CMOs Say Revenue Is the Priority. LinkedIn Is the Missed Opportunity.

In 2026, CMOs and marketing teams are focused on one thing: revenue. Yet they’re entering the new year with less room for error than at any point in the past decade. Today, there is very little tolerance for missteps, slow bets, or strategies that take too long to prove their value.

Boards and CEOs are no longer interested in activity, experimentation, or long-term promises. What they want is measurable growth and a clear link between marketing effort and commercial outcome.

That puts CMOs in a very tight spot. They need a solution that can drive lead generation, support an outbound strategy, and show a credible link to the pipeline, without asking for bigger budgets or longer timelines.

Many sales and marketing teams are chasing new platforms and pouring budget into AI, hoping it will accelerate growth or make up for tightening margins. It might pay off. But for many organisations, a more obvious and lower-risk option is already in front of them: LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is widely recognised as the world’s largest professional network, with more than one billion members across 200+ countries and territories. For B2B CMOs, though, its value goes well beyond scale. 

LinkedIn uniquely offers direct access to a high concentration of decision-makers and budget holders, making it a powerful platform for precisely targeting commercial opportunities, accelerating buying cycles, and supporting measurable business growth.

And yet, despite most business professionals using it daily — with users spending an average of 48 hours per month on mobile and a quarter engaging with brand content every day — most organisations still fail to use LinkedIn as a structured, revenue-driving channel.

Instead, many companies treat it as a brand channel. A post here. A post there. Enough activity to reassure everyone that the page isn’t completely abandoned and to gently remind the market you’re still alive, followed by short bursts of advertising, then long pauses. Outbound messaging, meanwhile, starts, then quietly stops.

It’s the biggest mistake we see companies make on LinkedIn. Whether it’s content, outreach, or paid media, the platform rewards consistency because it compounds visibility, engagement, and trust over time, while sporadic execution resets momentum and limits reach and results.

For CMOs under pressure to deliver results or looking for new ways to drive predictable growth, LinkedIn shouldn’t sit at the edge of the strategy. It needs to be front and centre, treated as a core commercial channel, run with focus, sustained execution, and a coherent, long-term approach.

In this report, we explore the challenges CMOs face today, why LinkedIn stands out among platforms as uniquely suited to lead generation and outbound strategy, and what needs to change for it to become a reliable driver of commercial outcomes.

The reality facing B2B CMOs in 2026

The CMO role has always been demanding, but this year, things seem to be getting unforgiving. 

Research from Gartner confirms that while revenue growth remains the primary mandate for marketing leaders, the conditions required to deliver it are becoming increasingly constrained. CMOs are being asked to drive material commercial impact faster, with fewer resources, under greater scrutiny, and with far less tolerance for uncertainty or delay.

In practice, the role has moved away from long-term brand building toward near-term commercial delivery.

Prioritisation is now a leadership skill

Nearly half of CMOs in Gartner’s research identify prioritisation as their most urgent challenge for 2026, pointing to the need to focus on the initiatives most likely to deliver results. This reflects a clear shift in how marketing leadership is being judged.

In the past, CMOs were often expected to be everywhere at once — active across multiple channels, formats, campaigns, and initiatives. Broad presence and ongoing experimentation were seen as signs of momentum, even when results were hard to measure or attribute.

For many organisations, that approach is no longer sustainable. CMOs are now judged on their ability to make deliberate choices: deciding not just what marketing could do, but what it should do, and where focus will have the greatest commercial effect.

The challenge is that these decisions are being made in an increasingly crowded landscape. With more channels, platforms, and tactics available than ever before, every choice carries more weight.

Channel selection, execution focus, and consistency are no longer tactical details — they sit at the centre of how marketing performance is assessed and defended at the executive level.

Flat budgets, rising expectations

Another major constraint is budget pressure. Marketing budgets have remained largely flat in recent years, and many organisations are now operating with even tighter financial guardrails.

