Enterprise B2B marketers are now emphasizing revenue-focused KPIs over vanity metrics such as clickthrough rates and lead volume, according to a study from B2B marketing specialist 2X and management consultancy Avasant. That shift ties in with a heightened focus on more efficient and effective ways to get the job done.

“Marketing is starting to speak the language of the business—adopting financial metrics and aligning more closely with the CFO and CEO,” notes Lisa Cole, Chief Marketing Officer at 2X. “That shift will go a long way in repositioning marketing as a growth engine, not just a service function.”

The “Rethinking B2B Marketing Execution” report showed that net new revenue was the top KPI, used by 43.7% of the B2B enterprises surveyed. ROI took second place, with 36.8% of those surveyed tracking it, followed by customer lifetime value (33.3%), opportunity-to-sales conversion (29.9%) and cost per acquisition (28.7%).

“The thinking is evolving from ‘How many leads did we generate?’ to ‘How efficiently are we driving growth?’ That’s a much more mature, financially accountable posture,” Cole contends. “It also reflects a deeper level of partnership with finance and executive leadership. Marketers are showing up in board meetings ready to speak the language of ROI, margin and payback period. That’s exactly where we need to be.”

An AI Red Flag

Being able to prove the value of marketing spend is critical to ensuring that the department receives enough budget to continue those wins. Among those surveyed, the marketing budget equaled a median of 3.7% of revenue. According to the report, a marketing budget of 3%-4% suggests a sales-led business model, while a budget of 8%-10% indicates a marketing-led business with greater emphasis on demand generation, brand building and other growth initiatives.

Not surprisingly, AI-driven campaigns were the top trend influencing marketing budgets and strategies; 72.4% of survey respondents sought to reap benefits such as real-time campaign optimization and accelerated content creation. Similarly, 57.5% were implementing intelligent automation.

The emphasis on AI and automation suggests that B2B enterprises are looking for greater flexibility, scalability and efficiency. However, budgets aren’t yet reflecting savings when it comes to employees. Personnel accounted for 55.9% of marketing budgets, with only 23.9% allocated to growth initiatives and other programs and 20.2% to tech.

“You’d expect AI to unlock productivity and reduce the need for as many resources, faster execution and fewer people. But that’s not what the data showed,” Cole explains. To fund AI and other tech investments, businesses are reallocating funds not from personnel but from campaign execution and programs—“the part of the budget that actually fuels the pipeline. That’s a red flag. If AI is supposed to help us scale impact without scaling cost, then we’ve got to ask: Why are we layering on more technology without rethinking the operating model? If organizations aren’t reducing operational overhead or accelerating output, we’re just adding cost in a new place, and missing the point of AI entirely.”

In-House vs Outsourced

Nearly 62% of survey respondents’ full-time equivalent (FTE) marketing employees were internal, with the remaining 38.2% outsourced. Cost efficiency was by far the primary reason for outsourcing, cited by 86.4%; access to expertise was a distant second, given by 59.1%. Cost-effectiveness was also the top factor in selected a marketing outsourcing partner, cited by 58.6%. Expertise in the hiring company’s industry or niche was cited by 42.5%, followed by proven track record and testimonials (40.2%).

Marketing operations saw the greatest increase in spend as a percentage of marketing budget for outsourcing, with a 35% increase between 2023 and 2024. Nearly 84% of loyalty program execution and web management and optimization is outsourced, along with 78.2% of lead management. The percentage spent on outsourced marketing intelligence rose 34%, with 81.6% of market research and competitive analysis work outsourced.

“The smartest marketing leaders treat their organization like a high-return investment portfolio. They’re keeping the strategic work—brand, GTM strategy, customer experience—in-house, where alignment and ownership matter most,” Cole asserts. “The key is to align outsourcing with where you want to create leverage. If the work is high-volume, process-driven or time-intensive but doesn’t differentiate your brand, you shouldn’t be building that capacity internally. Outsource it, automate it, or both. That’s how you create an operating model that can adapt and scale.”