Eliminate B2B Ad Spend Waste and Prove ROI in 2025

According to new research from eMarketer and Demandbase, 58% of B2B marketers say ad spend waste is a major concern in 2025.
And it’s no surprise why.

Despite budget increases across most B2B organizations this year, more than half of marketers estimate that 10–45% of their digital advertising budgets are being wasted. At the same time, only a fraction of those same marketers feel confident in their ability to accurately measure ROI or target the right audience.

That’s a dangerous combination heading into end-of-year performance review season.

If you’re a CMO or demand generation lead, this is the kind of inefficiency that can derail growth plans and shake confidence at the executive level.

The good news? B2B ad spend waste isn’t inevitable. But fixing it requires a strategic shift—from running more campaigns to running smarter ones. Here’s how to do it.

Why B2B Ad Spend Waste Is Still So Prevalent

With better tools, more data, and sophisticated channels, you’d expect B2B marketers to be running highly optimized programs. But several issues keep ad spend inefficiencies alive:

• Last-touch attribution models distort channel value
• Broad targeting results in wasted impressions on non-ICP audiences
• Lack of CRM feedback loops leads to poor campaign refinement
• Limited investment in measurement tools prevents marketers from proving incremental lift

Marketers aren’t lacking effort—they’re lacking infrastructure.

To fix B2B ad spend waste, you need to rebuild the core of how you measure, target, and allocate your paid media.

Step 1: Tighten Targeting with 3rd-Party Audience Tools

One of the biggest contributors to wasted ad spend is poor audience fit. If you’re advertising to the wrong companies or personas, no creative or offer can save the campaign.

Tools like Primer give you access to highly specific ICP-level audience segments that go beyond basic LinkedIn or Google parameters. These tools let you:

• Build custom audience segments across channels
• Integrate intent and firmographic data
• Exclude poor-fit accounts or disqualified segments

This level of targeting precision eliminates guesswork and helps reduce ad spend waste significantly—before the first dollar is even spent.

Step 2: Use Conversion Lift Analysis to Show Incremental Growth

Campaigns often show performance, but was that lift real—or would it have happened anyway?

Conversion lift testing is the answer. When implemented correctly, lift analysis tools can isolate the incremental impact of your paid media by comparing exposed and non-exposed cohorts.

The result? You’ll be able to walk into a board meeting and say:

“Here’s how much revenue we influenced because of this ad campaign—above and beyond what would have happened without it.”

That’s a level of clarity that eliminates skepticism and boosts executive trust.

Step 3: Adopt Multi-Touch Attribution to Replace Last-Touch Lies

Last-touch attribution is lying to you.

It rewards bottom-funnel actions and ignores the full customer journey. You might think your retargeting campaign is doing all the heavy lifting—when in reality, your thought leadership content, YouTube videos, or partner webinars are warming up accounts days or weeks in advance.

Tools like Dreamdata help you build multi-touch attribution models that consider the entire funnel and assign influence proportionally. This lets you:

• Understand what actually drives pipeline
• Allocate budget based on revenue influence
• Avoid overfunding low-value channels

It’s not just about measuring better—it’s about investing smarter.

Step 4: Align Budget to Channels with the Highest ROI Influence

Once your targeting and attribution infrastructure are in place, you can finally optimize budget allocations based on reality, not assumptions.

Ask:

• Which channels consistently drive high-intent account engagement?
• Where do our highest-converting accounts originate?
• Which campaigns generate both pipeline velocity and close rates?

Redirect budget toward channels that deliver influenced ROI, not just impressions or form fills. Even if a channel has a higher CPC, it may be more cost-effective in terms of revenue.

Step 5: Use Reverse IP Reveal to Confirm You’re Reaching ICPs

You can’t optimize what you can’t verify.

Reverse IP tools can help you analyze which companies are actually engaging with your ads and visiting your site. When layered into your measurement framework, they:

• Validate that paid impressions are reaching the right companies
• Highlight campaign mismatch when non-ICP traffic spikes
• Help you refine ad messaging or channel selection in real time

Make reverse IP analysis a weekly ritual. If you’re spending thousands but not reaching the right accounts, something needs to change fast.

Step 6: Cut Poor-Fit Companies from Your Targeting Strategy

With ICP data, reverse IP insights, and CRM feedback in hand, you should begin ruthlessly excluding poor-fit companies from targeting.

Even if an audience segment has high engagement or low CPMs, if it doesn’t translate to pipeline—it’s a distraction.

Consider removing:

• Industries that never convert
• Company sizes outside your product’s fit
• Geographies with poor win rates
• Buyer personas that rarely engage meaningfully

Every dollar spent on the wrong company is a dollar not spent on the right one.

Step 7: Conduct Monthly CRM Reviews of Closed-Won and Closed-Lost Deals

Your CRM is a goldmine of targeting and messaging insights—but only if you regularly mine it.

Spend 1–2 days per month reviewing recent opportunities:

• What characteristics do Closed-Won accounts share?
• What messaging or offers converted them?
• Why did Closed-Lost accounts stall out?
• Are there new patterns emerging in sales objections?

Use this data to refine your ICP definition, tighten campaign narratives, and drive a feedback loop between sales, marketing, and targeting strategy.

CRM reviews are the marketing team’s version of a retro. They help ensure every future dollar is spent better than the last.

Why This Process Works

Many CMOs think budget increases will fix performance issues. They won’t.
More budget on top of weak targeting and attribution only amplifies waste.

This strategy flips the script. Instead of spending more, you:

• Get more precise about who you reach
• Get smarter about what’s actually driving ROI
• Get more disciplined about what gets funded

As a result, you’ll see:

• Improved budget utilization
• Clear, defensible ROI metrics
• Stronger targeting and audience engagement
• Increased trust from executive stakeholders

This is the playbook that turns reactive budget conversations into proactive revenue strategy sessions.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Let B2B Ad Spend Waste Be Your Blind Spot

In 2025, B2B marketers have the tools and data to run smarter programs—but many still operate on gut instinct, siloed metrics, and outdated models.

Don’t be one of them.

Rebuild your foundation.
Invest in better targeting, attribution, and feedback loops.
And create a strategy you can defend—with data.

Because if 58% of your peers are worried about ad spend waste, there’s no better time to be in the 42% who fixed it.