According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, marketing budgets have flatlined at 7.7% of total company revenue, unchanged from the previous year and ending the recent trend of incremental increases.

More significantly, 59% of CMOs report that their current budget is insufficient to deliver their strategy. At the same time, expectations for marketing performance continue to rise, forcing CMOs to deliver greater commercial impact with the same—or fewer—resources.

Today’s CMOs are expected to:

• Accelerate new customer acquisition.
• Generate demand that converts into sales-qualified opportunities.
• Support retention and long-term revenue growth.
• Demonstrate the commercial value of marketing spend with confidence.

This growing gap between responsibility and resource has significantly increased execution risk.

CMOs are being held accountable for revenue outcomes without corresponding increases in budget, headcount, or control over the full buying journey, making prioritisation and channel choice more critical than ever.

Too many channels, too little time

The marketing environment has become materially more complex. The expansion of platforms, tools, and technologies has increased theoretical capability but also introduced greater operational overhead and strategic noise. There are now more routes to market available to B2B teams than ever before.

CMOs are expected to navigate an ever-expanding mix of channels and platforms, including:

• ​​Search and display advertising.
• Paid and organic social media.
• Email marketing and marketing automation.
• Events, webinars, and virtual experiences.
• Partner and ecosystem marketing.
• Influencer and creator-led activity.
• Account-based marketing programmes.
• Community and owned platforms.
• Emerging AI-driven tools and technologies.

Each channel promises reach, efficiency, or scale, but each also demands planning, execution, measurement, and ongoing optimisation.

On top of this, the number of tools required to support modern B2B marketing has grown rapidly:

• CRM systems.
• Marketing automation platforms.
• Advertising platforms.
• Analytics and reporting tools.
• Intent data providers.
• Content management systems.
• Attribution and measurement software.

Managing this ecosystem requires time, specialist skill, and constant coordination; something many marketing teams simply do not have.

Every additional platform or channel introduces new decisions, new dependencies, and new trade-offs. For CMOs, this increases both operational complexity and execution risk.

Longer buying journeys, more stakeholders

B2B buying journeys are no longer linear or confined to a single decision-maker. They are multi-stage, non-linear, and shaped by numerous stakeholders, touchpoints, and internal decision loops — perfectly illustrated in Gartner’s B2B Buying Journey framework.

Gartner finds that a typical B2B buying decision involves 6–10 stakeholders within the buying committee, often spanning multiple functions, seniority levels, and geographies.

Each stakeholder enters the process with different priorities, risks, and information needs, which significantly increases the number of touchpoints required to influence a deal.

As a result, sales cycles have become longer, with research indicating that the average B2B buying journey now spans around 11.5 months, extending to 16 months for multi-national purchases.

Buyers consume more content, consult more internal stakeholders, and engage with brands across more channels before progressing to a sales conversation. Marketing is expected to support this extended journey end to end, maintaining relevance and momentum over the long term rather than simply generating initial interest.

CMOs are therefore operating in an environment where:

• More people are involved in each buying decision.
• More interactions are required to build consensus and trust.
• More time passes between the first engagement and the revenue impact.

All of this is happening while teams are being asked to deliver clearer outcomes with fewer resources.

Why CMOs need fewer channels and one platform that does more

Taken together, these pressures point to a clear requirement for modern CMOs.

They need a platform that:

In short, CMOs need fewer moving parts, clearer execution paths, and a platform that simplifies delivery while increasing commercial impact.

There is one platform that ticks all the above boxes: LinkedIn.

Unlike platforms that focus on a single stage of the funnel or require complex coordination across multiple tools, LinkedIn brings these capabilities together in one place.

Why LinkedIn Has Become a Strategic Growth Channel for B2B CMOs

In a market where CMOs are judged on revenue, LinkedIn is one of the most effective yet under-exploited channels for driving pipeline.

