Editor’s Note:
This article is part of a Digital Summit Collective series where we’re turning standout live sessions from recent Digital Summit events into actionable, on-demand insights for our community. Each piece is adapted from a real stage presentation—capturing the ideas, examples, and strategic thinking that resonated most with attendees.
Tom Shapiro opened his session with a reality most B2B marketers already feel every day.
What used to work no longer works the same way anymore.
Webinars that once generated predictable pipeline have slowed down. E-books are less effective. Email engagement has changed. SEO is evolving rapidly under the pressure of AI-powered search experiences. Buyers are researching differently, comparing vendors differently, and making decisions far later in the process than they once did.
And unlike the relatively predictable B2B journey of five or ten years ago, today’s path to purchase is no longer linear.
It is fragmented, digital-first, self-directed, and increasingly difficult to map cleanly.
Shapiro argued that marketers need to stop hoping the old journey will return and instead build strategies designed specifically for the environment buyers actually operate in now.
The old funnel is gone
In the past, B2B buying journeys were far easier to predict.
A prospect might download a white paper, attend a webinar, schedule a demo, and eventually move through a relatively straightforward sales process. While deal cycles could vary in length, the overall structure tended to remain consistent.
That predictability allowed marketers to identify one or two channels that worked particularly well and scale them aggressively.
Today, that approach breaks down quickly. Buyers now research independently across dozens of touchpoints before ever speaking to sales. They move between Google, AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, LinkedIn, Reddit, podcasts, review sites, webinars, Slack communities, YouTube videos, and peer conversations.
And importantly, every buyer’s path looks different.
Shapiro shared examples of two clients who ultimately became customers through completely different journeys. One spent years consuming podcasts, books, blog posts, and LinkedIn content before finally converting. Another engaged with original research, disappeared for months, returned later through additional website research, and eventually closed a six-figure deal.
Neither journey resembled a clean funnel.
That is why Shapiro argued that many traditional customer journey maps have become largely performative exercises. They may look polished in presentations, but they often fail to reflect how buyers actually behave today.
The most important shift is audience understanding
While much of the session focused on changing channels and behaviors, Shapiro repeatedly returned to one central idea. The companies winning in this environment understand their audience at a much deeper level than their competitors do. And according to him, most organizations are still failing badly at this.
One of the simplest examples was also one of the most striking. When Shapiro asked how many marketers regularly interview customers every quarter, only a handful of people in the room raised their hands.
For him, that disconnect is almost unbelievable.
Marketing teams want to influence buyers, yet many rarely spend meaningful time talking directly with them. Meanwhile, sales conversations, customer frustrations, objections, priorities, and buying triggers continue evolving in real time.
Without those conversations, marketers end up building messaging based on assumptions rather than reality.
Shapiro encouraged companies to make customer interviews a recurring operational habit rather than a one-time exercise. He also emphasized the importance of talking not only to satisfied customers, but also to unhappy ones, churned accounts, and difficult buyers.
Those conversations often reveal the most valuable insights.
Sales conversations are a goldmine
Another area Shapiro believes marketers consistently overlook is sales call analysis.
Listening to recorded sales conversations provides direct visibility into the exact questions, objections, concerns, and language buyers are using right now. That information becomes incredibly valuable for improving messaging, website copy, content strategy, and positioning.
In one example, his agency reviewed extensive sales call recordings for a client and discovered that the sales team and marketing team were using completely different language to describe the same offering. The disconnect was creating confusion throughout the buying process.
The issue was not the product itself. It was alignment.
Shapiro argued that marketers need far more exposure to real buyer conversations if they want to create messaging that resonates in today’s environment.
Personalization is no longer optional
One of the strongest themes throughout the session was the growing importance of intent-driven personalization.
Buyers now expect companies to understand their needs quickly and respond accordingly. Generic messaging is far easier to ignore in an environment saturated with competitors.
Shapiro described how his team uses website visitor identification tools to understand what prospects are researching before they ever submit a form. If someone repeatedly visits SEO-related case studies and blog posts, outreach focuses specifically on SEO rather than broader service offerings.
The goal is not to be aggressive or invasive. It is to be relevant. That relevance becomes especially important because most buyers complete a significant portion of their research independently before contacting sales.
According to Shapiro, roughly 70% of the B2B buying journey now happens before a salesperson enters the conversation.
By the time buyers reach out, they are often already narrowing a shortlist.
That means companies need to earn trust earlier and more consistently throughout the research process itself.
Digital presence is now the sales experience
As buyers increasingly self-educate, digital experiences have become inseparable from the buying journey.
Shapiro stressed that companies can no longer treat websites, content, and digital channels as secondary support tools. For many buyers, these touchpoints are the primary experience of the brand long before sales conversations begin.
That includes:
The companies seeing the strongest growth are often the ones showing up effectively across more relevant channels.
At the same time, Shapiro cautioned against trying to be everywhere indiscriminately. The focus should be on the channels where a specific audience actually spends time.
For his own agency, that means ignoring TikTok entirely while prioritizing channels where B2B CMOs actively research and engage.
Brand matters more than many B2B teams think
Shapiro also made a strong case for investing in brand building, even when the results are not always immediately measurable. In crowded B2B markets, buyers frequently experience what he described as a “sea of sameness,” where multiple vendors sound nearly identical.
A stronger, more memorable brand creates differentiation that improves performance across every marketing channel. Email response rates improve. Event engagement improves. Content performance improves. Conversion rates improve.
Because ultimately, brand recognition and emotional resonance reduce friction throughout the buying process. One line from the session captured this particularly well: creativity is the only aspect of a business that cannot truly be commoditized.
Everything else eventually becomes replicable.
The middle of the funnel is becoming more important
As AI-generated overviews and search summaries increasingly absorb top-of-funnel informational content, Shapiro believes marketers should shift more attention toward middle- and bottom-of-funnel experiences.
That means investing more heavily in:
This is the content buyers rely on while evaluating vendors and making final decisions.
And in a buying journey defined by independent research, these assets often influence purchasing long before sales teams realize it.
What to do right now
The bottom line
The modern B2B buyer journey is no longer something marketers can neatly control or predict.
It is fragmented, self-directed, and constantly evolving.
But according to Tom Shapiro, that complexity also creates opportunity for companies willing to understand their audience more deeply, personalize more thoughtfully, and build experiences that support buyers wherever they happen to be in the process.
Watch the Full Session
https://resource.digitalsummit.com/resources/material/beyond-the-funnel-mpls25/