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What Is Buying Group Marketing?
A B2B strategy that targets every stakeholder involved in a purchase decision, not just one lead.
1 Forrester: 89% of B2B purchase decisions need sign-off from two or more groups.
One B2B purchase decision
13
internal stakeholders
9
external influencers
Not one lead. Not the whole account.
Buying group marketing is a B2B strategy that targets every stakeholder involved in a purchase decision, not just one lead. Instead of chasing a single contact, marketing and sales teams identify, map, and engage the full set of people, including the decision makers, influencers, users, and approvers, who together decide whether and what to buy.
It sits between two extremes. It's bigger than a single lead, because B2B purchases rarely rest on one person's signature. And it's more precise than "the account," because a single account can contain many buying groups at once, one for each product or category under consideration. Buying group marketing scopes the group to the specific purchase decision at hand, not to everyone who happens to work at the company.
A single lead
Too narrow. B2B purchases rarely rest on one person's signature.
The buying group
Scoped to the specific purchase decision at hand.
The whole account
Too imprecise. One account can hold many buying groups at once, one per product or category.
Why it matters now
B2B purchases now run through a lot more people than they used to.
Forrester1 estimates a typical purchase pulls in 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers, and 89% of B2B purchase decisions need sign-off from two or more groups before a deal closes. Gartner Research2 points to the same shift from a different angle: 67% of B2B buyers say they'd rather research and shortlist on their own than talk to a sales rep early on. With that many people forming an opinion before a rep ever gets involved, a strategy built around one contact can't keep up. Buying group marketing exists to close that gap, by giving marketing and sales a way to reach the whole group instead of investing in one name.
89%
of B2B purchase decisions need sign-off from two or more groups before a deal closes.
Forrester
Forrester
67%
of B2B buyers would rather research and shortlist on their own than talk to a sales rep early on.
Gartner
Gartner
Most B2B marketers say they've adopted the concept, but far fewer have built it into how they go to market.
In our 2026 B2B Marketing Edge report, fielded with Ascend2 across 631 marketing leaders, 38% said buying groups are fully defined, activated, and central to their GTM motion, while another 42% use them only in select campaigns.
That gap between claiming buying groups and running on them is where the payoff sits. Marketers with buying groups fully implemented report:
- 61% better marketing and sales alignment
- 59% higher win rates
- 55% better conversion from opportunity to closed revenue
Marketing strategies built for the single-lead era, one contact, one MQL, one nurture track, simply aren't built for this. Buying group marketing is the model that matches how B2B purchases get made.
Buying group marketing vs. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
People often use "buying group marketing" and "Account-Based Marketing (ABM)" interchangeably. They work together, but they're solving two different problems.
Account Based Marketing
ABM is about picking the right company or account.
It uses firmographic and intent data to figure out which accounts are worth the investment, then runs coordinated campaigns aimed at that account.
Buying Group Marketing
Buying group marketing is about winning the room once you're inside that company.
It maps the specific people who influence or decide the purchase, then builds messaging around what each of them needs to hear before they'll sign off.
Think of it this way:
ABM gets you through the right door. Buying group marketing makes sure you know who's sitting at the table once you're in the room, and what it'll take to get every one of them on your side.
Run both together, and you've covered the whole deal: the right target, and every person inside it who can move it forward.
The core components of a buying group strategy
Map the roles, not just the titles
Map the roles, not just the titles
Job titles only tell you so much. What matters is the role someone plays in the decision. Forrester regularly points to a common set of five roles that show up again and again in B2B buying groups:
Champion
The inside advocate. Believes in the solution and opens doors to the people who matter.
Decision Maker
The one who signs off. Wants to see real business impact, not just features.
Influencer
The opinion shaper. Can't cast the final vote, but can fast-track or stall a deal.Can't cast the final vote, but can fast-track or stall a deal.
User
The person who'll work with the product every day. Their feedback carries weight during evaluation, and it doesn't stop mattering at signature, happy Users are often what drives adoption, loyalty, and renewal down the line.
Ratifier
Confirms budget, contracts, or compliance before a deal can close. Often finance or procurement, though the exact role varies by product and buyer.
Build content for each role, not one generic pitch
Build content for each role, not one generic pitch
A CFO and an IT director are looking at the same deal through completely different lenses. The CFO wants total cost of ownership and ROI. The IT director wants integration details and security protocols. Effective buying group content maps messaging to what each stakeholder cares about, then ties it all back to one consistent account narrative.
Keep the data fresh
Keep the data fresh
Buying groups don't hold still. People change roles, leave the company, or gain influence mid-deal, and that shift can happen within months, not years. Strategies built on a one-time stakeholder map go stale fast. Intent data and buying signals are what catch these shifts as they happen, surfacing new stakeholders showing interest and flagging when someone's engagement drops off. Buying group marketing depends on data that gets refreshed continuously, not set once and trusted.