Here’s why:

Where B2B decision-makers actually are

LinkedIn gives B2B CMOs access to an audience that is difficult to reach elsewhere. The platform includes an estimated 63–65 million users in decision-making roles, as well as more than 10 million C-level executives. Very few channels offer this level of access to senior stakeholders at scale, within a clearly defined professional context.

Crucially, this isn’t just a large audience. It’s a commercially relevant one. Around four in five LinkedIn members are involved in business decisions, whether as buyers, influencers, or budget holders. That concentration of buying power is what makes LinkedIn such a powerful growth channel when it is used deliberately.

LinkedIn is where your audience is and business gets done.

One platform, multiple growth levers

LinkedIn also combines multiple growth levers within a single environment. Organic content, paid media, direct outreach, company pages, and personal profiles all coexist and reinforce one another. 

Prospects can discover a brand, assess credibility, engage with content, and enter a conversation without ever leaving the platform. That integration reduces friction, shortens the distance between attention and action, and makes it easier to maintain momentum across long buying journeys.

For CMOs under pressure to demonstrate revenue impact, this matters. LinkedIn doesn’t just generate visibility. It supports sustained engagement, meaningful interaction, and progression toward pipeline in a way few other channels can match.

Built for real B2B decision-making

What strengthens this further is how LinkedIn is built. Unlike channels that rely on anonymous behaviour or inferred intent, LinkedIn is anchored in real professional identity. 

This matters because it allows marketing activity to be shaped around how B2B buying decisions are actually made. Instead of relying on abstract personas, teams can target real roles within real organisations, aligning outreach, content, and advertising to the structure of genuine buying committees.

LinkedIn’s paid tools reinforce this advantage:

LinkedIn Sales Navigator enables more structured, account-based engagement by allowing teams to build and maintain targeted lead and account lists, monitor meaningful buying signals such as role changes or company growth, and prioritise outreach based on relevance rather than volume.

LinkedIn Premium, meanwhile, removes friction earlier in the process by expanding messaging access, increasing visibility into profile activity, and providing additional context to inform engagement.

Used together, these capabilities turn LinkedIn into a repeatable engagement engine.

If you’d like a deeper breakdown of LinkedIn’s paid tools, we explore the differences in our blog:

• LinkedIn Premium vs Sales Navigator: What’s The Difference?

Cost, efficiency, and return on investment.

From a budget perspective, LinkedIn often compares favourably with other B2B channels. Unlike paid search, display advertising, or events, it allows spend to be concentrated on a narrower, higher-value audience.

This means less budget is diluted on low-intent reach and more is directed toward the people most likely to influence or authorise buying decisions.

This focus is reflected in performance data. LinkedIn has been found to be approximately 277% more effective for B2B lead generation than other social platforms such as Facebook and X (Twitter), indicating that its targeting capabilities consistently deliver a higher proportion of commercially relevant outcomes.

There is also an efficiency advantage that is often overlooked when comparing LinkedIn to other channels: delivery certainty.

With email-led outreach and many paid channels, a significant proportion of the budget is lost before a message is ever seen — through outdated data, inbox filtering, spam blockers, or bounce rates that are difficult to fully control.

As a result, CMOs are often left defending performance issues stemming from messages that simply don’t reach their intended recipients.

LinkedIn largely removes this layer of waste. When outreach or advertising is delivered through the platform, marketers know the message is reaching a real, identifiable professional profile. There are no bounce rates to contest, no uncertainty around inbox placement, and no reliance on third-party data accuracy.

For CMOs under pressure to justify investment, this matters:

• Fewer wasted impressions due to precise targeting.
• Spend focused on specific roles, accounts, and buying groups.
• One platform supporting brand visibility, outbound activity, and pipeline development.

Rather than funding multiple disconnected channels, LinkedIn enables CMOs to concentrate effort where visibility and commercial influence overlap.

