Myth Busting

Myth: "B2B buyers are 57% through before they talk to sales" — a real study, stretched

• No invented stats
• Written for UK readers
• 5 min read
• Published 25 September 2026

If you have sat through a sales kick-off or a marketing agency pitch in the last decade, you have probably met this one: B2B buyers are 57% of the way through the buying process before they talk to a salesperson. It is used to argue for more content, for social selling, and sometimes for the idea that salespeople are becoming order-takers. It matters because it shapes where teams put their effort. If buyers really have made up their minds before you arrive, prospecting looks pointless. If they haven't, you might be giving up too early.

Unlike many sales stats, this one has a clear, checkable origin. The question is how closely the version you hear matches what the research found.

Where the claim comes from

The 57% figure comes from CEB (the Corporate Executive Board, now part of Gartner). It appears in a report called The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing, produced by CEB's Marketing Leadership Council in partnership with Google and dated 2012 (CEB and Google, 2012). From there it spread quickly through marketing blogs and slide decks.

What we could actually find

We read the report itself. Here is what it says, and what sits around the headline number:

• The sample. CEB surveyed more than 1,500 "customer contacts", described as decision makers and influencers in a recent major business purchase. They were customers of 22 large B2B organisations, spread across ten industries. The chart credits CEB's Customer Purchase Research Survey, 2011.
• The finding. The average customer had completed more than half of the purchase decision-making process before engaging a supplier's sales rep directly. The chart puts the average at 57% and labels the end point as the customer's "first serious engagement with sales". The report's own summary rounds it to "nearly 60%".
• The spread. Averages for individual suppliers varied, running as high as 70% at the upper end.
• What buyers were doing. The report says they were using personal networks as well as publicly available information, increasingly through digital and social channels, to diagnose their problems and form opinions.

Compare that with how it is usually retold. "Before they talk to a salesperson" is not quite the same as "before their first serious engagement with sales"; a buyer can chat to a rep at an event without that counting. "57% of their research online" is a common twist, but the report measured progress through a decision, and credits personal networks alongside online sources. And "57% of the buying journey" often gets read as time, which the report does not claim. In the pages we read, the report does not explain exactly how respondents' progress was measured, so treat the precision of "57" with some caution.

Others spotted the stretch early. In 2014 Bob Apollo argued that the average hides big differences between simple and complex purchases, and that in complex sales the conversation needs to start well before a buyer is "qualified" (Inflexion-Point, 2014). In 2016 LinkedIn's sales blog called it "the 57% engagement myth", arguing it had been used to predict the death of cold calling and networking, and that those predictions had not come true (LinkedIn Sales Blog, 2016).

What the evidence does support

Here is where we have to be fair: later research broadly backs the direction of the claim. It has not aged into nonsense.

6sense, which sells B2B marketing software, runs an annual buyer survey. Its 2025 report, based on nearly 4,000 buyers across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the UK and Ireland, found the point of first contact with sellers moved from about 69% of the way through the journey in 2024 to 61% in 2025. It also reported that buyers started contact 79% of the time, and that buying groups had ranked preferred vendors before first contact in 94% of cases (6sense, 2025). A separate European cut, covering Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden but not the UK, put first contact at 58% in 2025 (6sense Europe, 2025). These are vendor surveys of fairly large purchases, so they share some of CEB's limits.

Gartner, which bought CEB, has since published survey data on buyer preferences. A 2026 write-up of its survey of 646 B2B buyers says 67% preferred a buying experience without a sales rep (Digital Commerce 360 on Gartner, 2026). A preference is not the same as what actually happens, but it points the same way.

So the verdict is partly true. There was a real study, and newer research suggests buyers of large B2B purchases still do much of their thinking before they engage sellers. But 57% was an average from one 2011 survey of big suppliers' customers. It measured "serious engagement" rather than any contact, and it is often retold as something more absolute than it was.

What to do instead

The useful lesson isn't "buyers don't need you". It's that a lot of the decision gets shaped before you're in the room, so you need to be useful earlier and differently.

1. Show up where buyers diagnose problems. CEB's own report pointed to peers and personal networks, not just search. Referrals and word of mouth matter; our piece on referrals as a neglected channel covers how to earn them.
2. Don't assume you're late. Complex, high-value purchases often still benefit from early conversations that reframe the problem. Proactive outreach is not pointless because of an average.
3. When you do meet them, find out where they are. Ask what they have already ruled in or out, and who has shaped their thinking. Our discovery call questions help you uncover that rather than pitching from the start.
4. Measure your own buyers. Log how new opportunities first reached you and how far along they seemed. A few months of honest CRM notes will tell you more about your market than a US survey from 2011.

Sources we checked

• CEB Marketing Leadership Council with Google, The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing (2012) — the original report containing the 57% chart, sample and caveats.
• Bob Apollo, "The B2B buying decision process: challenging the 57% myth" (2014) — argues the average hides differences between simple and complex sales.
• LinkedIn Sales Blog, "The 57% Engagement Myth" (2016) — on how the stat was stretched into "sales is dead".
• 6sense, B2B Buyer Experience Report 2025 — vendor survey of nearly 4,000 buyers; first contact at about 61% of the journey.
• 6sense, European buying journeys (2025) — five continental European countries; first contact at 58%.
• Digital Commerce 360 on Gartner's buyer survey (2026) — report of 67% of 646 buyers preferring a rep-free experience. We could not access Gartner's own release directly.

Spotted a mistake or a number we can't back up? Tell us and we'll fix it.