Where digital marketing money really goes.
A roundup of the credible, cited research on wasted ad spend. No email gate.
Of B2B ads are unlikely to ever generate a sale, from rating more than 600 ads on emotional response. LinkedIn B2B Institute with System1, 2022.
The share of their martech stack marketers actually use, down from 58% in 2020. You pay for the rest. Gartner Marketing Technology Survey, 2022.
The numbers, and who actually found them.
Every figure here is external, named, and dated. Nothing on this page is attributed to a Lead Source study, because we do not currently have one. If we ever run our own benchmark with real methodology, it will say so plainly.
71% of B2B ads are unlikely to ever generate a sale.
From rating more than 600 B2B ads on emotional response. The single most-cited number here, and the one the homepage tool is built on.
Marketers use just 42% of their martech stack.
Down from 58% in 2020, and reported nearer 33% by 2023. You are very likely paying for tools nobody opens.
64% of CMOs lack the budget to execute their strategy.
Marketing budgets fell from 9.1% to 7.7% of company revenue. Less room to waste, more reason to know what actually works.
About 95% of B2B buyers aren’t in the market right now.
A heuristic, not a hard count; Forrester puts it nearer 85-15. Most people who see your ad weren’t going to buy this quarter regardless.
40-60% of digital marketing budgets are spent ineffectively.
Widely quoted, but the methodology is opaque. We treat it as supporting evidence, not a headline number, and we never lead with it.
Reply within the hour and you’re about 7x more likely to qualify a lead.
The speed-to-lead classic, from “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads.” A qualification multiplier, not a revenue one. More on speed to lead.
“The greatest risk in modern advertising is no longer wasting money. It is believing the waste is working.”
Lead Source
How much of your budget is at risk?
Put in what you spend, and see the at-risk share in dollars. It’s an estimate built on the 71% figure above, not a claim about your account.
Your monthly marketing spend
An estimate, not your real number. Lead Source shows you which of this spend actually brings customers, so you cut the part that doesn’t.
Basis: 71% of B2B ads are unlikely to ever generate a sale (LinkedIn B2B Institute with System1, 2022), applied to your spend.
Why the waste survives.
In almost every other category of business spending, performance is judged in months. Digital marketing is the exception. Two phrases, both invented by the industry, keep underperforming campaigns alive for years.
“The funnel is warming up.”
Implies the absence of revenue today is not a failure, but a normal stage in a long-running process. Rarely accompanied by a specific commitment about when the funnel will be warm enough to produce business.
“Optimisation takes time.”
Shifts responsibility to the future. Any campaign, no matter how poorly performing, can be defended on the grounds that more optimisation is required. There is no agreed-on point at which optimisation is considered complete.
Don’t just read about the waste.
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