LinkedIn emerges as top B2B platform with 113% ROAS and 211-day buyer journeys

Dreamdata released its LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks Report 2025 on September 8, 2025, presenting data from hundreds of B2B companies that reveals the platform's dominance in business-to-business advertising. The comprehensive analysis examined 23 million sessions across more than 220,000 complete customer journeys, establishing LinkedIn as the only major advertising platform delivering positive returns while capturing the largest share of B2B marketing budgets.

B2B marketers increased their LinkedIn advertising allocation from 31% of total ad spend in the first half of 2024 to 39% in the second half, continuing a trend from previous years. The data positions LinkedIn as the largest single advertising platform by expenditure when Google's various networks are examined separately. Google Search commands 37% of budgets and Meta receives 8%, with the remaining 9% distributed across other platforms.

The investment shift corresponds with superior financial performance metrics. LinkedIn Ads generated 113% return on ad spend using Dreamdata's data-driven attribution model on closed deals over 12 months, making it the only platform analyzed to achieve positive returns. Google Search delivered 78% ROAS while Meta recorded 29%, failing to reach profitability despite lower surface costs.

Traditional advertising metrics tell a different story. Meta Ads cost 58% less per click and 68% less per impression than LinkedIn, with both platforms maintaining similar click-through rates near 0.5%. These figures initially suggest Meta offers better value, but deeper analysis reveals LinkedIn's effectiveness at the company level matters more for B2B outcomes.

Cost per company influenced measures the expense of marketing qualified leads that interacted at least once with an advertising network. LinkedIn achieved €154 per company influenced, approximately 70% lower than Meta at €299 and 25% lower than Google Search at €222. The metric provides clearer insight into B2B performance since businesses close accounts rather than individual transactions.

LinkedIn Ads influenced 29% of marketing qualified leads, 36% of sales qualified leads, and 35% of new business deals across all customer journeys analyzed. Google Ads influenced 19% of MQLs, 21% of SQLs, and 25% of new business, while Meta showed minimal impact at 4% of MQLs, 3% of SQLs, and 2% of new business.

The customer journey analysis uncovered substantial complexity in B2B purchasing. The typical journey spans 211 days from first touch to closed deal, involves 6.8 buyer stakeholders across 3.7 channels, and requires 76 touches before purchase completion. Buyers conduct 62 sessions on average throughout the decision process.

Large companies extend journey length by 49% compared to standard benchmarks. The bottleneck occurs before sales involvement, with 107 days between MQL and SQL stages versus 62 days in the sales pipeline from SQL to closed deal. This pattern suggests marketing teams carry responsibility for nurturing leads toward buying readiness rather than simply generating initial interest.

LinkedIn's role concentrates in early customer journey stages. The platform accounts for 30% of sessions at the MQL stage, declining to 28% at SQL stage and 15% at new business stage as direct sales interactions assume greater importance. LinkedIn Ads interactions occur an average of 320 days before revenue, compared to 211 days for the overall journey, reflecting the platform's function in early awareness building.

The analysis found that including LinkedIn Ads engagement data in revenue attribution modeling increases measured ROI accuracy by 7.7 times. Ad impressions occur first at 320 days before revenue, followed by engagement including video views, likes, comments, and clicks at 235 days, and conversions at 219 days.

Sixty-four percent of companies using LinkedIn Conversions API optimize campaigns toward pipeline conversions and revenue rather than top-of-funnel metrics. This approach aligns with LinkedIn's enhanced capabilities introduced in December 2024, which included data-driven attribution modeling and qualified leads optimization tools. LinkedIn reported that CAPI users achieve 20% lower cost per acquisition and 31% more attributed conversions compared to standard implementations.

The platform launched its Company Intelligence API on September 23, 2025, enabling attribution partners including Dreamdata to track organization-level engagement across paid and organic touchpoints. This capability addresses B2B's fundamental difference from consumer marketing by measuring influence on entire companies rather than individuals.

LinkedIn introduced frequency capping for brand awareness campaigns in July 2025, providing advertisers control over ad exposure limits. The platform's Revenue Attribution Report gained company-level measurement capabilities in July 2025, connecting campaign influence from first touch to closed deals.

Thought Leader Ads achieve 2.3 times higher click-through rates than single-image advertisements, reflecting engagement with authentic person-to-person content. LinkedIn Creative Labs research published in July 2025 examined over 13,000 B2B video advertisements and found that 73% of video completions and 49% of engagement rates depend on creative decisions rather than budget or production values.

