95:5 Rule
Myth:Your entire B2B budget should chase in-market buyers.
Evidence:At any moment only ~5% of business buyers are in-market; the other 95% are future buyers who must be reached now to be remembered later.
The 5% figure is a directional average across categories with long purchase cycles, not a universal constant.
John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute / LinkedIn B2B Institute · 2021 · Academic
Channels: brand · paid · content
95:5 Rule
Myth:Hyper-targeting a small ICP list is more efficient than broad reach.
Evidence:Category-entry-point memory built through broad reach predicts future buying better than narrow retargeting of today's list.
Budget Allocation
Myth:B2B should spend almost everything on lead gen.
Evidence:Long-run profit is maximised near a 46% brand / 54% activation split in B2B, versus 60/40 in B2C.
Distribution mechanics
Myth:"Link in comments" is a busted hack — LinkedIn stopped penalising outbound links.
Evidence:Outbound links in the post body still suppress reach. Algorithm InSights (1.8M posts) puts the body-link penalty near 50% of organic reach, and controlled A/B tests show first-comment placement recovering most of it: GrowthRocks measured 2.9x reach for link-in-comment in round one and 1.8x in round two — with more clicks, not fewer.
Time Horizons
Myth:Quarterly performance reporting captures campaign value.
Evidence:Brand effects accumulate over 6+ months; measurement windows shorter than two quarters systematically undervalue brand and overvalue activation.
Downturn Playbook
Myth:Cut ad spend first when a downturn hits.
Evidence:The IPA's recession evidence review finds brands that maintain share of voice through a downturn recover faster and gain share over cutters - cutting spend mortgages the recovery.
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