Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders.
Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth.
We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth.
For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).
Jon Miller (00:01):
Welcome to the B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. I'm Jon Miller. And
Sydney Sloan (00:08):
I'm Sydney Sloan. Between us, we've led marketing orgs at companies like Marketo, which Jon founded, Demandbase, G2 and Salesloft. For more marketing leadership resources, you can visit b2bcmoproject.com. And now let's get into the show. Welcome to the B2B CMO podcast. And today I'm with Alex London. She is the CMO over at G2, the world's largest and most trusted data source in B2B software serving over 200 million annual buyers, the largest in the world by far. Alex joined to lead marketing into the AI era, G2, and she's focusing on building growth engines designed to help the business accelerate, drive accountability, and create long-term value. Before G2, she was the head of digital at Zoom leading performance marketing and experimentation across their global user base. Hopefully everybody listened to Kim Storin's podcast as well. We got to have her on talking about brand. And before that, she spent eight years at Expedia Group leading their brand strategy, performance marketing, and customer acquisition, including launching the company's first customer data platform.
(01:16):
Welcome to the podcast, Alex.
Alexandra London (01:19):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here and it's been incredible seeing so many CMOs give their backstories and I think answer a lot of questions of what folks have been wanting to hear.
Sydney Sloan (01:28):
Our mission is to help CMOs remain strategic and continue to earn their seat at the table and talk about issues that they're facing and challenged by every day through our five imperatives. And one of those imperatives actually is something that G2 is helpful in solving. And my favorite data resource to cite is the B2B buyer behavior report that G2 puts out annually and it just dropped. So tell us what is the 2026 headline on buyer behavior?
Alexandra London (02:02):
Yes. So we have been running these buyer behavior reports, started out yearly, now it's almost twice a year to really get a sense of what's changing. And as we know that AI is fully disrupting the entire buying journey, we need to track this closer. So we asked over a thousand buyers and roughly around 50 to 100 CMOs questions of exactly just that, what's changing in the buying behavior and what's changing in your buying behavior as well from a customer journey standpoint, but when you actually need to buy the right tools for your go-to-market strategy. And in our latest buyer research, we actually found that AI is making it faster for buyers to reach that shortlist, but more importantly, the challenges they're facing. And so as we look at the craziness of just not only the research but discoverability, we're seeing that the shortlist, the citations matter more than anything.
(02:52):
But it's not just if you're cited, it's winning the answer. And so what we're seeing right now is 82% of buyers told us that they source software recommendations from an AI chatbot in the last 24 months. That is more than eight in 10 buyers are using this to find their shortlist and find the winning answer of what they want to buy, and they're starting their research. They also said that review sites and AI chatbots are now their top sources influencing with vendors to make that shortlist. So it's really important that from a seller perspective, you're serving on the shortlist, but from a buyer perspective, the way you're engaging, that research is all happening and you're becoming savvier, you're doing the search in less time, and you're getting to your answer more frequently than probably what used to take months, multiple decision makers, and multiple time to come up with that answer.
(03:43):
And so I think the biggest piece is also that friction that you're facing now. The friction used to be where do you get all the content, all the POCs you have to run through and those RFPs that you would run with all these vendors, now you're condensing that all in a short amount of time for that journey. So the journey that used to take weeks to months is now happening almost sometimes within hours, and then folks are going back to that research journey to come up with that shortlist for the seller component. And so it's really important on how you serve that content that's going to make the short list in that answer.
Sydney Sloan (04:14):
I think it's super interesting. We've seen this transition over the last 18 months really as we've been going through this journey of the transition of the buyers on the LLMs and just also seeing the trust of the answer in the LLM taking more and more into account. And so we've talked a lot about the need to build your brand because if you're not on that short list, that's the way you still are able to get on that. And I advocate a lot for building your brand on G2 because if they're going to end up going to that review site after the LLM, that's another chance to be seen and remind them to make sure that you're on the short list as well. So it's a really critical part of brand building. But when you're thinking about that buyer journey and as it consolidates, as you said, it's speeding up, the research is speeding up, but now evaluation is becoming the bottleneck.
(05:06):
I guess AI hasn't quite figured out how to do all the evals yet. What are the three things that CMOs need to do right now to keep up with that speed and how to manage through the valuation process?
