Where to invest, what to change and what to stop as buyer behaviour, search and marketing technology continue to evolve.
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Every annual planning cycle has its rituals. Marketing submits a budget it knows will be cut. A few pots of money are quietly protected for the projects that will inevitably appear halfway through the year.
For 2027, AI will feature prominently in almost every plan. In some, it will be a carefully considered investment. In others, it will be a budget line looking for a problem to solve.
That leaves Marketing leaders exposed to two expensive mistakes: standing still while buyer behaviour changes, or investing in technology before fixing the strategy, evidence and operating foundations required to create value.
After more than 25 years working on both the client and agency sides of B2B Marketing, my view is that neither caution nor enthusiasm is a strategy. Set the annual direction, but retain enough flexibility to respond as buyer behaviour and technology evolve.
Planning for a moving target?
Before your 2027 budget is signed off, spend 30 minutes with Jennifer talking through where to invest, what to change and which activity to stop.
On this page:
Start by agreeing what success looks like
Before discussing channels, tools or content, Marketing, Sales and senior leadership need to agree:
- which commercial priorities matter most
- which audiences and opportunities are most valuable
- what qualifies as meaningful demand
- how Marketing’s contribution will be measured
My advice is to begin with any commercial disagreement, not the technology.
If Sales values qualified opportunities while Marketing reports form submissions, the business is working with two definitions of success. Technology will not resolve that disagreement.
Strengthen the foundations
The least fashionable investments may deliver some of the strongest returns in 2027.
CRM data, conversion tracking, website journeys and commercial reporting determine how well Marketing understands buyers, measures performance and gives advertising platforms useful signals.
For one of our clients, a leading maritime software company, website user journey improvements increased its conversion rate from 0.76% to 2.1% and helped reduce cost per lead by more than 20%.
No additional channel was required. The existing investment worked harder.
Paid media should remain firmly within the B2B Marketing mix. It captures demand and creates targeted visibility while longer-term search and content investments develop. Its value, however, depends on what happens after the click and the signals used to optimise it.
Google and LinkedIn are taking more control of targeting and optimisation. If Marketing cannot distinguish a valuable opportunity from a low-quality enquiry, automation may simply scale the confusion.
Protect or increase investment in:
- paid media that generates qualified demand
- website conversion, CRM and first-party data
- measurement connecting Marketing activity to revenue and pipeline
Change how buyers find and assess you
Traditional search remains important, but rankings and website traffic no longer tell the whole story.
Gartner found that 45% of surveyed B2B buyers used generative AI during a recent purchase. Buyers consulted an average of seven information sources, suggesting that AI is becoming another influential part of a complex journey.
Our analysis for our client, Barbour ABI, illustrates why AI visibility must be measured separately.
In October 2026, Glenigan led Barbour ABI in estimated UK organic traffic and top three Google rankings. But across 50 commercially relevant prompts in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, Barbour ABI’s website received 216 citations against Glenigan’s 152. Traditional search showed Barbour ABI trailing; AI visibility showed it leading.
Meaningful measurement requires repeated testing across relevant prompts, platforms and time periods.
Organisations should invest in distinctive expert content supported by reviews, customer evidence, trade publications, and other credible third-party sources.
More content is a poor objective for 2027. More useful and authoritative content is a much better one.
Test AI against defined commercial problems
Gartner reports that CMOs allocated an average of 15.3% of their 2026 Marketing budgets to AI, yet only 30% considered their organisations ready to scale it. Buying tools is easy; changing workflows and proving value is harder.
I would fund one well-defined AI workflow before ten disconnected pilots. Each experiment should have:
- a defined problem and accountable owner
- a performance baseline and success measure
- a route from pilot to repeatable process
Decide what to stop
Every Marketing budget contains inherited activity that continues mainly because nobody has volunteered to stop it. The 2027 planning cycle is an opportunity to challenge those assumptions.
Reduce or stop:
- AI pilots with no commercial purpose or success criteria
- undifferentiated content produced to increase volume
- generic design that weakens brand recognition
- channel reporting based mainly on activity
- automation trained on incomplete or poor-quality data
Forrester’s 2027 planning guidance similarly recommends making explicit decisions about where to invest, expand and stop funding.
Your first 90 days
Start 2027 with six priorities:
- Agree the commercial objectives and definition of success.
- Audit CRM data, measurement and advertising-platform signals.
- Assess visibility across traditional and AI-assisted search.
- Identify friction in the website and self-directed buying journey.
- Select one valuable AI workflow to improve and measure.
- Stop activity that cannot demonstrate strategic or commercial value.
The organisations that gain an advantage in 2027 will strengthen their foundations, adapt to changing buyer behaviour and experiment with discipline.
If you would value an experienced outside view of your 2027 B2B Marketing priorities, book a free 30-minute planning consultation with me. We can challenge your priorities, identify any gaps, and agree the strongest place to start.
