Sixty-one percent of B2B buyers complete their research before contacting a vendor, according to Search Engine Journal.
By then, they may already have formed an opinion about which suppliers are worth considering.
That leaves sales teams entering a process that has already happened largely out of sight, with 85% of buyers choosing from the shortlist they created on day one and 90% having prior experience with at least one vendor they considered.
A company that isn't trusted early can be ruled out before its sales team gets a chance to make its case.
A website, portal, or marketplace has to help people find answers, compare options, and decide what to do next without forcing them to wait for a sales conversation.
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Isadora Agency helps brands turn complex digital experiences into clearer customer journeys, combining strategy, UX, content and technology.
Its president, Isadora Marlow-Morgan, says B2B buyers are increasingly making those evaluations before speaking to sales.
“B2B buyers aren't waiting for sales to shape their opinion anymore,” Marlow-Morgan says.
“By the time they raise their hand, your digital experience may have already determined whether you made the shortlist”
Do B2B Buyers Prefer Self-Service?
Sixty-seven percent of B2B buyers prefer to buy without a sales representative, according to Gartner.
And buyers are already using other tools to do it. Gartner surveyed 646 B2B buyers in August and September 2025, and 45% said they had used AI during a recent purchase.
A lot of the early work can happen before anyone from sales gets involved.
Buyers can:
- Look up a product
- Compare suppliers
- Find answers to basic questions
- Decide who they want to talk to
By the time they reach out, they may have more specific questions or be ready to discuss what they need.
“The job of a digital experience is to make sure a buyer can keep moving when they aren't ready to talk to anyone yet,” Marlow-Morgan says.
“If they have to stop and ask for information they expected to find themselves, the experience is creating friction at the wrong point.”
That experience can directly affect whether a buyer stays in consideration.
Case in point: 76% of B2B buyers say they will avoid doing business with suppliers that provide bad website experiences, according to Gartner.
A poor website can therefore push a supplier out of the buying process before sales gets involved.
The opportunity is to design the site around the questions buyers are trying to answer: Is this right for my business? How is it different? Can I trust it? What will it cost, and what happens next?
“The website should anticipate the questions sales hears every day and answer them before the buyer has to ask. Good information architecture isn't just about helping people find pages. It's about deliberately moving them closer to a decision.” Marlow-Morgan says.
“When those pieces are hard to find, a company is asking the buyer to do extra work for no good reason.”
Fifty-six percent of B2B decision-makers say they would abandon a purchase or switch suppliers after a poor-quality omnichannel customer experience, McKinsey found.
B2B decision-makers use an average of 10.2 channels during a purchase.
A buyer might find a company through search, visit its website, check a marketplace, and return later through another channel.
The information needs to hold up across all of them. Product details, messaging, and next steps should make sense wherever the buyer encounters them.
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“Every channel is contributing to the same buying decision” Marlow-Morgan says.
“If your website, marketplace and AI results tell different stories, you're making the buyer reconcile your business for you.”
AI is changing that equation. Brands increasingly need to structure their digital content not only for people navigating a website, but for the AI platforms those buyers use to research and compare vendors.
Clear product information, differentiated claims, authoritative proof points and well-structured content give those systems better source material to work from.
“If buyers are asking AI about your company, your website needs to give AI the right answer. Brands have to be much more deliberate about the information they publish and the narrative they're giving these systems to work with.” Marlow-Morgan says.
Seventy percent of B2B buyers prefer a completely digital, self-service buying experience, according to Gartner.
And they’re using plenty of sources to get there, with buyers turning to an average of seven information sources during a purchase, while 45% use generative AI to research vendors and products.
“Self-service only works when the experience respects the buyer's time,” says Marlow-Morgan.
“That means putting the right information in the right place and making the path through it obvious. You don't need to remove every human interaction, but you do need to remove the unnecessary ones.”
What Should a B2B Website Include?
The goal isn't to replace sales. It's to make the digital experience do more of the work that happens before sales enters, guiding buyers from initial research to informed consideration.
A digital experience should make that work easier:
- Give buyers the information they came for. Product details, pricing, comparisons, and other research material should be easy to find without contacting sales.
- Keep information consistent across channels. Buyers may move between a website, portal, marketplace, search, and AI tools during one purchase, so they shouldn't encounter conflicting information along the way.
- Make the next step easy to take. A buyer ready for a demo, signup, download, or quote shouldn't have to hunt for the relevant option.
- Get in front of buyers early. If the shortlist is being formed before sales gets involved, the company needs to be useful while buyers are still researching their options.
For APS Payroll, Isadora Agency rebuilt the website around the questions and pathways prospects use to evaluate an HCM provider, with product and industry content, educational resources and conversion flows designed to progressively move buyers toward sales.
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The site also connects those actions to Salesforce, giving the sales team visibility from the first click through to the booked call.
APS Payroll saw gains across both conversion and engagement:
- 72% increase in conversions
- 203% increase in engaged sessions through paid channels
Rather than forcing every prospect down the same funnel, the experience supports different levels of intent.
Product and industry pages answer more specific evaluation questions, while content tagging and cross-linking help buyers continue their research until they're ready to take the next step.
“Everything has a spot. It's very well organized. I feel like we could hire someone else on the team and they could probably be doing website stuff within a week. It's straightforward,” Rachel Maner, Director of Marketing at APS Payroll, was quoted as saying.
The work is continuing after launch, with APS adding paid media and CRO testing to increase visibility and test conversion paths.
A high-performing B2B website doesn't just generate the sales conversation. It does enough of the work upfront that buyers arrive informed, confident, and ready to move forward.