Alexandra London (05:20):
We are all asking how do you win the answer and how do you win it fast? How are you the first one to win it? Before it was around the biggest brand campaign or maybe it was the product marketing or the digital ad aspect, but now it all starts with AEO and are you showing up in the citations? What's the content that's feeding into it? And is it your brand that has a say in the content? Because it's really important how your brand shows up. You have to earn the trust. Customer first mindset has always remained the same through all of this, and that still has not changed. You have to have the customer first mindset and the content that you're putting out there, not just for customers to ingest and the buyers to understand the content at hand, but for the agents to pull from.
(06:02):
This is very different now. Now you have to speak to both the human and the agent because they're both crawling and they're both understanding your site and pulling data in real time. So you have to earn those trust signals in those sources and frequency of the LLMs. The frequency is key. You have to make sure that your data is being refreshed in real time because every 90 days the models are re-crawling, re-understanding and populating that data. Have to be LLM friendly. You need to open up your website and content to be crawled, and you have to have an AEO strategy and a tool set to benchmark that and review it at scale. And if you're not reviewing that, that's probably the number one takeaway I have is make sure you have a full AEO strategy, but a tool that helps you benchmark, measure, understand your performance and the prompts because that just all feeds into the content.
(06:50):
I think the other piece that you have to focus on is around to support the buyer through that evaluation. It doesn't just stop at the awareness play, but you have to give the buyers that information. They need to compare, they need to validate. All that comparison feeds into the research and it's all helping with the prompt component in real time and also the fan out of these prompts. You have to make sure that you're giving it enough evaluation and understanding of your brand at scale. So it's everything from your first party information to how you're showing up on third party sites and when it comes to reviews, because it's that trust layer that your customers and customer first voice is playing a role in. And so you need to help buyers make sure that that internal business case makes sense for them. And how are they understanding the buying behavior journey more of where the content is showing up along every possible touchpoint?
(07:40):
And you have to be as a brand, the first one to say who your brand is and how it's showing up representing across all those touchpoints.
Sydney Sloan (07:48):
The three takeaways are frequency of your content needs to be refreshed every 90 days because that's how often the LLMs update their own knowledge. Comparison data is a strong performance indicator because usually when those short lists are being created by the LLMs, they're automatically adding in the grid for comparison. And so you want to make sure that you're in control of how those compare models are populated and then continuing to still build your brand and help in determining the business case in moving forward. Did I get the three right?
Alexandra London (08:22):
Yes. And especially the brand piece because I think that goes back to it's how your brand is showing up in all those decision points, but also how the brand is resonating with the customer because that still hasn't changed. It's that customer verse mentality of where your brand is showing up.
Sydney Sloan (08:35):
Right. The brand still has to be trusted at the end of the day. And so hallelujah the resurgence in brand investments for us marketers. Yes. Okay. So CMOs have, let's say they've done their job, the LLMs are fueled properly, you're getting on the short list, you've run a good review strategy, so trust is established through that process as they do their evaluation. The business case has been made, you're in the procurement phase of the buying journey, and now new data point, shockingly, it can still get stopped by the CFO. So what I read in the survey was that 49% of buyers said their CFO vetoed an already approved software purchase in the last 12 months. That is up considerably. And so if this is where the deals get stuck around financial approval, how do CMOs solve that challenge?
Alexandra London (09:31):
Out of the report, 49% of buyers said that their CFO vetoed an already approved software purchase in the last 12 months. This was shocking to a lot of us to read, and I think this is one that hits true to home for CMOs because we are always fighting for every dollar to be spent across just marketing in general, the tools, and we're well beyond that cost center. We have now proven the orchestration that we drive across the organization, but more importantly, beyond this, if it's already a vendor that you're using today, the fact that 49% now we're getting vetoed in an already approved purchase, it means, well, what does the future hold for any tool and how do you get on that list where you're not one of the vetoed ones? One thing that stood out with all of this is it's a matter of where this budget now is going, and then how do you reevaluate the tool set that you have?
(10:19):
You have to make sure that the tool set is also built for your AI strategy. I think a lot of tools are being evaluated and also even the contract time periods. I mean, how many times now are folks saying, "Well, I don't want to sign a three-year anymore. I just want to sign a 12-month because all the tools are changing so fast in what they have to provide." So you have to make sure, and this goes back to that 90-day refresh data, what is your product delivering and how do you make sure that the customer understands how it fits into their AI strategy and evaluation in real time? Because that's what CFOs want to know. They want to know the ROI, not just from a marketing perspective, but from a tooling and how this helps your go-to-market strategy, the agents that you're building and what tools it needs to rely on.
