was rejected by management as too complex."
CMO, B2B SaaS
"I have a thesis, but I have nothing really to back it up or anything that would help me push for a change or for a different approach."
AVP Marketing, enterprise SaaS
Where research did win, it often won the internal argument:
"The research has been helpful in getting alignment with leadership. Everyone has their opinions and usually the hippo in the room. This year has been more objective based on the insights."
CMO, B2B SaaS
This is the counterweight to everything above. Asked what decisions research actually changed in the past year, most leaders named something concrete.
So the gap isn't that research doesn't work. It's that it reaches a small share of decisions, and mostly hears from customers when it does.
We asked for the one thing about their market they wish they knew. Most answers are questions only buyers can answer.
The second-biggest theme is the oldest question in B2B: why buyers choose, switch or stall. Several leaders singled out losing to "do nothing" as the hardest loss to explain. And if research budgets doubled, here's where the money would go:
"Surveys are good for showing trends but they are not granular enough to create messages that drive action."
VP of Product Marketing, B2B SaaS
Two other Wynter studies show what B2B messaging looks like from the outside.
These are separate studies, so we can't prove the survey above causes sameness. Our read: when most decisions rest on leadership opinion and customer feedback, companies in a category draw on the same inputs and arrive at the same message. Sources: Wynter Sameness Benchmark and the B2B Vendor Differentiation Survey.
Every stat has its own link. You're welcome to cite them; please link to this page.
Wynter (2026). How B2B Marketing Leaders Make Decisions. Survey of 100 B2B SaaS marketing leaders, September 2026. https://wynter.com/research/how-b2b-marketing-leaders-make-decisions
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100 marketing leaders at B2B SaaS companies from the Wynter panel of 86,000+ identity-verified B2B professionals: 34% C-level (mostly CMOs), 62% VPs and 4% heads of marketing. 72% mid-market (200 to 999 employees), 28% enterprise (1,000+). Fielded September 23-24, 2026.
Eleven questions: closed questions on research methods and frequency, and six open-ended questions about recent decisions, sources, what research changed and what leaders wish they knew.
Open-ended answers were coded by theme. For the decision question, each answer got one code for its main input; 21% didn't name a clear basis. Other questions could carry several codes, so totals can exceed 100%.
Respondents come from a research panel, so they're likely more research-active than average, which makes the gaps conservative. We tested whether research habits relate to revenue performance and found no reliable link at this sample size, so we make no claims about it.
This study was fielded on Wynter: surveys, message tests and brand tracking with 86,000+ verified B2B professionals, results in 12 to 48 hours.