Why B2B Content ROI Isn’t About Clicks (and Never Was)

B2B content ROI feels broken because most organisations measure it using attribution models designed for performance marketing. In complex buying environments, content creates value through cumulative contribution to decisions, not isolated clicks.

B2B content ROI is under pressure

CMOs are under growing pressure to justify content investment. Boards and executive teams want evidence that the investment in marketing is worth it. Meanwhile, sales teams want content that helps deals progress. Yet many senior marketing leaders feel increasingly uneasy about how content ROI is measured and defended.

That discomfort is often a reflection of the fact that the measurement models being applied to content investment have not kept up with the dramatic changes seen across the marketing landscape in the past couple of years, particularly with the widespread adoption of AI tools.

Additionally, many leaders try to apply metrics that are fundamentally unsuitable for complex B2B environments, or that only reflect part of the picture. In complex enterprise sales, for example, content works differently to environments where the deal value is lower and the process moves faster. Hence, forcing it into the same ROI logic leads to poor decisions and weaker outcomes.

Why content ROI feels broken

Content ROI feels broken because it is being evaluated through frameworks that were never designed for complex B2B buying environments. Many organisations still default to click-based or last-touch attribution models because they appear precise and are familiar. Those models promise certainty in a world that feels increasingly fragmented.

In complex sales environment, that problem becomes structural. Content is rarely consumed in isolation, and rarely triggers immediate action. It influences how buyers think, how confident they feel and how credible an organisation appears long before any formal conversion event occurs. When ROI conversations focus on individual assets or isolated interactions, they miss the cumulative role content plays across the buying journey.

Lately, I've noticed that so many content discussions have become defensive, and I think this is the reason why. Marketing leaders are being asked to prove value using tools and methodologies that can't capture how content actually works.

Why last-click attribution doesn't work in complex B2B

Last-click attribution fails in B2B because buying decisions are collective, non-linear and unfold over extended periods of time. Deals involve multiple stakeholders (often called the buying committee), each with different concerns, priorities and levels of influence. Content is encountered across channels and formats, at different moments in time - often months before a sales conversation begins.

In this environment, assigning commercial value to a single click creates a false sense of precision. It suggests a direct cause-and-effect relationship that rarely exists. Content may shape preference or attitude early, reinforce confidence mid-journey or support consensus late in the process, without ever appearing as the final interaction.

Treating content as a conversion trigger oversimplifies its role and undervalues its impact. It also distorts behaviour, pushing teams to optimise for visibility rather than relevance.

B2B content works through accumulation, not conversion

In B2B environments, content works by accumulating understanding, confidence and preference over time. Each interaction adds context. Each exposure reinforces positioning. Each piece contributes to how an organisation is perceived when a buying decision is eventually made.

I would argue that there needs to be a clear distinction between contribution and attribution. Attribution attempts to assign ownership of revenue to a specific action. Contribution recognises that value is created through reinforcement and repetition across the system.

When questioned, most senior buyers can't point to a single article, video or report that changed their mind. What they recall is whether a company felt credible, aligned and consistent throughout the journey. Content plays a central role in shaping that experience, even when it can't be neatly tied to a transaction.

The risk of measuring the wrong thing

When organisations measure the wrong signals, they optimise content for the wrong outcomes:

• Teams prioritise short-term engagement over long-term relevance.

• Nuanced thinking is replaced with safer ideas that perform predictably in dashboards.

• Strategic content becomes harder to defend because its impact is not immediately visible.

Over time, this eats away at confidence in content as a commercial lever. It also narrows the ambition of what content is allowed to do. Rather than shaping how buyers think, content is reduced to filling calendars and chasing surface-level interaction on social media.

Yes, this is a measurement challenge; but it's also a leadership challenge. What gets measured shapes what gets produced. Whatever marketing leaders decide to measure reflects back to the rest of the organisation the overall value of the function.

I have written about the mechanics of assessing the return on AI-enabled content investments. That work focuses on how faster production changes expectations around efficiency. There's a more fundamental issue to be discussed above that: why the prevailing ROI conversation often fails to reflect how B2B content actually creates value.

Reframing the content ROI conversation

Content ROI in complex B2B has never been about clicks. It has always been about contribution. The challenge is that many organisations are still using models that reward the appearance of certainty, rather than the reality of influence.

Read on to find out what CMOs should measure instead, and how to talk about B2B content ROI with CFOs and boards in a way that builds confidence and buy-in.

If you'd like to discuss B2B content ROI in your marketing team in 2026, get in touch.