Published on: September 18, 2026
New research identifies seven Buyability signals that can help B2B marketers build buyer confidence, strengthen brand performance and drive commercial outcomes.
B2B buying is becoming more complex, with longer decision cycles, more stakeholders involved and AI increasingly influencing how buyers discover and evaluate brands. New research from WARC, LinkedIn and LIONS Advisory examines how B2B creative can help brands become easier for buying groups to trust, relate to and ultimately justify choosing.
The research, How to build more Buyable brands: How Recommendations, Relatability and Relationships drive campaign success, analyses more than 700 B2B campaigns and identifies seven Buyability signals linked to stronger brand and commercial outcomes.
The research builds on existing work from LinkedIn and Bain & Company around Buyability, examining how marketing can influence the confidence of B2B buying groups.
The framework identifies three core levers, known as the 3Rs of Buyability: Recommendations, Relationships and Relatability.
Recommendations provide external proof and validation through customers, peers, experts and other trusted voices. In complex B2B decisions, these signals can help purchasing groups assess whether a brand is credible.
Relationships signal familiarity and the potential for a longer-term partnership. These signals can help reduce uncertainty as buyers evaluate vendors.
Relatability focuses on real customer situations, use cases and experiences that buyers can recognise in their own businesses.
The research found that Buyability signals remain underused across B2B campaigns, with campaigns averaging just 1.6 Buyability signals.
The research analysed 700 B2B campaigns from the WARC database covering 2010 to 2025, including entries and winners from the Cannes Lions B2B category, Effies and WARC Effectiveness Awards. High Buyability campaigns, defined as those using three to seven signals, were compared with Low Buyability campaigns using zero to two signals.
Campaigns with stronger Buyability signals were more likely to report improvements in important brand metrics.
The research also found an association between stronger Buyability signals and reported commercial outcomes.
AI is adding another layer to the B2B buying journey by changing how buyers discover, research and validate brands. Research cited in the announcement found that 94% of B2B buyers used large language models during their buying journey in 2025.
Against this backdrop, trusted recommendations, relevant customer experiences and credible proof points can play an important role in helping buyers evaluate brands and justify their decisions.
Imaad Ahmed, Thought Leadership Director, LIONS Advisory and WARC, said:
“The Buyability model has gained strong support from across the B2B industry. This new work seeks to demonstrate the impact Buyability has in real case scenarios, and what proof points exist. The objective of our research was to measure how frequently Buyability signals appear in B2B campaigns, and whether more signals drive better results. As we discovered, the intentional use of Buyability signals is still an area of opportunity for B2B marketers. When well-stacked within a campaign, Buyability signals can make revenue, ROI and brand health uplifts far more likely.”
Mimi Turner, Head of Marketplace Innovation, LinkedIn, said:
“Buyability gives us a seven signal framework that marketers can use to strategically enhance campaign outcomes because it is built on insights into what helps buying groups feel confident to buy. The campaigns that win are the ones that make buying decisions easy to defend by focusing on areas that customers can relate to and experiences and voices they can trust.”
The seven-signal Buyability framework gives marketers a way to assess whether campaigns are providing buying groups with enough evidence and reassurance to make a decision.
Recommendations can provide external validation, Relationships can reinforce familiarity and partnership, while Relatability can help buyers see their own challenges and situations reflected in the communication.
With B2B buying journeys becoming longer and more complex, the research provides marketers with a framework for considering how creative can contribute not only to awareness and consideration, but also to buyer confidence and commercial outcomes.
