Helping B2B buyers research smarter and faster | Host of the B2B Uncovered podcast

I work with high-growth B2B companies where buying is complex, multi-stakeholder, and rarely linear.

After 20+ years in marketing and sales, across startups, scale-ups, and enterprise teams, I kept seeing the same issue:

Most revenue teams can measure activity.
Few can explain whether buying alignment is actually forming inside their target accounts.

* Signals get mistaken for readiness.
* CRM stages for momentum.
* Enthusiastic champions for commitment.

When alignment is misclassified, pipeline feels unpredictable — even when dashboards look healthy.

To address this, I developed the Demand Momentum model: a way of interpreting how accounts move before opportunity creation.

It focuses on:

• Where an account truly sits
• What evidence supports that classification
• What would constitute real progression
• When regression needs to be recognised

GoGTM operationalises this thinking inside defined account universes.

We apply structured classification, buying-group visibility, and signal interpretation to make account movement legible before pipeline is created.

This work is suited to growth-stage B2B companies with meaningful ACV and cross-functional buying groups — where alignment across roles determines outcomes.

If that environment sounds familiar, we should talk.

📍 Based in London. Work globally.

Paul Denham

B2B Marketing Leader

Experienced B2B marketing leader with over 15 years of experience working with the world's largest brands and most distributive start-ups.

Creator of B2B Excellence, a weekly newsletter that curates the best B2B marketing content from the brightest minds in our industry +4500 Subscribers -  https://www.b2bexcellence.co/

Chris Peters

Today is my last day at WPP.

It’s been a privilege and pleasure to lead the B2B Global Wavemaker team.

A huge thank you to my amazing peers and team. It’s been a rollercoaster to say the least, starting out as the little B2B team in the corner, to the rapid expansion and establishing the B2B team as one of the leading departments for revenue growth.

There are too many people to thank, but I have learnt so much from those in senior leadership, as well as the account execs starting their careers.

To my lovely clients, thank you for your support. Especially those whom I have worked with for my entire time at Wavemaker. I count over 200 clients during my time at WM!

The unsung heroes of media. The partners and vendors. Last minute briefs and endless “favours”. You have been a huge part of our success, whilst providing some amazing experiences along the way.

So many laughs, so much learnt, but one hell of a journey. 

For me, a new chapter awaits.

Next week, I will be diving headfirst into my new life in the world of B2B Influencer Marketing.

Watch this space for more details.

Moon At Dawn launches today.

Our mission is simple. 

We help B2B brands turn influencers from a social experiment into their next performance channel.

In a sea of sameness, trust is often the differentiator between winning a deal or not.

Will Beech and I are launching an end-to-end B2B Influencer Agency to help brands partner with trusted voices that move the needle for their business. 

Our Aurora Operating System is designed to deliver outcomes and results for businesses, not just vanity metrics.

Context Led Discovery - Our proprietary technology and methodology uses multiple data points and signals to identify the most effective influencers for your brand and campaigns. 

Omnichannel Distribution - We help B2B brands leverage the trust and authority from influencers, and create content to be distributed in the environments their buyers spend their time.

Outcome-Based Pricing - The future of agencies isn’t built on retainers and hourly rates. It's built on outcomes. Whether that’s lead generation, account reach or content engagement.

We’re grateful for all the interest so far, and we're excited to speak to the 30 different teams over the next 2 weeks!

A big thank you to our amazing investors who believed in our vision.

Get in touch with me or Will Beech to learn more about how Moon At Dawn can help you partner with the most influential voices for your category.

Over £25,000 raised for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity!

Congratulations to Jordan Adams, Mirza Fur, James Foulkes for their jam packed charity pub quiz fundraiser.

Over 125 B2B marketers in attendance, with over 100 on the waiting list!

Well done to one of the sponsors B2B Marketing, with the remarkable 
(questionable) 95 out of 100 in the pub quiz. 

Lots of friendly faces, great fun, and a beer funded charitable cause.

My partner in crime (Will Beech) to help me build and shape Moon At Dawn.

Will and I came together and decided to build a B2B Influencer Agency that helps brands collaborate with influencers.

Our approach addresses fundamental flaws with how influencer marketing is currently done for B2B brands.

B2B Influencer Marketing 1.0

1- The discovery and vetting of influencers is predicated on a B2C influencer style model. Find and collaborate with the loudest voices. Pay a premium on effective reach, measure impressions and clicks.

2 -  Rely on organic social algorithms to reach the audience it deems fit. Whilst this has a role, the results will differ widely depending on the brand and approach. So much opportunity and output is left on the table.

3 - Pay per post pricing. It reinforces short-term tactics and places all of the investment exposure on brands, with no upside for influencers. 

B2B Influencer Marketing 2.0

1- Signal and context-led discovery. Use technology and a strategic framework to unearth influential voices for your niche audience. Remove vanity-led discovery and de-risk influencer selection with data.

