How Can I Improve My B2B Marketing ROI?

In today’s hyper-competitive, AI-powered B2B landscape, marketing teams are under more pressure than ever to prove the value of every dollar spent. It’s no longer enough to generate leads or drive traffic. Marketers must now deliver qualified, sales-ready prospects that contribute to actual revenue growth. So when the question arises, “How can I improve my B2B marketing ROI?”, the answer lies in data-driven precision, smart automation, and most importantly – understanding buyer intent.

From refining your Ideal Customer Profile to integrating intent data and aligning with sales, here’s how modern B2B marketers are transforming their ROI strategy.

1. Redefine and Refine Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Your ICP is the cornerstone of your marketing strategy. Without clarity on who you’re targeting, it’s easy to waste resources on leads that will never convert.

But a refined ICP goes beyond surface-level firmographics like industry and company size. It must incorporate technographics, buying behavior, decision-making structures, and most importantly, intent signals.

Pro Tip: Use sales intelligence platforms to enrich your ICP with real-time behavioral data and firmographic/technographic insights. You can even filter by companies currently researching your solution category.

2. Leverage Intent Data to Prioritize In-Market Accounts

Intent data is the missing link in traditional marketing strategies. It allows you to engage prospects before they raise their hands by identifying the digital signals they leave behind when researching solutions.

What is Intent Data?

Intent data is behavioral information collected from various online activities such as:

• Website visits
• Content downloads
• Ad clicks
• Webinar participation
• Search queries on third-party publisher sites

This data reveals which companies are actively researching topics related to your offerings, making it easier to prioritize outreach and personalize messaging.

According to Sirius Decisions, 70% of the B2B buyer’s journey is completed before a prospect ever engages with a salesperson.

SalesIntel’s Advantage: SalesIntel offers first-party data through VisitorIntel (identifying anonymous website visitors) and third-party behavioral intent data powered by industry-leading partners.

3. Align Sales and Marketing Around Buyer Intent

Sales and marketing misalignment is one of the top causes of low marketing ROI. When both teams work in silos, leads fall through the cracks, messaging lacks consistency, and valuable insights are lost.

With a shared view of buyer intent:

• Marketing can generate leads that sales actually wants
• Sales can prioritize follow-ups with accounts already in-market
• Messaging can be personalized based on real-time needs

“When intent data is shared between marketing and sales, outreach becomes timely, relevant, and significantly more effective.” – Kara Brown, Founder and CEO of LeadCoverage

Tools to Bridge the Gap: Use lead intelligence platforms like SalesIntel that integrate seamlessly with your CRM and marketing automation tools. This ensures both teams operate from the same, up-to-date dataset.

4. Prioritize High-Intent Accounts for ABM

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a proven strategy for improving B2B ROI, but its success depends on selecting the right accounts. Instead of choosing accounts based on guesswork or annual revenue alone, prioritize:

• Companies showing surging intent signals
• Accounts recently visiting your website
• Companies matching your refined ICP

With this approach, your ABM campaigns will see higher engagement, better conversion rates, and improved sales velocity.

5. Clean and Enrich Your Data for Higher Deliverability

Bad data = bad decisions.

Inaccurate or outdated contact information can lead to wasted ad spend, bounced emails, and missed opportunities. According to SalesIntel, over 30% of B2B data decays every year.

Solution: Regularly enrich your CRM with human-verified data.

Ideally, look for data to enrich your CRM that is highly accurate (95%+), human-verified, and includes many fields, such as: SalesIntel’s 95% accurate, human-verified contact data includes:

• Direct dials
• Business emails
• Verified job titles and company info

This drastically improves deliverability, personalization, and campaign effectiveness.

6. Use Technographics to Fill Gaps and Identify Opportunities

Technographic data tells you what tools and technologies a company is currently using. By combining this with intent data, you can:

• Identify gaps your product can fill
• Predict replacement cycles for competitor tools
• Highlight integration possibilities

For example, if a company is still using on-premise CRM but showing intent around “cloud migration software,” it signals a high likelihood of switching to modern platforms, which is your cue to step in.

7. Hyper-Personalize Outreach Based on Intent Signals

Generic emails are dead.

With access to buyer behavior and interest areas, you can create:

• Campaigns that reference exact keywords the prospect searched
• Emails that highlight challenges they’re researching
• Content offers tailored to their current technology stack

Example: If an account is showing intent around “sales enablement platforms” and has downloaded two related whitepapers, your outreach should include a case study relevant to their industry and a demo offer.

This level of relevance increases engagement and shortens sales cycles.

8. Test, Measure, and Optimize Everything

Even the best campaigns need refining. Measure what matters:

• Lead-to-customer conversion rate
• Campaign ROI by segment
• Pipeline velocity from intent-driven campaigns

Track performance across:

• Email deliverability
• Engagement by topic
• Time to first conversion post intent trigger

Regularly revisit your ICP and intent criteria to reflect market shifts.

9. Scale with Automation, But Stay Human

Use automation to scale intent-triggered workflows, such as:

• Auto-enroll high-intent accounts into tailored email sequences
• Trigger SDR outreach when VisitorIntel detects repeat traffic
• Adjust ad targeting based on intent surge topics

But remember, the human touch still wins. Personalized calls, thoughtful LinkedIn messages, and empathy-driven sales conversations convert better than bots alone. Use automation to trigger prompt follow up and get started with ideas, then finalize with that vital human touch.

ROI Comes from Relevance

Improving your B2B marketing ROI isn’t about increasing your spend. It’s about focusing your effort where it counts:

• On the right accounts
• At the right time
• With the right message

Tools like SalesIntel make it easier to identify in-market buyers, access accurate contact data, and align teams on what matters most: intent.

When you know who’s ready to buy, why they’re buying, and how to reach them, your marketing becomes less about chasing leads and more about closing deals.

Now that’s ROI you can measure.