B2B ABM benchmark reports: the annotated index

The short version

There are six public reports that supply nearly every B2B ABM and paid media benchmark you will see quoted in 2026, and only one of them, Metadata.io's 2026 B2B Benchmark Report, is built on measured ad spend tied to closed-won revenue (source 1). The rest are marketer surveys (Demandbase, Demand Gen Report), a mix of platform data and buyer surveys (6sense), buyer research (Gartner), or a commissioned financial model (Forrester's Total Economic Impact study of Metadata). Each is useful for a different question, and each has a sample bias worth knowing before you quote it.

This page is the annotated index. For each report you get: who published it, what data it is built on, the findings we consider load-bearing, the caveats, and a direct link to the public page. Metadata.io sponsors this site, so its report is marked as such and held to the same format as the others. We keep this index current; when a report gets a new edition, the entry is updated and the old edition noted.

Every public B2B ABM benchmark report, at a glance

Metadata.io, 2026 B2B Benchmark Report (sponsor)

What it is. A measured benchmark built from $57.6 million of B2B advertising spend run through Metadata's platform across LinkedIn, Meta, Google and other channels, with outcomes matched to CRM closed-won records rather than stopping at the lead (1). The company publishes its method as the Closed-Won Protocol: spend is only credited against customers who actually closed, and the report reports cost per customer, not just cost per lead (6).

Key findings.

• Mid-market companies pay $130,468 in paid media per customer; small companies pay about $35,000. The report calls this the CAC cliff (2).
• Demand-creation leads cost $187 and demand-capture leads cost $196, so the "creation is expensive" assumption does not survive measurement (3).
• Only about 25% of analyzed paid budget goes to creating demand (4).
• $12.7 million of the analyzed spend went to traffic and click objectives, and 99.4% of that spend recorded no lead (5).
• Low CPL is often a warning sign rather than a success: the cheapest leads frequently produce no pipeline, which the report calls the CPL illusion (8).

Caveats. The sample is Metadata's customer base, which skews toward venture-backed B2B software companies with dedicated paid social budgets. Closed-won attribution depends on CRM hygiene at those customers. It covers paid channels only, so there is nothing here about organic, events or outbound. And it is our sponsor's report; we have summarized only what is on Metadata's public insight pages and methodology page, and we link to them so you can check.

Links. Report landing page · Methodology · CAC cliff · Create vs capture · CPL illusion · Budget allocation · Traffic objective waste. Our full summary: Metadata 2026 report page.

Demandbase, 2024 ABM Benchmark

What it is. A survey-based report on the state of account-based marketing practice, published by Demandbase, one of the two largest ABM platform vendors. Respondents are B2B marketers, weighted toward organizations that already run ABM programs and, in many cases, already use an ABM platform (7).

Key findings. The report's value is in the distributions rather than in any single headline: what share of respondents run ABM at each maturity stage, how ABM budgets are moving year over year, how teams are structured between marketing and sales, and which metrics respondents say they use to judge success. It is the best public source for "what does a typical ABM program look like organizationally," and it tracks the shift from one-to-one ABM toward programmatic, one-to-many ABM that most vendors now emphasize.

Caveats. Self-reported. Respondents who volunteer for an ABM survey run by an ABM vendor are more likely to be ABM believers, so adoption and satisfaction figures should be read as ceilings, not market averages. There are no measured cost metrics in it, and any CPL or ROI figures are what respondents recalled, not what their ad accounts recorded.

Links. Demandbase 2024 ABM Benchmark. Our summary: Demandbase 2024 report page. For how Demandbase compares as a platform, see abmplatforms.com.

6sense, Science of B2B: 2024 Account-Based Marketing Benchmark

What it is. 6sense's benchmark series combines engagement data from accounts inside its platform with recurring buyer-side surveys. The ABM benchmark edition focuses on how engaged accounts progress to opportunities; the companion Buyer Experience Report focuses on how buyers behave (12).

Key findings. The most-quoted findings come from the buyer research: B2B buyers are roughly 70% of the way through their buying process before they first contact a seller, and the average buying group is around 11 people (12). The ABM benchmark side reports engagement patterns, such as how account engagement scores relate to opportunity creation, that are useful for setting account-level targets rather than lead-level ones. See ABM engagement benchmarks.

