The Different Timelines of B2B Tech Marketing, Sales, and Purchasing

Happy Tuesday! This week’s Razor #40 explores how different marketing, sales, and purchasing cycles vary from each other, especially when it comes to deal size, product complexity, market conditions, and time lag. While sales teams aim to close deals within months, marketing efforts can often span years to build credibility and earn trust. Purchasing cycles add another layer of complexity, influenced by internal approvals, budget constraints, and perceived risk. To succeed, B2B leaders must align strategies with these realities.

Takeaways

• Sales focuses on converting in-market buyers quickly, typically within 3-6 months.
• Marketing builds brand recall and earns trust with out-of-market buyers—this can take 3-5 years.
• Purchasing is much slower due to approvals, budgets, compliance, and risk, often taking as long as 2 years to make the final decision.
• Simple tools have shorter cycles, while enterprise solutions take much longer.
• Ensure your brand is remembered when buyers re-enter the market, even years later.

Why B2B Tech Struggles with Marketing Timelines

As a B2B tech founder or marketing leader, you’ve likely asked, “Why isn’t marketing delivering leads fast enough? We’ve invested in demand generation, content, and ads—so what’s taking so long?”

The reality:

• Only 5% of buyers are ready to purchase. The other 95% are out-of-market.
• Sales focuses on monthly and quarterly targets, but marketing operates on longer timelines.
• Buying cycles can take months, even years, depending on complexity.
• Market conditions, technological shifts, and competitor actions can delay outcomes

If you don’t plan for these timelines, you’ll constantly feel like marketing is failing.

Instead of trying to get water from a rock, set realistic expectations and get aligned with buying behavior.?

The Three Timelines: Sales, Marketing, and Purchasing

1. Sales Cycle: The Shortest (3-6 months)

Sales teams focus on converting in-market buyers now. Smaller deals may close within 40 days, while complex solutions can take 6 months or more. But when there aren’t enough ready buyers, the pressure to meet quarterly goals often creates friction with marketing.

TIP: Unearth insights from CRM, causal analytics, and marketing automation tools to identify high-intent leads and potential future buyers. Look beyond contact history by analyzing engagement patterns, attribution data, and brand recall.

2. Marketing Cycle: The Longest (12-48 months)

Marketing’s job isn’t just generating leads. You have to keep building credibility and earning trust with the 95% of buyers who aren’t in-market. Research shows marketing’s impact compounds over time, with only 37% of revenue influenced in the first quarter of a campaign and 50% after six months (Dreamdata).

TIP: Use marketing automation platforms to track buyer journeys, identify opportunities for personalization, and deploy retargeting campaigns that reinforce trust. Integrate data from CRM, email marketing, and social media platforms to maintain long-term brand building.

3. Purchasing Cycle: The Slowest (12-24 months)

Buyers move at their own pace. They take as little or as long as they want. Remember, only 5% of your market is in the process of considering a new solution or replacing the one they already have. And if they don’t remember you when the time comes, you won’t make their Day 1 list.?

Purchasing cycles often stall due to internal factors like stakeholder alignment, budget approvals, compliance checks, and risk aversion. Larger organizations with complex solutions face even longer delays. And don’t forget: the safest decision is no decision.?

TIP: Causal analytics like ProofAnalytics.ai can map bottlenecks in the purchasing process. For example, you can pinpoint where most deals stall (e.g., legal review, procurement) and provide pre-built templates, tools, and “what-if” scenarios to streamline steps and forecast potential outcomes.

Typical B2B tech purchases are influenced by many factors, including:

• Stakeholders: The more decision-makers, the longer the timeline.
• Budget cycles: Even if buyers want your product, funding might not be available.
• Compliance: Security, legal, procurement—these teams can slow things down.
• Perceived Risk: The safest decision is no decision.?
• Brand recall: How “mentally available” your brand is influences buyer confidence and trust

Here’s how these three timelines compare:

Explanation:

• Sales Cycle, about 3-6 months: Shortest because it deals with in-market buyers (the 5%).
• Marketing Cycle, about 12-48 months: Long-term efforts to build brand recall and earn trust with out-of-market buyers (the 95%).
• Purchasing Cycle, about 12-24 months: Lengthy due to internal approvals, budgets, and risk evaluations.

Here’s how time lag affects ROI:

Explanation:

• Short-term lead gen tactics often miss the majority of buyers who aren’t in-market.
• Recognized Revenue: Marketing efforts begin impacting revenue around 6 months.
• Realized Revenue: Revenue from those efforts often materializes 12-24 months later.

The time lag means you’re investing in future growth. Expecting short-term campaigns to deliver immediate or long-term results is a fool's errand.

”Long-term results cannot be achieved by piling short-term results on short-term results.” - Peter F. Drucker

Complexity: Bigger Deals Take Longer

The complexity of the solution directly impacts timelines for sales, marketing, and purchasing.

Simple B2B Tech (SMBs, Plug-and-Play SaaS)

• Time to Market: ~6 months
• Sales Cycle: ~3 months
• Purchasing Process: ~9 months

Mid-Tier B2B Tech (CRM, Security, Custom SaaS)

• Time to Market: ~12 months
• Sales Cycle: ~6 months
• Purchasing Process: ~12 months

Enterprise B2B Tech (Hardware, ERP, IT Services)

• Time to Market: ~24+ months
• Sales Cycle: ~12 months
• Purchasing Process: ~24+ months

Explanation:

• Simple Tech: Shortest time-to-market, sales, and purchase process.
• Mid-Tier Tech: Moderate complexity increases all timelines.
• Enterprise Tech: The longest cycles due to integration needs, approvals, and risk management.

TIP: Simplify whenever possible. SMB buyers expect faster results, while enterprise buyers require detailed due diligence and customization.

How to Align Marketing with Buying Reality

So, what do you do as a founder or marketing leader?

• Shift Your Perspective: Treat marketing as an investment, not a cost center. Focus on building brand reputation and recall for long-term results.
• Set Realistic Expectations: Educate stakeholders on the timelines involved in sales, marketing, and purchasing.
• Augment and Optimize Short and Long-Term Goals: Combine performance marketing for the 5% in-market buyers with brand-building efforts to engage the 95% out-of-market.
• Invest in Tools and Processes: Use automation and causal analytics to shorten cycles where possible (e.g., CRM, ABM platforms, marketing automation, and AI tools).
• Play the Long Game: Many of your competitors will give up early. You will win if you stay the course.

Final Thoughts

It’s easy to get trapped in short-term tactics because we think they’re either working or not based on the immediate results we get back. But markets don’t shift on a dime and future buyers only remember us if we keep showing up.?

For the 5% who are actively looking for a solution, yes, we should target them with lead generation and demand generation initiatives; absolutely.?

Sustainable success, however, lies in playing the long game.?

Data Sources

• John Dawes - The 95:5 Rule
• Dreamdata.io - Testing the B2B Marketing time lag
• Dale W. Harrison - The Time-Lags Between B2B Marketing & Revenue Recognition
• Dale W. Harrison - More Marketing Lag!
• Mark Stouse - Understanding Time Lag: The Hidden Driver of GTM Success
• Accent Technologies - Understanding the Modern B2B Sales Cycle
• 6sense - Out of Sight, Almost Out of Time
• Alore.io - The 2024 Complete Guide to Enterprise Sales: Strategies and Insights
• Advertising Week - The State of the Enterprise B2B Buyer’s Journey

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This article is AC-A and originally appeared on Achim’s Razor at KLOR Consulting. If you’d like to share it or refer to it, consider using the original. Thank you!