For many B2B businesses, the sales conversation starts much later than the buying process.
A potential customer may research companies, read posts, compare providers, discuss options internally, and form an opinion about a brand long before anyone fills out a form or books a call.
New research highlighted by LinkedIn puts numbers around that behaviour. Based on analysis from Factors.ai covering more than 50,000 closed deals and over 850 B2B organizations, buyers may begin exploring solutions around 124 days before speaking with a seller. The research also points to the importance of reaching more than one decision-maker and combining paid LinkedIn activity with an active organic presence. Social Media Today
For businesses using LinkedIn to reach commercial buyers, professional audiences, referral partners, or other organizations, that changes the question.
Instead of asking only, “How do we generate more leads?”, it may be more useful to ask, “Are the right people seeing and understanding our business before they are ready to become a lead?”
Quick Answer
LinkedIn’s latest B2B research suggests that buyers often begin researching solutions months before they contact sales, and several people may influence the eventual decision. For B2B businesses, this supports a longer-term approach that combines early visibility, relevant content, broader account targeting, and consistent follow-up. LinkedIn Ads can help extend reach, but businesses should also consider their organic presence and what happens once a prospect finally enters the CRM. LinkedIn
Key Takeaways
- B2B research may begin around 124 days before a seller conversation, according to the Factors.ai analysis shared by LinkedIn.
- Reaching several relevant contacts inside the same organization may be more useful than concentrating all marketing on one senior decision-maker.
- Factors.ai found that reaching six or more contacts before an opportunity entered the CRM was associated with a 17-percentage-point increase in win rates in its dataset.
- The report found that 76% of LinkedIn ad spend targeted director-level through owner roles, suggesting many campaigns may overlook other people involved in evaluation.
- Companies combining LinkedIn Ads with organic LinkedIn activity recorded 2.4x higher win rates than companies using paid campaigns alone in the study.
- Businesses still need to evaluate campaign performance using their own market, audience, offer, sales process, and conversion data. Social Media Today
What Did LinkedIn’s B2B Buying Research Find?
One of the most useful findings is the gap between when buyers begin researching and when a business recognizes them as an opportunity.
LinkedIn’s summary of the Factors.ai research says buyers begin researching, comparing, and discussing possible solutions roughly 124 days before speaking with a seller. That means a significant amount of the buying process can happen before a prospect appears in a company’s CRM. LinkedIn
That period matters because prospective buyers are not simply waiting four months before contacting someone.
They may be forming a shortlist, reading industry content, looking at company pages, comparing approaches, checking the credibility of people associated with the business, and discussing possible vendors internally.
By the time someone requests a consultation or responds to outreach, they may already have considerable context.
More Than One Person May Influence the Decision
The research also challenges the idea that B2B marketing should concentrate almost entirely on the most senior person in the organization.
Factors.ai found that reaching six or more contacts before a deal entered the CRM was associated with a 17-percentage-point lift in win rates. Engaging another three or more contacts during the active sales cycle was associated with an additional 16-point increase. LinkedIn also reports that 76% of ad spend in the dataset explicitly targeted director-level through owner roles. LinkedIn
These findings do not mean every company should automatically target six people or that doing so will produce the same result. Buying groups vary considerably by company size, service, contract value, complexity, and industry.
The practical lesson is broader: the person signing the agreement may not be the only person influencing it.
Why Does This Matter for B2B Businesses?
Consider a commercial security company pursuing a larger contract.
A senior executive might approve the investment, but operations personnel may care about implementation. IT may have questions about integrations or cybersecurity. Facilities teams may evaluate practical requirements. Procurement may become involved later.
Marketing only to the most senior title could mean other influential people encounter the company for the first time after the sales process has already started.
A similar principle can apply to professional services.
A trustee firm may build relationships with accountants, lawyers, financial professionals, and other referral sources. Different people may encounter the firm’s content at different stages, even though only one person eventually initiates a conversation.
For owner-led B2B companies, this also means LinkedIn activity should not necessarily be judged only by immediate form submissions.
Some marketing helps people discover the company. Other activity helps them understand it. Additional content reinforces credibility, while another part of the strategy captures the prospect when they are finally ready to act.
Those functions are related, but they are not identical.