How LinkedIn Drives Pipeline Across the Full Funnel

What ultimately differentiates LinkedIn from most other platforms is not a single feature or tactic, but the fact that it operates as one integrated environment:

Visibility → Engagement → Conversion → Scale

Visibility — Reaching the Right Buying Committees Early

LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities are designed around how B2B decisions are actually made. CMOs can build audiences based on real professional attributes, including:

• Job title and seniority
• Function and department
• Industry and company size
• Geography and location
• Specific companies or named accounts

This precision is what makes LinkedIn outreach so effective. Rather than broadcasting messages to individuals in isolation, teams can engage entire buying committees within named accounts, reaching the right stakeholders with role-relevant messaging at the same time.

Advertising and content play a supporting role by reinforcing that outreach. Paid activity ensures the same decision-makers see consistent brand presence and messaging, creating familiarity before and during direct conversations. This makes outreach warmer, more credible, and easier to progress.

Because professional identity is native to the platform, this visibility feels contextual rather than interruptive. Messages and content are shaped by role, responsibility, and commercial relevance, reducing reliance on guesswork and improving the quality of engagement.

Engagement — Turning Attention into Credible Interest

Visibility alone does not create pipeline. Engagement is where LinkedIn begins to separate itself from more fragmented channels and content marketing is central to that engagement.

One of LinkedIn’s biggest advantages is how seamlessly personal profiles, company pages, content, and conversation work together. When someone encounters a post, an ad, or an outbound message, their next step is rarely to leave the platform. Instead, they check:

• Your personal profile.
• Your recent activity and posts.
• Your company page.
• Your positioning, credibility, and relevance.

All of this lives in one place. When personal profiles are active, and company pages maintain a consistent content marketing cadence, trust is built before a direct conversation ever begins. Content becomes the evidence that supports outreach, rather than something that follows it.

As Shannon Townsend, Head of Operations at StraightIn, explains, this dynamic changes how follow-up works on LinkedIn:

“On LinkedIn, outreach often results in a connection rather than a closed loop. Even when a prospect isn’t actively buying or part of the decision-making process yet, that connection creates a direct line that doesn’t disappear. Prospects continue to see content in their feed, encounter comments, and remain exposed to positioning over time.”

This is particularly important in modern B2B buying journeys, which are long, non-linear, and shaped by multiple stakeholders. Engagement happens gradually through repeated exposure to relevant content. LinkedIn content marketing allows CMOs to remain visible and credible across that journey without relying on constant direct contact.

“Follow-up isn’t limited to messages alone. Visibility continues passively, keeping the brand and offering front of mind without additional outbound pressure. When prospects do re-enter the market, familiarity and trust are already established.”

Rather than forcing prospects to move between inboxes, websites, and search results, LinkedIn keeps discovery, evaluation, and engagement in a single environment. For CMOs focused on pipeline quality, LinkedIn content marketing plays a critical role in maintaining momentum, reinforcing trust, and making it easier to start sales conversations.

Conversion — Where Execution Becomes Measurable

When LinkedIn is treated as a structured growth channel rather than an afterthought, conversion becomes measurable.

Last summer, we analysed StraightIn campaigns over a two-month period. Across more than 178,000 follow-ups, our team generated 4,500+ qualified opportunities, roughly one sales-ready opportunity for every 40 follow-ups.

The significance of these results lies not in the volume of activity, but in how an “opportunity” is defined. These were not passive engagements or top-of-funnel signals. Each one involved a genuine two-way interaction: a booked call, meeting, or a response that clearly indicated commercial intent.

What drove those results wasn’t blasting more messages or chasing volume. It was consistent, well-timed follow-ups that kept conversations alive with people who were interested but busy, distracted, or simply not ready to engage the first time around. As follow-up activity increased month on month, opportunities increased alongside it, which shows how closely execution and pipeline are linked on LinkedIn.

