B2B organizations are significantly underperforming their potential by managing customer engagement channels as independent silos rather than as an orchestrated portfolio
The research from Horizon Business, titled Connect the Dots to Win, reveals that B2B marketers who integrate paid, earned, owned, and shared media as a connected strategy can increase the business impact of their media investments by more than 50 percent.
The research exposes a critical disconnect between B2B marketing execution and business impact. While 90 percent of Association of National Advertisers (ANA) members now self-identify as having a B2B division or business component, most continue to operate marketing channels independently rather than as an integrated system designed to drive measurable business outcomes.
Overcoming Silos
Chris Hummel, President of Horizon Business, observed orchestrating all media channels as one portfolio can boost business impact, but most companies aren’t structured to do it
“Siloed marketing is the single biggest obstacle to B2B growth,” said Hummel in a statement.
The Connected Media Performance Gap
The findings come as Horizon Media announces the evolution of Green Thread, its specialized B2B practice launched three years ago, into Horizon Business, a dedicated unit designed to help business-focused brands thrive in an increasingly connected marketplace, where traditional marketing silos create measurable performance gaps.
The study identifies several key practices that enable superior performance through connected media strategy:
- Unified measurement frameworks that track engagement and business impact across all customer touchpoints rather than channel-specific metrics
- Integrated planning processes that optimize resource allocation based on how channels interact and reinforce each other
- Cross-channel attribution models that identify the true drivers of business outcomes rather than last-touch conversions
- Coordinated content strategies that create consistent narratives across paid, earned, owned, and shared environments
An executive summary of the report is available here.
