Creating a sustainable, effective lead generation process is one of the biggest challenges for B2B marketers.
Whereas some seek to define a single strategy that can be scaled to drive growth, others choose to adopt multiple strategies, working to incrementally improve the effectiveness of each one with growth-hacking techniques.
Regardless of the approach, effectiveness should be the key driver of any lead generation process. Measuring conversion rates and results, and then effectively scaling the best strategies will lead to sustained business growth.
The most successful marketers are those who innovate, testing new strategies and tools with a hunger for continual improvement. They are the ones that not only drive innovation but also seek to learn from their peers, benefiting from what’s already been learned in order to get on the fast track to successful techniques and trends that they can adopt into their marketing mix.
Being so close to thousands of lead generation professionals gives the Dux-Soup team a unique insight into how those at the forefront of B2B lead generation are gaining a competitive advantage. Combining our experience from calls and customer interactions with the results of a recent survey of B2B marketers, allows us to share key insights and trends that can help you to steer your 2025 lead generation strategy.
Unfurling B2B Marketing Trends
In this 2025 B2B lead generation report, we explore and discuss the results of a survey carried out at the B2B Marketing Expo in London. We wanted to understand the current market trends for sales, marketers, and business leaders, and predict the direction and trends for B2B lead generation in 2025.
From our unique position of talking to the market, we also add our observations and opinions on these results, some of which were discussed in a live session with Dux-Soup Founder Will van der Sanden, Head of Marketing Adam Osman, and Head of Professional Services Giles Garnett. Listen along to also discover the future of Dux-Soup’s LinkedIn automation tool, whose development will partly be driven by the findings of this report.
And, while you’re here, claim your free Dux-Soup trial using the link below.
The survey participants were non-Dux-users, from companies across the globe, representing enterprise organizations through to SMEs. What all participants had in common was that they were B2B marketers or business owners, at a paid-for marketing event, with a keen interest in the lead generation function.
Here’s what we learned:
What channels do you use for lead generation?
Key finding: Email is still the most widely adopted lead generation channel
With 88% of businesses using email for lead generation, it is still the most widely adopted lead generation channel. Social media however is now hot on its heels with 78% of B2B marketers using it as a growth tactic.
The fact that over three-quarters of companies now use social media for lead generation highlights its increasing success at not only raising awareness but at driving measurable revenue generation. For the B2B market, this is a big step forward from the early days of social media, which were initially more successful in the B2C space.
Events and trade shows continue to be popular, with over half of B2B businesses using them for lead generation, while roughly a third of businesses use cold calling, PPC Ads, and webinars as methods of generating leads.
Cold calling has seen a significant reduction over the years. Once one of the top channels for lead generation alongside email, where does its future lie?
At the bottom of the list are sponsorships and, probably unsurprisingly, affiliates, with less than 10% of companies using affiliate programs. Affiliate marketing strategies lend themselves more to e-commerce-led businesses, narrowing the market to companies that have a non-consultative buying process. Sponsorships, being difficult to measure and control, can be viewed as a risky investment.
Dux-Soup opinion: The slow decline of cold calling and email
Traditional B2B business development involved picking up the phone and calling someone to introduce yourself, identify a need, and secure a meeting at which to close the sale. With improved targeting, more relevant messaging, and support from other channels such as email, the effectiveness of cold calling improved.
However, as the volume of calls and accompanying emails gradually increased (and spam filters were introduced) their effectiveness has, over time, reduced. As Will van der Sanden states “I get many calls from telemarketers and I just add them to a spam list. I don’t think many people accept any calls from numbers they don’t know.”
Other strategies, particularly digital, then came into play. An influx of instantly available content encouraged users to do a lot more research online. Whether in the form of reviews, blogs, videos, or adverts, we now consume a huge amount of information online before even speaking to a potential provider. The continuing rise of social media is a clear sign of more ‘inbound’ digital lead generation strategies at work and we expect these trends to continue.
Our statistics show that today:
- 37% of B2B companies are still using cold calling
- 87% use email for lead generation
We expect that these channels will be used for many years to come providing companies can attribute some level of effectiveness to them. But we expect to see these numbers decline over the next 2-3 years.
Giles Garnet confirms, “This is reflective of what I see on a day-to-day basis. People are migrating away from emailing and other platforms and moving more towards social media, particularly LinkedIn. A lot of these users have traditionally used cold calling and emailing as you can send out thousands of emails and you feel like you’re being productive.”
What social media channels do you use for B2B lead generation?
Key finding: LinkedIn tops the social media market for B2B lead generation
When it comes to social media, LinkedIn is streets ahead, adopted by a massive 97% of the B2B market using social for lead generation. Being the only true global B2B networking site, LinkedIn has the monopoly and has certainly paved its way as the primary lead generation platform for B2B marketers.