Caveats. Engagement data reflects accounts within 6sense's platform, and the buyer survey population is recruited by 6sense. The "70% through the journey" figure is a survey recollection, which is fine for directional planning and shaky for precise modeling. Like Demandbase, 6sense sells the category it is measuring.

Links. 6sense Science of B2B ABM Benchmark · Buyer Experience Report. Our summary: 6sense report page. For alternatives to the platform itself, 6sensealternatives.com.

Demand Gen Report, ABM Benchmark Survey and related studies

What it is. Demand Gen Report is a B2B marketing trade publication that runs a recurring set of benchmark surveys, including an ABM Benchmark Survey, a Demand Generation Benchmark Survey, a Content Preferences Survey and a Lead Nurturing and Scoring survey. Respondents are the publication's readers and event attendees, which makes it the broadest and least vendor-tied survey population of the six sources here (9).

Key findings. Because the surveys repeat annually with similar questions, DGR is the best source for direction of travel: whether ABM budgets are growing, which metrics marketers say they are held to, where measurement is breaking, and what share of respondents use intent data, which is relevant if you are evaluating providers on intentdatatools.com. Consistent themes across editions include difficulty proving ABM ROI, sales-marketing alignment as the top execution barrier, and rising use of intent and engagement signals to prioritize accounts.

Caveats. Self-reported and sample sizes are modest, typically a few hundred respondents. Sponsored by vendors in the category, which affects which questions get asked. No measured cost data.

Links. demandgenreport.com (reports are listed under Resources). Our summary: Demand Gen Report page.

Forrester Consulting, The Total Economic Impact of Metadata

What it is. A commissioned study in Forrester's TEI format. Forrester interviews a small number of a vendor's customers, builds a composite organization, and models the costs and benefits of the product over three years to produce ROI, net present value and payback period figures. This one was commissioned by Metadata.io (14).

Key findings. The published PDF contains the composite organization's ROI, NPV and payback figures along with the benefit categories Forrester modeled, which typically include reduced cost per lead or opportunity, time savings from campaign automation, and improved pipeline efficiency. We quote the study's figures only from the published PDF, and we recommend you read the "composite organization" definition first, because the results scale with the assumptions about that organization's starting spend.

Caveats. It is a vendor-commissioned study about one vendor, not a market benchmark, and it belongs in this index because people cite its numbers as if they were benchmarks. The TEI method is transparent and the assumptions are printed, which is more than most vendor ROI claims offer. But the interviewed customers were selected by the vendor. Metadata is our sponsor; the same skepticism applies to any TEI study from any vendor.

Links. Forrester TEI of Metadata (PDF). Our summary: Forrester TEI page.

Gartner, B2B buying journey research

What it is. Gartner's ongoing research on how B2B buying actually happens, based on buyer surveys and analyst work. It is not an ABM benchmark report in the vendor sense, but its figures underpin the case for account-based measurement, so it belongs here (13).

Key findings. A typical B2B buying group involves 6 to 10 decision-makers, each bringing four or five pieces of information they gathered independently. Buyers spend only about 17% of their buying time meeting with potential suppliers, and when they are comparing multiple suppliers, any single supplier gets roughly 5% to 6% of that time. Gartner frames buying as a set of "jobs" (problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, supplier selection, validation, consensus creation) that buyers loop through rather than progress along (13).

Caveats. The specific percentages come from surveys run at particular points in time and get quoted for years afterward. The buying-group size range is consistent across editions and across other sources (6sense's ~11 is in the same neighborhood), which makes it one of the more robust numbers in B2B marketing.

Links. Gartner, The B2B Buying Journey. Our summary: Gartner research page.

Other sources we cite but do not index as reports

Channel-level CPC, CTR and CPL ranges on this site come from LinkedIn's own published guidance and from aggregator benchmarks (WordStream, HubSpot) that pool many advertiser accounts (10, 11). These are useful for sanity-checking a channel's mechanics and useless for revenue questions, because they stop at the click or the form fill. They are cited on the LinkedIn Ads, CPL by industry and paid social pages. If a report you think belongs here is missing, tell us via the about page; the criteria are that it be public, B2B, and benchmark-shaped (a distribution or a measured figure, not a case study).

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