The opportunity for tech companies to leverage video to influence the B2B buyer journey has never been clearer.
In the 2026 LinkedIn® Ads Benchmarks Report, data shows how much of the B2B customer journey has shifted to awareness stages prior to prospects being identified as MQLs or SQLs.
Meanwhile, if your LinkedIn ad strategy centers around optimizing for conversions, data in the report suggests that it may be more useful to focus on engagements.
Learn how these data points make video even more important in your marketing and sales efforts.
The Impact of Video In The Awareness Stage
The B2B customer journey grew by 29% in 2025 to 272 days. This means it takes the average prospect around 9 months from the time they first become aware of your product until they become a new customer.
The interesting aspect of this data is that 81% of that journey occurs before a prospect enters your sales pipeline. Compare this to 2024, when 70% of the journey occurred prior to the SQL stage.
The key stat is that despite the customer journey extending overall, it’s taking 14% less time (92 days) for an MQL to become an SQL, and the time in the sales pipeline now averages 52 days (a 16% year-over-year reduction). This illustrates how B2B buyers are finding other ways to gain trust in companies prior to filling out a lead form or speaking to an SDR.
Video is essential for tech companies to build trust, credibility, authority, and add value particularly in the earlier stages of the funnel.
Combined with recent Ahrefs data showing how critical YouTube has become in AI brand visibility, not to mention the role video plays on LinkedIn, tech companies must prioritize their video strategies.
Video Engagement Costs Less Than Conversions
In paid media campaigns, CPMs are typically 30-50% more expensive when you optimize for a conversion event (e.g. form fills, lead capture, etc.) compared to an engagement event (e.g. video views, clicks, likes, etc.). But the cost premium is acceptable assuming lead quality is higher.
That tradeoff seems to no longer make sense in B2B, though. According to the 2026 LinkedIn® Ads Benchmarks Report, the average time from first ad conversion to revenue (214 days) is nearly identical to the average time from first ad engagement to revenue (212 days). The fact is, conversions are not always late-stage signals in B2B.
With this in mind, tech companies would be wise to shift their budget to campaign objectives that generate more engagements. And video posts on LinkedIn are shared 20x more than any other form of content.
The opportunity cost of not prioritizing video content in your B2B strategy is growing faster than ever before.
Other Resources
For more information related to video trends and strategy, see below:
- Why tech companies need a video strategy
- Begin with a video audit
- 3 video shifts every tech company needs to win
- 3 myths about using video to grow your tech company
- Video is the No. 1 driver for B2B marketing
If you’re struggling on where to start relative to your video strategy, schedule a free consultation with us.