From a commercial perspective, this matters because follow-up-led opportunities tend to enter the pipeline with greater context and intent. Sales teams are not starting from zero. Prospects are already familiar with the individual, the company, and the value proposition, which improves conversion rates, shortens sales cycles, and reduces wasted sales effort.

For CMOs under pressure to demonstrate revenue impact, this illustrates a key point: LinkedIn does not reward one-off activity.

​​Scale — Precision, Not Volume

LinkedIn advertising plays a critical role at this stage, not by increasing reach for its own sake, but by scaling what already works without disrupting the buying journey.

Unlike many paid platforms that optimise for volume, LinkedIn Ads are designed for precision. CMOs can target the same senior decision-makers already engaging with content and outreach — at the right companies and in the right roles — reinforcing momentum rather than restarting the conversation from scratch.

This matters because B2B buying journeys begin far earlier than most businesses expect. Consistent visibility with the right decision-makers is essential if you want to be considered later in the process.

LinkedIn advertising also supports different buyer behaviours without fragmenting the experience. Some prospects are ready to engage quickly. Others prefer to explore independently, review content at their own pace, or build confidence before entering a sales conversation.

Retargeting makes this possible. Advertising reinforces messaging, introduces deeper assets such as guides or reports, and maintains visibility even when there’s no immediate response. Outreach opens the door. Advertising keeps the conversation moving.

LinkedIn Ads is a powerful go-to-market tool, as Tom Watson, Head of LinkedIn Ads at StraightIn, explains:

““Buying journeys begin far earlier than many people realise, making consistent visibility with the right decision-makers essential. LinkedIn’s precision and attribution ensure every impression, click, and lead is with the exact ICP, allowing revenue from later-stage activity to be traced back to its first LinkedIn touchpoint and giving CMOs clear visibility into the return on their spend.”

This distinction matters when performance is measured beyond surface-level metrics. We ran a head-to-head test between LinkedIn and Meta ads using the same lead magnet, the same budget (£8/day), and the same 7-day timeframe on both platforms.On paper, Meta “won” on volume and cost per lead. But once we looked at qualified leads (i.e., people who actually matched our ICP), the story flipped:

While LinkedIn costs more per lead, it delivered significantly more qualified leads, and a lower cost per qualified lead, which is the metric that actually matters if your goal is pipeline.

Meta Ads generate more total leads (35 vs 30), and at a lower cost per lead (£1.83 vs £2.93), BUT LinkedIn ads generate far more qualified leads, both in absolute terms (25 vs 17) and as a percentage of total leads (83% vs 49%).

Despite higher headline CPL, LinkedIn Ads deliver a lower cost per qualified lead (£3.52 vs £3.67), which makes them more efficient when the objective is sales-ready pipeline rather than raw lead volume.

For CMOs, this has several practical implications: 

• Less time and resources spent filtering out poor-fit leads.
• Cleaner handovers from marketing to sales.
• Higher confidence in pipeline reporting and forecasts.
• A stronger connection between marketing spend and commercial outcomes.

In other words, LinkedIn advertising reduces the hidden costs that don’t appear in ad dashboards but quickly surface downstream, i.e., sales time lost, diluted focus, and stalled pipeline progression. 

When budgets are under pressure, efficiency isn’t about choosing the cheapest channel. It’s about choosing the channel that converts spend into meaningful opportunities with the least friction.

For B2B CMOs judged on revenue impact rather than lead volume, LinkedIn advertising consistently delivers more value per pound spent, even when the initial numbers suggest otherwise.

If you want to see the full breakdown behind these results, including targeting setup, spend, and lead quality analysis, read our report More Leads or Better Leads? The Truth About Meta vs. LinkedIn Ads.

Why LinkedIn Works Best as a Unified Growth Channel

LinkedIn Ads, content, and outreach can all work independently. Many organisations see results using one or two of these levers in isolation.

Where LinkedIn becomes truly powerful, however, is when these elements are deliberately connected and run as a system, rather than as disconnected tactics.