2 - Meet buyers where they spend their time. Social is one key component to that, but creating content with influencers that can be distributed and repurposed across the entire digital ecosystem. This includes programmatic display, audio and newsletters.

3- Outcome-based pricing. Use more sophisticated modelling to develop pricing that is based on the outcomes of the collaboration, and remove the layers of fees. Agency, talent, tech, paid media. Simplify pricing and make it about the brand outcomes.

It’s my first formal week after leaving my post at WPP and launching Moon at Dawn.

Thank you to LBBonline - Little Black Book and Zhenya Tsenzharyk for their coverage of our story. You can check it out here. https://lnkd.in/eQ47_3-n

A week of industry events, a jam-packed diary with new prospects and strategic partners.

Agency Founder life has well and truly started.

Will Beech and I have been blown away by the support, engagement and interest.

Please follow me for more positively provocative views on the status play for B2B Influencer Marketing, and more updates on our ambitions to become the leading B2B Influencer Agency.

Open article: WPP Senior Partner Departs to Set Up B2B Influencer Agency, Moon at Dawn | LBBOnline by tinyurl.com

WPP Senior Partner Departs to Set Up B2B Influencer Agency, Moon at Dawn | LBBOnline

2 key takeaways & insights from IAA’s latest B2B talks that could completely change your thinking on the B2B buyers' journey.

<>Rethinking the 95/5 rule, from the latest research from Stein. and 6sense.

There are no perfectly ringfenced cohorts of buyers who are either in or out of market.

We have the murky middle. 

Buyers evaluating. 

They might not have a direct, immediate need. They might float in and out of market. But your product or service is on their agenda.

This feels like a better representation of the realities of buying operations. 

Budgets are cut, different priorities take over, a once a buyer in market could very quickly be out, and vice versa.

A brilliant insight to rethink the 95/5, with the less catchy 60/34/6. Check it out here. https://lnkd.in/eivNJp8w

<> B2B Buyers want ammunition and confidence to defend their decision to buy you.

Trust is becoming the real currency of B2B brands.

Your buyers care more about justifying their decision to work with you vs the price and features.

Thought leadership, trust by association with key influencers, and building brand are all key components to convincing your risk averse future buyer to justify working with you.

Check out one of Mimi Turner's original posts https://lnkd.in/e-w6HYUa

Despite a more brief synopsis this week, we had an abundance of thought leadership and standout content.

<>Decoding TOFU: The Mythical Land of Maybes

<>Sameness is rarely chosen deliberately.

<>Most B2B companies treat brand like a campaign. A launch. A refresh. A new website. A burst of energy. Then they move on.

<>Why B2B is embracing documentary formats

<>Brand strategy is changing. But many teams have yet to recalibrate

<>B2B Influencer Marketing is not mutually exclusive to social media

<>We spend $800 billion a year on advertising. Then we pray customers don't actually contact us.

Plus a lot more!

B2B Excellence helps declutter your thinking with a curation of content that is original, provocative, intelligent or creates a conversation that chal

Open article: A decision I can defend if it goes wrong by Chris Peters • 2 min read

B2B Influencer Marketing is not mutually exclusive to social media.

Your B2B buyers are spending over 7 hours a day in the digital ecosystem, and just 20 minutes of that is on LinkedIn.

When your GTM plans layers in multiple channels and formats, you can see up to 3x the performance.

Whether that's more efficient leads, an increase in spontaneous awareness or higher engagement for key accounts.

Unlocking an influencer first or an influencer component to your tactical activation further amplifies the performance of that program.

Buyers want to hear from people, and influencer enabled tactics can support your ABM, Lead Gen, Event, and Thought Leadership strategy. 

Influencer marketing isn’t defined by its own ring fenced budget, it’s a core component of your entire GTM motion.

Don’t wait for that budget approval for influencer marketing to get started. Review your content laydown, campaign approach, and use influencers as a distribution medium to activate those campaigns.

Most brands are still adopting the vibe influencer marketing approach for their B2B campaigns.

Influencer 1.0 is predicated on this simple formula.

<>You find 5-10 influencers you’ve "heard of" in your feed.
<>You pay a flat fee for an organic social post.
<>You hope the algorithm likes it.

This isn't a strategy. It's an expensive experiment.

We need to shift from "Vibe-based" influencer marketing to Signal-based programs.

Instead, use strategy, signals, context and creativity.

<>Start with the goal of the campaign, not the influencers.

<>Use a broad suite of data, signals and context to identify influencers.

<>Review the wider campaign mix, and build an omnichannel strategy that helps you amplify their influence.

<> Build a program that incorporates hybrid influencer pricing, organic modelling and paid media distribution.

<> Weave in metrics that include ICP engagement, cost per account engagement and a sentiment analysis on how your buyers respond to the content.

Follow me and Will Beech for more tips on B2B Influencer Marketing, as we set to grow Moon At Dawn.

B2B Influencer Marketing is your next performance channel, and I am going to show you how to do it!

