B2B Buyers Won't Fill Out Your Survey

This week, Peter Weinberg, co-founder of Evidenza and former head of research at LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, joined us to talk about synthetic research, AI creativity, and why brand still matters in an AI world.  

—Elena

 

80% of B2B ads scored 1 out of 5 on effectiveness. 

That’s from a study of 5,000 B2B ads measured at the LinkedIn B2B Institute. This means most B2B advertising is already bad. The question is whether AI will make it better or just cheaper. 

 

What Synthetic Research Actually Replaces 

Who is synthetic research really built for?

Getting the CTO of a large financial services company to complete a survey in exchange for a $50 Applebee’s gift card is essentially impossible. These are small audiences of highly paid, very busy people. Synthetic research gives B2B marketers a way to hear from their buyers without chasing them down.

So is synthetic research replacing traditional research?

Not exactly. Most B2B marketing decisions were never based on research. Synthetic research is really replacing vibes. The better starting question is: where are we flying blind? Start there, with the decisions that have no data behind them at all.

Can AI actually be creative?

Peter’s answer is yes. The Lion King, Finding Nemo and WALL-E are all structurally the same story as The Odyssey. Creativity is largely the recombination of things that already exist. AI has read every novel, seen every ad, and studied every campaign. Its pool to recombine from is far larger than any human creative’s.

Why does brand still matter when AI is doing more of the deciding?

Because the decision still starts in a human brain. When a buyer gets two options from an LLM, one they’ve heard of and one they haven’t, they go with the familiar choice. Mental availability isn’t a channel strategy. It’s how the human brain works, and that hasn’t changed.

Listen in on our discussion.

 

“The Synthetic Research Breakthrough: How Fine-Tuned Models Outperform General AI” 

Qualtrics surveyed senior marketing and insights leaders and found that 95% are already using or plan to use synthetic data within the next 12 months.  

Read the article.

 

Beautiful plans don't pay the bills.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” 

— Winston Churchill

This newsletter comes from the hosts of The Marketing Architects, a research-first show answering your biggest marketing questions. Find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.