When executed together, LinkedIn supports a clear, reinforcing progression: Visibility → Engagement → Conversion → Scale

• Visibility: Content and advertising ensure the right buying committees see consistent, relevant messaging early in the journey.
• Engagement: Content marketing builds familiarity and trust over time, while profiles and company pages provide immediate credibility when prospects seek validation.
• Conversion: Outreach and follow-up turn attention into meaningful conversations, supported by context buyers have already absorbed through content.
• Scale: Paid activity amplifies what is working, applying budget with precision to proven audiences rather than chasing volume.

Each stage strengthens the next. Paid activity amplifies proven content. Content supports outbound credibility. Outreach converts attention into conversation. Feedback from conversion informs where to focus spend and effort next.

For CMOs focused on pipeline quality and predictability, this integration matters. When LinkedIn is run as a unified growth channel rather than a collection of loosely connected activities, it stops being a platform that is simply “maintained” and becomes one that consistently delivers commercial outcomes.

In an environment of tight budgets, long buying cycles, and heightened scrutiny, this kind of connected execution is what turns LinkedIn from potential into performance.

Why LinkedIn Works Best When Outreach, Content, and Ads Are Run as One

Strong execution across outreach, content, and LinkedIn advertising changes the outcome entirely. Pipeline builds more quickly, conversations improve in quality, and sales teams spend less time filtering and more time selling.

As our CEO Zac Hancox, who has spent many years working across sales and marketing and seen the impact of LinkedIn campaigns across thousands of B2B businesses, explains:

“You can absolutely achieve results through outreach, content, or paid activity on their own, and many of our clients do. Each of those levers can operate independently. But LinkedIn delivers its strongest results when they work together.

Outreach opens conversations, content builds credibility and trust, and paid activity scales visibility with precision. Each one reinforces the others. When one element is missing or poorly executed, performance inevitably softens.

When all three are executed consistently and supported properly, LinkedIn stops being a collection of tactics and becomes a reliable driver of pipeline, revenue, and long-term commercial outcomes.”

That final point on consistency and execution matters a lot. When those elements are in place, LinkedIn moves beyond awareness and short-term wins to start delivering predictable, compounding commercial impact.

This is exactly where many CMOs run into trouble. For most CMOs and marketing teams, the challenge isn’t capability. Its capacity.

In-house teams are skilled, commercially aware, and more than capable of contributing to LinkedIn strategy. But LinkedIn is not a single activity. It’s a combination of moving parts that all need attention at the same time:

• LinkedIn outreach that requires daily monitoring and follow-up.
• Content planning that demands consistency, relevance, and feedback loops.
• Profile and company page optimisation to support credibility and conversion.
• Paid advertising that needs continual testing, targeting refinement, and budget control.
• Reporting that ties all of this back to pipeline, not vanity metrics.

Managing all of that alongside broader brand, campaign, and stakeholder responsibilities quickly becomes unsustainable.

 What often starts as a manageable initiative quickly becomes a bottleneck.

• Outreach messages go out, but follow-ups slip through the cracks.
• Content becomes sporadic or overly safe.
• Ads run, but without enough testing or optimisation to improve performance.
• Reporting becomes backward-looking rather than decision-enabling.

None of this happens because teams aren’t good enough. It happens because LinkedIn demands focus, repetition, and consistency, and, the truth of the matter, most internal teams are already stretched pretty thin.

This is where outsourcing becomes less about “handing work off” and more about protecting momentum.

How Working with a Specialist LinkedIn Marketing Agency Can Unlock Consistent Growth

A specialist LinkedIn agency brings dedicated time, established process, and hands-on experience across outreach, content, and paid activity. This isn’t about doing “more” activity; it’s about maintaining the consistency and discipline LinkedIn requires to perform as a growth channel.

