B2B buyers are 57% through the purchase decision before talking to sales
Outdated Confidence: high
Source found and quoted correctly, but old enough that the market has changed.
- Commonly cited as
- "Buyers are 57% (or 70%) done before contacting a vendor" (as current)
- True origin
- CEB Marketing Leadership Council (with Google) — The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2012
- Data as of
- 2012
- Last checked
- What the source says
the average customer had completed 57% of the purchase decision-making process prior to engaging a supplier sales rep directly.
- Method & sample
- CEB Marketing Leadership Council Customer Purchase Research Survey, 2011: 1,500+ customer contacts (decision makers and influencers in a recent major purchase) of 22 large B2B suppliers.
- Drift between quote and source
- Date: 14 years old, quoted as current
- Interest
- CEB (now Gartner) sells sales and marketing advisory.
Safe rephrasing
CEB research from 2012 found B2B buyers were on average 57% through the purchase process before engaging a sales rep.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/b2b-buyers-57-percent-before-sales.json · Last checked 2026-10-16