We recently received an email from Victoria Heyward, director of marketing at Sopro, a B2B lead generation service with U.S. headquarters in Miami, that touted the company’s “State of Prospecting 2025” report. The report, which the company says is in its fourth edition, is based on a survey of over 400 B2B senior decisionmakers and billions of data points across a decade of prospecting campaigns.
“Vendors need to move beyond just lead generation and focus on enabling buyer journey progression, whether that’s through education, stakeholder-specific content or simply being clearer and more transparent. The brands that remove friction will be the ones that win market share long term,” Heyward stated.
Here are 10 B2B buyer statistics and insights from the Sopro report. You can download the “State of Prospecting 2025” report here.
Top 10 B2B Buyer Statistics and Insights
- Millennials and Gen Z now account for 71% of B2B buyers. This is up from 64% in 2022.
- Younger decision-makers (under 40) involve nearly twice as many stakeholders (6.8) as older executives (3.5) in buying decisions.
- The average buying group for complex B2B solutions involves 8.2 stakeholders, up by over one-fifth (21%) since 2015.
- Over 8 in 10 buyers know what product they want before starting research, and 70% buy their initially preferred solution.
- Three-quarters (75%) of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience, but self-service digital purchases are more likely to result in purchase regret.
- Almost 9 in 10 (86%) B2B purchases stall during the buying process, and 81% of buyers are dissatisfied with their chosen provider.
- Nearly two-thirds (63%) of B2B leads take at least three months to decide, and one-fifth wait over a year before purchasing.
- Social proof dominates buying decisions: Over three-quarters (77%) of buyers read user reviews, and more than half (54%) speak directly with current users before purchasing.
- Email is the most preferred outreach channel, with 73% of buyers favoring it and 64% opening emails based solely on the subject line.
- Enterprise buyers spending over $117,000 show higher AI adoption (39%) than overall buyers (30%). Gen Z buyers use AI nearly twice as much as the average buyer (15% vs. 8%).