But it only takes a platform like Xing to receive investment and expand beyond the DACH region to start changing the landscape. With there currently being little competition for global B2B-only social media platforms, will someone grasp the opportunity to challenge LinkedIn, whose revenue exceeded $15 billion in 2023?
In 2021, a Gartner report placed LinkedIn fifth on the list of a buyer’s use of social media when making a purchase decision. Facebook and YouTube were the top chosen platforms for buyer research. B2B marketers have perhaps noticed these social media sites no longer working for them, and have since switched their focus over to LinkedIn.
Excluding LinkedIn, only 10-20% of B2B marketers are now adopting Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X and Twitter for lead generation. It will be interesting to watch and see how Bluesky emerges onto the market over the coming years, and whether they can buck the trend, increasing adoption in the B2B marketplace.
Dux-Soup opinion: Multi-channel approaches will become more successful.
In addition to the increased use of LinkedIn for B2B lead generation, we are seeing more multi-channel approaches that can involve emailing and LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and cold calling, successfully coordinated into organized campaign workflows.
Giles states, “We’re seeing varying levels of success from users building a multi-channel approach, but what we have noticed consistently is that response rates on LinkedIn are far higher than on other platforms.”
LinkedIn certainly now seems to sit at the core of the lead generation process, and as more and more new partnerships are being formed between SaaS companies, it should become much easier to adopt a multi-channel approach with LinkedIn at the core.
For example, Dux-Soup’s integration with Salesforce allows data to seamlessly flow from LinkedIn into Salesforce and also allows you to enroll Salesforce contacts into LinkedIn outreach campaigns. We predict that more SaaS tools will embrace LinkedIn and other social media integrations, or risk being left behind.
How often do you use LinkedIn for lead generation?
Key finding: Almost half of B2B marketers use LinkedIn daily
Of the 97% of marketers using LinkedIn for lead generation, nearly half use it daily, and 70% use it at least once a week. This highlights the reliance on LinkedIn for brand promotion and lead generation.
For sales and marketing teams in large and enterprise businesses, LinkedIn is fast becoming a standard daily practice. Fostering new relationships, building the pipeline, and generating awareness via the platform are proving to yield results for businesses.
Very few marketers don’t use LinkedIn at all, so if LinkedIn is not in your marketing mix in 2025, you risk losing out to the competition.
Exactly how marketers are using LinkedIn, whether it’s for company posting, personal posting, outreach, newsletters, networking, or other, will be an interesting avenue to explore further. What we do know however (and come on to below) is that lead generation is the top objective for those using LinkedIn automation tools.
Dux-Soup opinion: Marketers are seeing hard evidence that LinkedIn offers the best response rates.
Will van der Sanden states, “Generally, what I hear when I am talking to customers is that they are really happy with the success rate of using LinkedIn for lead generation. Very often when comparing platforms in a B2B context, LinkedIn is the place to go for good responses.”
LinkedIn certainly has a promising future as an increasingly critical tool for businesses as they can demonstrate revenue being generated from the platform. We expect to see new roles being created in businesses for LinkedIn-specific lead generation, and upskilling of existing staff in this area.
Do you use LinkedIn automation for lead generation?
Key finding: Nearly a third of B2B marketers are now using LinkedIn automation
The number of B2B marketers using LinkedIn automation for lead generation is significant. The reality could be higher, with 15% of participants unsure of the answer. This uncertainty is likely due to the fact that LinkedIn lead generation can fall under other departments such as the sales team, depending on the size and structure of the business.
There is, however, still plenty of opportunity for LinkedIn automation growth with over half of businesses not yet adopting it. There are big efficiencies to be gained by the 55% of marketers that are still manually running their LinkedIn lead generation.
Dux-Soup opinion: A company approach to LinkedIn lead generation is on the rise
Ownership of the lead generation function can vary from company to company. Although traditionally a marketing function, LinkedIn is often an exception with the platform also being an important tool in the sales process - not just to generate leads, but to maintain and grow relationships.
We notice that in smaller businesses, often sales executives generate their leads on LinkedIn, but as a company grows, LinkedIn lead generation tends to fall under the marketing department. A coordinated, joined-up approach, with on-brand messaging, and centrally maintained information in the company CRM system is the outcome.
As LinkedIn automation tools develop, we’re seeing an increasing number of ‘Done For You’ LinkedIn lead generation agencies that are managing multiple LinkedIn accounts, often for senior execs, taking the complexities of LinkedIn lead generation away from businesses.
What are your primary objectives for using LinkedIn automation for your business?
