DemandScience has released the "2026 State of Performance Marketing Report," revealing a significant disconnect between marketing activity and business results for B2B organizations. The survey of 750 marketing leaders identifies a pervasive "Marketing Data Mirage," where encouraging campaign signals fail to translate into revenue, exacerbated by unreliable data, AI-generated content, and tool fragmentation.
A new report identifies a "Marketing Data Mirage," where two-thirds of leaders see campaign metrics that look successful but fail to drive actual revenue.
87% of organizations report that their marketing investments yield unreliable or inflated intent signals, with only 26% of such signals converting to qualified sales opportunities.
25% of the average marketing budget is wasted on efforts that fail to drive outcomes, with organizations experiencing frequent misleading metrics wasting 30%.
Tool sprawl reduces clarity: Organizations using 11-25 marketing tools report nearly 90% unclear ROI, compared to 62% for those with 6-10 tools.
72% of leaders say AI-generated content harms brand distinctiveness, and 76% create content not informed by verified buyer data or intent signals.
Marketers spend most of their time on maintenance, with 85% of teams dedicating over half their time to fixing issues rather than creating new campaigns.
The report moves beyond channel-specific analysis to diagnose systemic upstream problems. It finds that the primary performance gaps stem from poor signal quality, non-resonant content, and disconnected martech stacks, which undermine all marketing channels regardless of spend. A critical finding is that 87% of organizations struggle with intent signals—such as clicks and downloads—that appear promising but are unreliable, converting to qualified opportunities only 26% of the time.
"Marketers are working harder than ever, yet their campaigns are dragged down by signals, AI-generated content, and metrics that look promising on the surface but fail to translate into real outcomes," said Bill Hobbib, CMO at DemandScience. He describes a common scenario where dashboards show green metrics and lead goals are exceeded, but conversion rates to customers remain low.
The research quantifies the negative impact of accumulating marketing technology. Organizations with 11 to 25 tools in their stack report nearly 90% unclear ROI, significantly higher than the 62% reported by those using 6 to 10 tools. This fragmentation contributes to operational inefficiency, with 78% of marketers spending over a fifth of their time on manual tasks like data cleanup and system reconciliation.
Content strategy is another major weakness. A striking 76% of organizations admit to creating content not based on verified buyer signals or intent data, often relying on assumptions or competitor imitation instead. Furthermore, 72% of leaders believe the rise of AI-generated content is actively harming their brand's distinctiveness, with 81% stating that half or less of their content drives meaningful buyer engagement that leads to pipeline or revenue.
The financial implications are severe. Respondents reported wasting an average of 25% of their marketing budget on efforts that don't drive outcomes. For organizations plagued by frequently misleading metrics, that waste rises to 30%. This inefficiency has a direct opportunity cost. The report estimates that companies could unlock an additional 32% in annual revenue if their data, signals, content, and campaign orchestration were more effective and connected.
"While 25% of budget leaks away, respondents estimate they could unlock an additional 32% in annual revenue if their data, signals, content, and orchestration were more effective and connected," said Derek Schoettle, CEO and chairman of DemandScience. "These potential gains are effectively hiding in plain sight."
The 2026 State of Performance Marketing Report serves as a stark warning for B2B marketing leaders, highlighting that the pursuit of more tools, more content, and more spend is deepening the data mirage rather than solving it. The path to improvement requires a fundamental shift: prioritizing signal validation over volume, integrating technology stacks for clarity over capability count, and crafting distinctive, data-informed content over AI-assisted generic output. Organizations that address these foundational issues stand to recapture significant wasted budget and unlock substantial hidden revenue growth.
DemandScience is a global leader in B2B performance marketing as a service, helping companies cut through misleading data and drive measurable pipeline and revenue outcomes. We redefine how B2B marketers build and progress pipelines through a fully consolidated and managed solution that combines content syndication, advertising, web personalization, email, data services, events, and content creation with an intelligent orchestration platform. Our solutions combine data, human expertise, AI, and multi-channel activation to deliver predictable performance at scale.
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