(10:59):
But also with a lot of this, it's not just one tool fits all the needs. I know a lot of companies out there are selling the platform holistically, but it's how all these tools intertwine together with the internal agents that companies are now building and the data it needs to feed. And so it's important to make sure that that ROI story and making sure that the contract that you have at hand is feeding into your marketing strategy, but also the data that you're putting into the content for the LLM models to pull out. So when you do get on the short list, it's not only from customer reviews, but it's from your brand saying what the latest and greatest AI components are and how these companies now are turning AI native in some aspects and building net new capabilities that they didn't have before.
Sydney Sloan (11:39):
And maybe just tactically, as you're building out your buying group, you have your financial buyer. If that financial buyer isn't the CFO, then automatically add the CFO to late stage brand building and include them in your LinkedIn ad strategy or how do you reach the CFO so when it comes time to sign, they have awareness of your product set, they've heard it before, they're not going out and doing their own LLM research at that nth hour. And really to try and maybe add, if it's not one of your personas you're supporting, then look at adding the CFO as part of that, knowing that almost half, 49%, that's almost half the deals got vetoed by the CFO. So that is a huge stat that cannot be ignored for sure.
Alexandra London (12:27):
No. And they're looking at the token maxing. They're understanding where all the token's going, what's the budget that's needed to cover for it. And most importantly, at the end of the day, you have to bring the CFO and everyone along the journey to understand what you are building at scale for why these tools matter and what is the ROI. The data does not lie. You have to make sure that the data is backing up the component of what it's driving for the end of the day business and revenue perspective and how it's feeding in because everyone wants to understand what does that go-to-market strategy now with an AI first lens? And that's much different than it was in how the strategies we used to build. And so I think this is where tool set should be reevaluated. Does it actually fit the needs of what you're building internally?
(13:07):
And if it doesn't, this is why it's not just even CFOs. I think it's even folks that probably onboarded that tool in the beginning might be offboarding it because it's not meeting the needs of what they need anymore.
Sydney Sloan (13:17):
The trade-offs have to be made because AI consumption is a giant line item now in most companies' budget. So that pressure is restraining or constraining tech budgets as that choice between build versus buy and consume now becomes part of the equation and how that's being tracked as it becomes more and more prevalent in everybody's pricing models. Well, I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank G2 for doing such amazing research that we all rely on as marketers. And I want to thank you for being a sponsor of the B2B CMO project. It does mean a lot. We are really trying to support the marketers out there. And so if you're listening, if you're not yet a G2 customer, which I can't imagine you aren't, please call G2, support them as well as they're supporting this project. Everybody knows, unless you've been under a rock, that I'm a super G2 fan, and it does really make an impact when you build your brand on G2 to getting to those short lists and getting on the LLMs.
(14:19):
And at the end of the day, you want to hear the voice of your customer. And so that's what those reviews are. That's your customers endorsing the value that they're getting from your software products. And that's yet another proof point of trust that is so important in today's age. And now that G2's acquired Gartner Digital, what is it like 82 or 86% of the market share of all peer reviews, something crazy like that. What's the stat?
Alexandra London (14:45):
Yes, 86%.
Sydney Sloan (14:47):
86%. Yeah, it has to be part of the mix. If it's not, go contact your G2 rep. Well, thanks everybody for listening, and I know you've gotten two or three key takeaways that you could go implement now to help get your AEO in line and performing. So thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Alexandra London (15:05):
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Sydney Sloan (15:06):
Thank you for being a sponsor.
Jon Miller (15:08):
Thanks for listening to the B2B CMO Podcast. Head on over to b2bcmoproject.com for more episodes, plus the latest research and framework CMOs need, not just to survive, but actually thrive as AI and the new playbook reshape how we go to market. And if this episode sparks something for you, please follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with a marketing leader who could use a little inspiration. Special thanks to our wonderful partners, OneMind, 2X, Cheq, Demandbase, G2, Goldcast, LinkedIn, Phave, Sendoso, and Webflow for making this podcast possible. Until next time, be safe out there.