Key finding: Lead generation is the #1 objective
The top driver for using a LinkedIn automation tool is to generate leads. That’s what you’ve stated, and it’s an insight that is hugely valuable to us, helping us to steer the development of Dux-Soup.
With companies looking to justify their sales and marketing investment, lead generation is an outcome that can be directly measured through to ROI. With advanced campaign analytics and the ability to feed leads into CRM systems, companies can track the full life cycle of a lead.
Building brand awareness on LinkedIn is an objective of over 50% of marketers. Successful marketers know that fostering trust with their target market leads to better conversion rates and improved loyalty, increasing repeat business. With this dual-objective approach, companies can experience faster growth. The difficulty for marketers is in demonstrating the true ROI of brand awareness activities.
Dux-Soup opinion: LinkedIn strategies are maturing
Giles confirms “The user base is maturing compared to 5 years ago when it used to be a case of getting as many connection requests out there as possible. A low response rate didn’t matter. What we’re seeing now is that users are focussing on getting better quality leads, using LinkedIn to make themselves more visible to a relevant target audience. The net result is a much more targeted, focused approach yielding better quality leads.”
Adam Osman comments, “Our drip campaign features included with our Turbo and Cloud plans are the sole lead generation tactic some of our clients use. In this case study over $1.58 million of net new revenue was generated for clients using LinkedIn alone - without a single cold call required. It’s truly amazing what can be achieved by harnessing LinkedIn correctly.”
He adds, “What is interesting is the number of companies using automation to achieve other objectives, for example, driving brand awareness and traffic to the company website, which are natural outcomes given the nature of the LinkedIn platform. Although we’re looking at the B2B market I think a lot of the statistics here would be similar for the B2C market also.”
LinkedIn automation lends itself very well to nurturing existing relationships over a longer time frame, yet less than 28% of participants are using it for this purpose. Adam comments, “We know automation works very well for keeping your contacts warm when you have a longer buying cycle. LinkedIn automation can work in a very efficient way, for delivering nurturing touchpoints.”
What challenges do you face when using LinkedIn automation?
Key finding: Personalization and managing daily outreach limits are the biggest challenges
We see quite an even spread of challenges faced by LinkedIn automation users, but a relatively low percentage of users faces each of the challenges:
- 36% see personalization as a challenge
- 35% see daily outreach limits as a challenge
- 19% say accessing analytics is a challenge
- 14% say they encounter other challenges
- 14% see safety as a challenge
24% of LinkedIn automation users have no challenges with LinkedIn automation, which is perhaps a result of the maturity of the LinkedIn automation market.
Dux-Soup opinion: Users should maintain an authentic tone
Adam states “At Dux-Soup we believe that everyone using LinkedIn automation should be mindful of maintaining an authentic tone of voice and not appear robot-like with messaging.”
The clever use of merge tags and the use of smaller, targeted lists allows people to be more relevant with their outreach messages, but it’s also really important for people to measure the results of their activity.
Will van der Sanden comments, “A lot of people currently using LinkedIn are not into heavy outreach and are more focused on sharing content or building followers. They are therefore more likely to hit boundaries within LinkedIn when it comes to outreach limits.”
He noted that “a big surprise for me is that users don’t see the lack of integration and accessing data from LinkedIn as a big challenge. For example, a newsletter subscriber list that you have worked hard to build is a real asset and companies can access it with a tool like Dux-Soup and use it to win business with LinkedIn newsletters.”
Giles confirms that “the number one question people have in my experience is ‘How many actions can I carry out?’ and ‘How can I ensure I don’t get my account into trouble?’, reflecting these statistics. Personalization is also important.”
These are all areas that are highly important, and we put a lot of focus on addressing these challenges with our users.
Summary:
We’ve heard from B2B marketing professionals and we’ve heard from Dux-Soup, summarizing lead generation trends for 2025. But what are some of the other industry experts saying?
3 key trends from the market
Adam Osman explored what other industry experts are citing as key trends and picked out 3 that are relevant to B2B lead generation:
- Forrester: The respected industry analyst said that they expected to see more automation and more AI. But they sounded a warning to “beware poorly implemented projects as they will impact on productivity.”
- Accenture: The global consultancy suggested that there will be a big focus on authenticity. This is in part driven by the proliferation of AI solutions capable of creating highly polished content with minimal effort, which in turn “raises trust challenges as misinformation grows.”
- The Content Marketing Institute reinforced the message from Accenture and stated that “content is your currency for trust.”
With 2025 already showing no slowdown in the launch of new AI and automation Martech solutions, there is a real risk of twin challenges around authenticity and trust. He summarises “If you can focus on your authentic tone of voice and build good quality content that will help you stand out. This is your currency for trust and will be invaluable for B2B lead generation in 2025.”