Paid LinkedIn and Organic LinkedIn Should Not Be Treated as Separate Worlds
Another finding deserves attention.
Factors.ai reported that companies combining LinkedIn advertising with organic LinkedIn activity achieved 2.4x higher win rates than organizations using paid campaigns alone within the analyzed dataset. Social Media Today
That does not prove that adding organic posts to an advertising campaign will automatically multiply a company’s win rate. The businesses in the dataset may differ in many other ways.
It does, however, support a sensible B2B marketing principle.
People do not experience your company as separate marketing channels.
Someone may see a sponsored post, visit your company page later, recognize an employee’s name, read an educational post, visit the website, and then come back weeks later after the business problem becomes more urgent.
From the buyer’s perspective, that is one relationship with the brand.
For businesses already considering paid campaigns, Amber 90’s existing guide on LinkedIn Ads strategy for B2B lead generation provides more detail on targeting and campaign structure. This article takes a different angle: what happens before the lead exists and how buying groups may develop familiarity over time.
What Does This Mean for Security Companies?
Commercial security sales often involve more consideration than a simple consumer purchase.
If the service involves access control, surveillance, monitoring, system integration, or other commercial requirements, the buyer may need internal agreement before moving forward.
That creates an opportunity for content to answer different questions throughout the buying process.
An owner or executive might care about business risk and cost. An operations manager may want to understand reliability and implementation. A facilities professional may be interested in how a system fits the physical environment.
The goal is not to produce separate advertising campaigns for every job title without evidence. It is to understand who actually participates in your customers’ decisions, then determine whether your current marketing reaches and educates those people.
What Does This Mean for Trustees and Professional Services?
Trust-based professional services have a different buying journey.
A potential referral partner may follow a trustee firm’s content for months without making direct contact. Someone may read educational material well before they are comfortable taking the next step.
In this environment, useful content can do something an immediate sales message cannot. It can demonstrate how the organization communicates and what subjects it understands.
The relevant measure is not simply how often the business posts. It is whether the content answers meaningful questions for the people the firm wants to reach.
What Should Businesses Consider Doing?
Start Marketing Before the Immediate Sales Opportunity
If buyers are researching well before they contact sellers, concentrating every campaign on “Book a Call” or “Request a Quote” may miss earlier stages of consideration.
Businesses can also create content that answers questions, explains problems, addresses common misconceptions, demonstrates expertise, and helps potential buyers understand their options.
Not every post needs an immediate conversion objective.
Review Who You Are Actually Targeting
Look beyond assumptions about the “decision-maker.”
Review recent customers and opportunities. Who first discovered the company? Who participated in meetings? Who asked technical questions? Who influenced the final decision?
Those patterns can help determine whether LinkedIn targeting should include additional roles or functions.
Coordinate Paid and Organic Activity
If an advertising campaign discusses one problem but the company page rarely addresses that subject, the experience can feel disconnected.
Organic content can reinforce the same expertise that paid campaigns introduce, without repeating the advertisement word for word.
Strengthen What Happens After the Lead Arrives
Longer B2B buying journeys make follow-up particularly important.
A prospect that has spent weeks researching may still not be ready to make an immediate decision after the first conversation. A CRM should make it easier to understand where the opportunity stands, who is involved, what has already been discussed, and what should happen next.
This also connects with Amber 90’s existing discussion of lead volume versus lead conversion. Generating interest is only part of the process. How inquiries are managed after they arrive can influence whether that marketing activity turns into business.
What Should Businesses Measure?
LinkedIn impressions and engagement can provide useful information, but they should not be mistaken for business outcomes on their own.
B2B businesses can look at LinkedIn alongside CRM and sales data to understand the larger journey.
Useful questions include: Are target accounts interacting with the business? Are multiple relevant people from the same organization appearing in the pipeline? Which campaigns are producing qualified inquiries? How long does it take an opportunity to move from first inquiry to a meeting or proposal? Are leads receiving consistent follow-up? Which content contributes to website visits, conversations, or later sales activity?
The right metrics will depend on the business model.
A security company pursuing large contracts should not evaluate LinkedIn in exactly the same way as a smaller service company selling relatively straightforward work.