Thank you to René Marek 🔥 for inviting me to speak at his next Lead Summit, where I will be diving into the frameworks and tactical playbooks for unlocking partnerships with influencers.

In my session, I’ll go into detail on the practical topics that you can apply for your business

<> How to use signal based intel to discover the most effective influencers for your business, and the GTM programs you’re running

<> The different creative executions you can adopt for your influencer program that help serve a demand gen program, an ABM strategy or brand awareness

<> I will share the key mistakes on where brands go wrong with influencers and how to avoid them

<> Cost efficient strategies for brands that have restricted budgets

For more information on tickets, check out https://bit.ly/4rXEX1W where you can see their amazing speakers such as Liana Hakobyan Joe M-C 🧙 Pasha Irshad Spencer Tahil Daniel Zsolt Rényi Silvio Perez Luuk de Jonge

B2B Influencers are becoming an increasingly critical part of your AI search strategy.

My Co-Founder, Will Beech posted earlier today “YouTube is cited 200x more than any other video platform in AI-generated answers.

LinkedIn is now appearing in up to 15% of Google AI Mode responses and growing 4 to 5x faster than its previous citation baseline.

Social platforms collectively account for 20 to 36% of what AI engines serve as answers, depending on which one you're using.”

Third-party validation has always been a key aspect of discoverability in search, now as the search landscape incorporates more and more LLM-first behaviours, our approach to the being discovered needs to shift.

Content creators and thought leaders are now influencing what your buyers are searching for when they turn to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, but also, what shows up.

Credible industry leaders will emerge as a key component to your GEO over the coming months.

We are building something to help unlock the potential here, not GEO, but something to aid in meaningfully influence search through citation optimised external validation of your brand content and thought leadership.

We’re looking for a few marketers interested in LLM thinking through the lens of influencer marketing. Please reach out to Will or I to learn more about what we’re building.

AI readiness is not scare mongering, a buzzword or even a throw away comment. It’s an essential part of our strategy, a cultural shift and an essential tool for your buyers as they go about thinking about solving their problems.

This week, we dive into new data that highlights the shift in B2B behaviours. 

-

I love to consume LinkedIn content that encourages polarising perspectives. 

Provocative POVs can entice good, healthy debate, and challenge default thinking and opinions that could benefit from a reset.

Two great conversations this week that generated lots of comments and POVs.

>  “Every marketer should be compensated on closed-won revenue.”
> Ungating all your content.

That plus a lot more!

Most B2B attribution is confidently… wrong!

B2B Influencer Marketing - The Infrastructure Finally Exists

Two things marketers are obsessed with in Q1

Open article: AI is influencing B2B decision making. Are you ready? by Chris Peters • 3 min read

AI is influencing B2B decision making. Are you ready?

B2B Influencer Marketing is not a new phenomenon. 

Trade press titles, journalists, and event speakers all led the way to the original orchestration of influence.

But it's growing up, and evolving. 

This week, we dive into the common misconceptions of working with influencers, the opportunities, the current status play and the direction of flight.

Open article: B2B Influencer marketing is here to stay by Chris Peters • 3 min read

Can the B2B influencers you collaborate with actually influence your buyers if they never see your partnership?

B2B Influencer Marketing 1.0 was simple.

When you had an audience, and you posted on social media,  a significant proportion of their audience saw it.

LinkedIn has now evolved.

Organic posting is wild and unpredictable.

Influencer prices continue to rise.

But content consumption is likely stagnating or even reducing for individual influencers.

The opportunity is ensuring your collaboration and their influence is seen by the buyers that matter to you, and to meet them where they spend their time, not just on social.

Take the influence and trust from your influencer, and create campaigns that sit within audio, programmatic and newsletters.

B2B Influencer Marketing 2.0 won’t be based on vanity metrics and organic distribution. 

It's based on data and distribution.

B2C Influencer Marketing has shaped how B2B brands approach influencer marketing.

This has helped kick start the application of working with B2B content creators and subject matter experts.

Tech brands have led the way with adoption. Leaning into collaborations for content amplification and campaign support.

We’re now seeing the emergence of brands leading with influencer-first content and collaborations.

This approach has helped raise awareness and provided the opportunity to showcase how to work with influencers.

Despite being very early, we’re seeing the space slowly mature and be less B2C focus, and we’re seeing B2B carve out its own path for working with influencers.

Discovery - shifting from vanity metrics such as high follower count being the proxy for a “good” influencer. To signal based, contextual led discovery. 

Distribution - Social first, to omnichannel. Taking the trust and authority from influencers to distribute across the different channels where buyers spend their time.

Pricing - Removing the exposure for brands with cost per post modelling, to outcome based modelling that makes sense for B2B brands, but carries upside and opportunity for influencers.

taplio

The Battle

Paul Denham

Chris Peters

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreChris Peters's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Paul Denham

Chris Peters

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Chris Peters's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreChris Peters's LinkedIn Performance