Trusted Voices, Peer Validation, And Relatable Customer Situations Drive Commercial And Brand Success In B2B Campaigns

New research from WARC, LinkedIn, and LIONS Advisory reveals that the most effective B2B creative does more than build awareness, it strategically builds decision defensibility. An analysis of more than 700 best-in-class B2B campaigns found that the strongest performers consistently helped buyers feel more confident choosing a brand.

The research leverages LinkedIn and Bain & Company’s existing body of work on Buyability,  showing how creative influences purchase decisions. It identifies seven Buyability signals including trusted recommendations, peer validation and relatable customer situations or the 3Rs — Recommendations, Relatability, and Relationships. The findings provide marketers with a practical playbook for creating campaigns that drive both brand impact and business outcomes.

The 3Rs of Buyability: Recommendations, Relationships and Relatability

In B2B buying, first-hand experience and trusted recommendations drive vendor selection far more than performance or price, and ‘similar customer’ messaging outperforms ‘market leader’ claims.

The three main levers of Buyability (the 3Rs) that consistently increase buyer group confidence, drive commercial impact and should be a CMO’s top priority are:

• Recommendations: The proof and validation from customers, peers, experts or trusted voices.
• Relationships: Signals of wanting long-term partnership, existing familiarity.
• Relatability: Real customer situations, use of cases and experiences that buyers can recognise.

Brands that can credibly demonstrate peer validation, customer relevance and risk reduction are more likely to appear in LLM shortlists and more likely to be deemed highly buyable by B2B purchasing organisations.

Imaad Ahmed, Thought Leadership Director, LIONS Advisory and WARC, says: “The Buyability model has gained strong support from across the B2B industry. This new work seeks to demonstrate the impact Buyability has in real case scenarios, and what proof points exist. The objective of our research was to measure how frequently Buyability signals appear in B2B campaigns, and whether more signals drive better results. As we discovered, the intentional use of Buyability signals  is still an area of opportunity for B2B marketers. When well-stacked within a campaign, Buyability signals can make revenue, ROI and brand health uplifts far more likely.”

Mimi Turner, Head of Marketplace Innovation, LinkedIn, says: “Buyability gives us a seven signal framework that marketers can use to strategically enhance campaign outcomes because it is built on insights into what helps buying groups feel confident to buy. The campaigns that win are the ones that make buying decisions easy to defend by focusing on areas that customers can relate to and experiences and voices they can trust.” 

Introducing the seven signal Buyability framework – a new roadmap for B2B marketers

The Buyability framework outlines seven signals for future campaigns that are mapped back to one of the 3Rs, and that make brands discoverable in AI models, are credible across diverse stakeholders, and defensible as the no-risk option. This all helps marketers build buyer confidence strategically.

It is no longer sufficient for B2B marketing to increase awareness and consideration. It needs to prove that it directly generates sales. Brands are recommended to strategically and intentionally build more Buyability signals into their communication programmes.

Messaging that leverages the 3Rs increases brand discoverability, grows brand credibility and helps buyers justify and feel confident in their decisions.

 Key findings from the research are:

1.  Buyability signals are underused: Buyability signals remain significantly under-leveraged in B2B campaigns, averaging just 1.6 overall. Nearly one-third (30%) of campaigns use only a single signal, while 22% use none at all. Less than a quarter of all campaigns deploy three or more signals. This gap presents a clear opportunity for B2B marketers to gain competitive advantage by adopting Buyability as a strategic framework.

2.  Buyability signals drive brand performance: Campaigns with stronger Buyability signals are significantly more likely to improve meaningful brand metrics. High Buyability campaigns are 24% more likely to report improvements in brand awareness and 91% more likely to report improvements in mid-funnel brand metrics like consideration, preference and purchase intent.

3.  Buyability signals drive commercial impact: Campaigns with more Buyability signals are more likely to generate ROI and incremental revenue. Compared to Low Buyability campaigns, High Buyability campaigns are 63% more likely to report increased ROI and 110% more likely to report increased incremental revenue to the business.

‘How to build more Buyable brands: How Recommendations, Relatability and Relationships drive campaign success’’ report is available to read in full here.

Methodology of the research

The research analysed 700 B2B campaigns from the WARC database from 2010 to 2025 – including entries and winners of the Cannes Lions B2B category, Effies and WARC Effectiveness awards – and across geographies and sectors. The dataset was independently ranked against the WARC, LIONS and B2B Institute B2B Effectiveness Ladder, and scored on Buyability signals. High Buyability campaigns (3-7 signals) were compared against Low Buyability (0-2 signals).