In practice, this means:

• Campaigns don’t pause when internal priorities shift.
• Content cadence remains consistent rather than being deprioritised.
• Outreach sequences continue without gaps or delayed follow-ups.
• Paid activity is actively managed, refined, and adjusted based on performance.

If performance dips, it’s addressed immediately. Messaging, targeting, creative, and sequencing are reviewed and corrected in real time rather than being left to wait.

This approach is underpinned by:

• Multiple specialists across LinkedIn outreach, content, and paid activity.
• Shared insight drawn from previous campaigns.
• Faster diagnosis when engagement or conversion softens.
• Built-in continuity during holidays, sickness, or role changes.

Outsourcing is also materially more cost-effective than building the same capability in-house.

Even a relatively modest internal setup typically requires multiple skill sets: outreach and sales development, content planning and copywriting, paid media management, data handling, and reporting. This usually means either:

• Hiring multiple specialists, OR
• Expecting one or two hires to cover several roles simultaneously.

According to UK averages, a single mid-level marketing or sales development hire costs £35,000–£45,000 per year once salary, employer National Insurance, pension contributions, tooling, and training are factored in.

Building a team capable of covering outreach, content, and paid activity quickly pushes annual costs well beyond £80,000–£100,000, before performance risk is even considered.

By comparison, outsourcing to a specialist LinkedIn marketing agency typically delivers access to a full team for a fraction of that cost, without long-term employment commitments, recruitment delays, or ramp-up time.

There’s also a risk dimension that’s often overlooked. Research consistently shows that single-point dependencies increase execution risk; campaigns stall when people are absent, roles change, or competing priorities arise. Agencies mitigate this by design. Work continues regardless of holidays, sickness, or internal reshuffles, protecting momentum and pipeline continuity.

For CMOs under pressure to deliver pipeline without increasing headcount or overloading internal teams, this reliability becomes a strategic advantage. It turns LinkedIn into a dependable, high-impact growth channel, rather than a platform that’s dipped into occasionally and never used to its full potential.

If you want to see the full cost breakdown of running LinkedIn lead generation in-house — including salaries, tools, overheads, and the hidden risks that stall momentum — read our report In-House vs Outsourced LinkedIn Lead Generation | The Real Cost of Doing It Yourself.

What Revenue-Focused CMOs Need from LinkedIn in 2026

As CMOs look toward 2026, the bar has shifted decisively. Marketing is no longer evaluated solely on the volume of activity or visibility, but on its ability to generate pipeline and demonstrate a clear contribution to revenue. 

LinkedIn is well placed to meet that demand, not because it’s new — it isn’t — but because it sits where B2B buying actually happens. Decision-makers are active there, buying committees are visible, and the platform supports the full journey from awareness through to a sales-qualified conversation.

The challenge isn’t potential. Its execution. When outreach, content, and advertising are treated as separate or occasional efforts, LinkedIn becomes something that’s merely maintained rather than maximised. Activity continues, but impact plateaus.

On the other hand, when those elements are executed with focus, consistency, and intent, LinkedIn behaves very differently. Pipeline becomes more predictable. Conversations improve in quality. Marketing effort translates into measurable commercial outcomes.

For many CMOs, sustaining that level of execution internally is increasingly difficult as teams are stretched across multiple priorities. This is where specialist support shifts from a tactical decision to a strategic one.

In an environment of tight budgets and heightened scrutiny, the real question isn’t whether LinkedIn can drive growth. It’s whether it’s being run in a way that allows it to do so consistently.

At StraightIn, we help B2B teams turn LinkedIn into a dependable growth channel by combining outreach, content, and advertising within a single, focused approach. As a full-service LinkedIn marketing agency, we pair proprietary tools with expert-led strategy, shaped by more than six years of hands-on experience running LinkedIn campaigns at scale.

 If you want to see what that looks like in practice and whether specialist support could help you unlock more value from LinkedIn in 2026 we’re happy to talk. Get in touch today. Call 0161 518 4740 or emailgrow@straight-in.co.uk.