Common Misunderstandings About the Research
“We Need to Target Six People at Every Company”
Not necessarily.
Six contacts was an important threshold in the Factors.ai dataset, but it should not become a rigid formula. A small company’s purchase may involve two people. A complex enterprise purchase could involve considerably more.
Use the research as a reason to investigate your own buying groups.
“We Should Make Every LinkedIn Campaign Longer”
Longer exposure may help when purchases involve extended research, but campaign length by itself does not create demand.
Audience quality, creative, messaging, budget, competition, offer, landing-page experience, and sales follow-up still matter.
“Organic Posting Means We Can Reduce Paid Advertising”
The research does not establish that conclusion either.
Paid and organic activity serve different functions. Paid campaigns provide controlled distribution. Organic content can help demonstrate knowledge, maintain visibility, and give prospects additional material to evaluate.
The appropriate balance should come from business objectives and performance data.
How Amber 90 Can Help
For B2B businesses, the opportunity is not simply to run more LinkedIn ads. It is to connect visibility, content, lead generation, CRM visibility, and follow-up so the customer journey does not break when a prospect finally decides to make contact.
Amber 90 works with security companies, service businesses, professional organizations, and business owners on digital strategy, paid advertising, social content, lead management, and marketing systems.
If you are unsure whether your current LinkedIn activity is reaching the right people or whether opportunities are being lost between marketing and follow-up, contact Amber 90 to review your current approach and identify areas worth improving.
Frequently Asked Questions
How early do B2B buyers begin researching?
The Factors.ai research highlighted by LinkedIn found that buyers started researching solutions approximately 124 days before a seller conversation in the analyzed dataset. That should be treated as a research finding rather than a fixed timeline for every business. LinkedIn
Why should B2B marketers target more than one person?
Many business purchases involve people with different responsibilities. Reaching several relevant stakeholders can help the company become familiar across the buying group rather than depending on one contact to communicate everything internally.
Should LinkedIn campaigns target only directors and owners?
Not automatically. Senior decision-makers may remain important, but the research suggests that technical evaluators, users, influencers, and other stakeholders can also contribute to buying decisions.
Do LinkedIn Ads work better with organic content?
Factors.ai reported higher win rates among companies combining paid and organic LinkedIn activity, but this is not a guarantee that the same result will occur for every advertiser. Businesses should evaluate both activities against their own sales and CRM data. LinkedIn
Is LinkedIn useful for security companies?
It can be particularly relevant when a security company sells B2B services because LinkedIn allows businesses to reach audiences using professional characteristics such as job role, industry, company, and seniority. The value still depends on audience size, offer, campaign quality, budget, and sales process.
What should a business do after generating a LinkedIn lead?
Respond promptly, identify what the prospect needs, understand who else may be involved in the decision, establish the next step, and maintain appropriate follow-up. The advertising campaign and the sales process should support each other rather than operate independently.
Should every B2B company advertise on LinkedIn?
No. LinkedIn deserves consideration when the intended audience can be identified professionally, but businesses should compare it with other channels based on customer behaviour, economics, audience size, competition, and their own performance data.
Conclusion
The most important insight from LinkedIn’s latest B2B research is not that businesses need to post more or simply increase their advertising budgets.
It is that the buying journey can begin well before the lead appears.
For security companies, trustees, professional services firms, and other B2B organizations, that makes early visibility, broader stakeholder awareness, credible content, and structured follow-up parts of the same process.
A business cannot control exactly when a buyer becomes ready to talk. It can work on being useful, visible, and easy to evaluate before that moment arrives, then make sure the opportunity is properly handled when it does.
Want to understand whether your LinkedIn marketing and lead process are working together effectively? Contact Amber 90 to discuss your current strategy.
Sources Referenced
The primary news reference is Social Media Today’s Sept. 24, 2026 coverage of LinkedIn’s B2B buying findings. Read the Social Media Today article
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions provides the underlying first-party interpretation of the research. Read LinkedIn’s analysis of the research
Factors.ai conducted the underlying benchmarking research using closed-deal and advertising data. View the Factors.ai LinkedIn Revenue Engine report
Related Amber 90 material can be found in the company’s Insights library. Explore Amber 90 Insights