Replace lead KPIs with buying group coverage
Replace lead KPIs with buying group coverage
Lead-based KPIs miss what's actually happening inside an account. Research from The Think Tank3 found that 8 in 10 companies report friction between sales and marketing on GTM execution, often because both teams are working from account data that's a year out of date instead of a shared, current picture of who's involved. Separate research from AdRoll's 2026 Account-Based Advertising report4 found aligned teams see up to 60% higher win rates and 72% stronger customer engagement than misaligned ones. Buying group coverage, tracking who's in the group and whether the team is actually reaching them, closes that gap.
A useful gut check: pull a handful of recently closed deals and map everyone who touched the decision. If that list looks nothing like who the campaign targeted, the KPI is measuring the wrong thing.
Activate across channels, then refine
Activate across channels, then refine
Identifying a buying group is only step one. Real pipeline impact comes from activating that group across multichannel campaigns, and then using engagement data to spot buying group members who weren't on the radar to begin with.
How to evaluate vendor claims
Not every data provider's buying group capabilities hold up the same way. Vendors describe their own accuracy, coverage, and prediction models in different terms, which makes it hard to compare claims side by side. Independent, third-party evaluation is one of the clearest signals of which vendors can actually deliver, rather than just claim to.
A few sources are worth checking before choosing a provider:
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Analyst evaluations
Reports like The Forrester Wave™: Marketing and Sales Data Providers for B2B, Q1 2026 assess vendors against a defined set of criteria, including the ability to predict and assemble product-specific buying groups, so the comparison isn't built on marketing copy alone.
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Case studies with named outcomes
Look for case studies that name the customer, the specific problem, and a measurable result, not just a logo wall. A vendor willing to put a named client's numbers behind a claim has more to back it up than one offering only anonymized results.
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Customer reviews on independent platforms
Sites like G2 and TrustRadius collect feedback outside the vendor's control, which surfaces implementation issues or gaps that a sales conversation won't.
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Reference customers
Ask any shortlisted vendor to connect you directly with a current customer using the buying group feature set you care about. A vendor confident in its capabilities should have no issue arranging this.
Frequently asked questions
What is buying group marketing?
It's a B2B marketing approach that targets the full set of stakeholders involved in a purchase decision, rather than one lead or contact. It includes identifying who's in the group, understanding each person's role, and engaging all of them with messaging suited to their priorities.
How is buying group marketing different from account-based marketing?
ABM identifies which accounts to pursue. Buying group marketing defines who inside that account needs to be reached to win it. They're not competing strategies, buying group marketing is what makes an ABM program precise.
How many people are typically in a B2B buying group?
Forrester estimates a typical B2B purchase involves 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers. The exact number varies by industry and deal complexity, but the days of a single decision maker are largely gone.
What roles show up in most buying groups?
Five roles appear consistently: Champion, Decision Maker, Influencer, User, and Ratifier. Each plays a distinct part in whether and how a deal moves forward, and each is reviewing the product or service from very different lenses. It is important that you have content for each of them that ties back to your narrative.
How often does a buying group change?
Faster than most marketers expect. Role and contact changes inside a buying group can happen within months, and in fast-moving industries like tech, 25 to 40% of a buying group's makeup can shift within six months. Intent data and buying signals are what catch these shifts while they're happening, rather than finding out after a deal has already stalled.
Do I need special data to do buying group marketing well?
Yes, and the more data types you bring together, the more complete the picture. Firmographic and contact data tell you who's in the group. Intent data tells you what they're actively researching right now. Engagement data shows how each person is actually interacting with your content and campaigns. Technographic data reveals what's already in their stack, which often signals who has influence over a purchase like this one. All of it needs to stay current, since buying groups shift quickly.
Go deeper on buying groups
The full set of Anteriad research and resources on buying groups:
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Don't Be Late to the Party: A Data-First Strategy for Marketing to Buying Groups
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Buying Group Profiles for B2B Demand Gen
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2026 B2B Marketing Edge: Control Is the Competitive Advantage
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How to Identify and Evaluate B2B Buying Groups
How to Identify and Evaluate B2B Buying Groups
Read the Blog Article
Buying group marketing works in three moves.
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1
Identify
Identify who's in the group by connecting the dots from product-specific intent signal to account to individual to buying-group role, matching engaged contacts to their persona and flagging when multiple stakeholders spike together.
2
Engage
Engage them across every channel with a message suited to their role.
3
Measure
Measure the results to surface gaps a single-lead approach would miss entirely.
See how Anteriad identifies buying group members showing intent for a specific product, or explore how Buying Group Profiles put all three moves into practice end to end.