Seventy-five percent of Dreamdata customers using LinkedIn Ads have implemented Conversions API integration, demonstrating adoption of server-side tracking that bypasses browser limitations. The technology sends pipeline and revenue data directly to LinkedIn's algorithm, enabling campaign optimization toward conversions that occur months after initial ad interactions.

Branded search terms on Google Search consume 7% of total B2B ad budgets, protecting company names from competitor advertising. While necessary to prevent traffic diversion, this expenditure raises questions about efficiency since many branded clicks would occur organically without paid intervention.

The comprehensive analysis examined data across company sizes, with small firms under 50 employees experiencing 178-day average journey lengths, medium companies with 50-250 employees at 224 days, and large organizations exceeding 250 employees at 315 days. The time in sales pipeline remains relatively consistent across segments at 50-73 days, indicating that company size impacts marketing's lead nurturing phase more than sales conversion processes.

Steffen Hedebrandt, CMO at Dreamdata, noted that buying complexity continues expanding. Marketing teams now maintain responsibility for nurturing leads through extended periods before sales engagement begins, requiring orchestration across multiple touchpoints and stakeholder groups rather than isolated campaign optimization.

The data draws from anonymized, aggregated information across hundreds of Dreamdata customers. The methodology normalized spending levels to enable fair comparisons, excluded low-spend accounts to avoid skewed results, and used median values rather than averages to minimize outlier influence. ROAS calculations employed Dreamdata's data-driven attribution model excluding impressions to focus on active engagement.

Why this matters for marketers

The benchmarks demonstrate that surface-level cost metrics mislead B2B advertising decisions. While Meta and Google Search offer cheaper clicks and impressions, LinkedIn delivers superior outcomes when measured against business results including pipeline influence and revenue attribution. The platform's firmographic targeting capabilities enable precise audience selection that compensates for higher initial costs through better conversion quality.

The seven-month average buying journey with dozens of touches across multiple channels underscores the importance of sustained engagement rather than single conversion events. Marketers must maintain presence throughout extended consideration periods, particularly in the 107-day gap between MQL and SQL stages where prospects evaluate options before entering sales conversations.

LinkedIn's expanding video capabilities and connected TV advertising integration provide additional touchpoint opportunities as the platform reported 36% video viewership growth in 2024. The professional context differentiates LinkedIn engagement from consumer social platforms, enabling business-focused messaging that aligns with purchase evaluation mindsets.

Timeline

• November 28, 2023: LinkedIn introduces Conversions API and Website Actions for enhanced conversion tracking
• December 17, 2024: LinkedIn introduces qualified leads optimization and enhanced company engagement tracking
• January 11, 2025: LinkedIn adds advanced attribution and lead optimization features including data-driven attribution modeling
• May 2025: LinkedIn debuts BrandLink video advertising tool in beta testing
• July 14, 2025: LinkedIn introduces frequency capping for brand awareness campaigns
• July 15, 2025: LinkedIn Creative Labs reveals video content success factors based on 13,000 B2B advertisement analysis
• July 21, 2025: Innovid expands LinkedIn integration to support CTV advertising campaigns
• July 30, 2025: LinkedIn enhances Revenue Attribution Report with company-level measurement capabilities
• September 8, 2025: Dreamdata releases LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks Report 2025 showing 113% ROAS and 39% budget share
• September 23, 2025: LinkedIn launches Company Intelligence API for B2B attribution tracking through certified partners

Summary

Who: Dreamdata, a B2B attribution and activation platform and LinkedIn Marketing Partner, analyzed anonymized data from hundreds of B2B companies to produce the benchmarks.

What: The report reveals LinkedIn Ads capture 39% of B2B advertising budgets while delivering 113% return on ad spend, the only platform achieving positive returns. Customer journeys span 211 days with 76 touches across 6.8 stakeholders and 3.7 channels before purchase completion.

When: Dreamdata released the LinkedIn Ads Benchmarks Report 2025 on September 8, 2025, analyzing data through 2024 encompassing 23 million sessions across more than 220,000 customer journeys.

Where: The research examined global B2B advertising performance across LinkedIn, Google, and Meta platforms, drawing from Dreamdata's customer base of hundreds of companies across industries and company sizes.

Why: The benchmarks address critical questions about platform effectiveness and budget allocation in B2B marketing, demonstrating that LinkedIn's higher surface costs translate to superior business outcomes through better targeting precision and conversion quality despite extended buying cycles.