Yes, but mostly before anyone in sales sees it. B2B buyers now rank vendors before the first sales conversation, and the 2024 to 2026 research shows that expert content from senior people shapes that ranking, gets companies invited into deals and correlates with revenue. What the data cannot yet do is tie a single post to a single closed deal.
#1. 94% of buyers rank their shortlist before talking to sales
The 6sense 2025 Buyer Experience Report, built on nearly 4,000 survey responses, found that buyers make first contact with sellers 61% of the way through their journey, earlier than the 69% recorded in prior editions. By then, 94% of buying groups have already put their shortlist in order of preference. In the main survey, 77% said their first vendor conversation was with the vendor they eventually bought from. Buyers also start the conversation themselves: 79% initiated contact.
The implication for founders is plain. If the preference forms before outreach, the founder's public thinking is one of the few things a company controls during that silent stretch.
#2. 86% of decision-makers would invite a strong thought leader into an RFP
The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report surveyed 3,484 global business executives. Its most pipeline-relevant numbers:
- 86% of decision-makers said they were moderately or very likely to invite an organization that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership to take part in an RFP.
- More than 75% of decision-makers and C-suite executives said a piece of thought leadership had led them to research a product or service they had not been considering.
- 9 in 10 said they were more receptive to sales or marketing outreach from such an organization.
- Nearly 73% said thought leadership is a more trustworthy basis for judging a company's capabilities than its marketing materials.
Only 38% of producers expected their content to win RFP invitations. Buyers rate the effect higher than the people creating the content do.
#3. The 2025 follow-up points to the buyers sales never meets
The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn study of nearly 2,000 professionals focused on "hidden buyers", the people who influence a purchase without appearing in the CRM. As reported by Demand Gen Report, 63% of hidden buyers spend more than an hour a week on thought leadership, and 79% of respondents said they were more likely to champion a vendor in an RFP if it consistently publishes quality thought leadership. 53% said strong thought leadership makes brand recognition matter less, which is directly relevant to young companies with no brand to lean on.
That matters because buying groups are large. Forrester's State of Business Buying 2024 puts the average at 13 people per purchase decision. A founder's posts reach several of them at once.
#4. The direct evidence: executive posting tracked against revenue
Survey data shows intent. Revenue data is scarcer. The most direct study found is a 2024 European Marketing Academy paper by Roberto Mora Cortez (University of Southern Denmark). It analyzed 158 weeks of data from a multinational B2B service firm and found that CEO and CMO posting on LinkedIn "is associated directly and indirectly (e.g., website visits) with sales revenue." A second study with 900 participants tested why.
Paid amplification of individual voices shows a similar pattern. In a LinkedIn customer story, Snowflake's Thought Leader Ads reached a 5.6% clickthrough rate, 2.7 times its Single Image Ads, and a promoted post from one of its developer advocates hit a 21.2% CTR and drove 64 sign-ups.
#5. LinkedIn's own numbers favour knowledge posts
In its July 2026 earnings highlights, LinkedIn reported that time spent on content grew 10% year over year, knowledge-oriented posts increased 24%, and time spent reading comments rose 18%. Knowledge posts, the kind a founder can write from direct experience, are the category the platform says is growing.
#6. Where the evidence is weak
Attribution is the gap. In the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn report, only 29% of producers said they could link sales leads back to specific thought leadership pieces. Buyers also avoid sellers: a Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers found 61% prefer a rep-free buying experience and 73% actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. Content does its work where dashboards do not look, so last-click reporting will undercount it.
| Finding | Number | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Buying groups that rank their shortlist before contacting sellers | 94% | 6sense, 2025 |
| First vendor contacted that wins the deal | 77% | 6sense, 2025 |
| Decision-makers likely to invite a strong thought leader into an RFP | 86% | Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024 |
| Producers who can link leads to specific content | 29% | Edelman-LinkedIn, 2024 |
| Buyers who prefer a rep-free experience | 61% | Gartner, 2025 |
| Growth in knowledge-oriented posts on LinkedIn | 24% | LinkedIn, 2026 |
#What this means for a founder
- Write for the shortlist, not the click. Publish the specific problems you solve and how you think about them, so a buyer ranking vendors in silence has evidence to rank you first.
- Measure self-reported attribution. Add "Where did you first hear about us?" as a free-text field on demo forms and log answers that name the founder's posts. That captures what the 29% figure says most teams miss.
- Put budget behind posts that already work. Promote top-performing founder posts as Thought Leader Ads to named target accounts, where LinkedIn's own case data shows higher clickthrough than standard formats.
By Shruti Kaushik
#Sources
- 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report. 6sense. 2025. https://6sense.com/science-of-b2b/buyer-experience-report-2025/
- 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report. Edelman and LinkedIn. 2024. https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2024-02/_2024%20Edelman-LinkedIn%20B2B%20Thought%20Leadership%20Impact%20Report%20Final.pdf
- 2025 B2B Thought Leadership Report. Edelman and LinkedIn. 2025. https://www.edelman.com/expertise/business-marketing/2025-b2b-thought-leadership-report
- Marketers Need to Gear Content to Hidden B2B Buyers: Edelman/LinkedIn. Demand Gen Report. 2025. https://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-news/news-brief/marketers-need-to-gear-content-to-hidden-b2b-buyers-edelman-linkedin/49901/
- Forrester: To Master B2B Buying Mayhem, Providers Must Prioritize Buyers' Needs (The State of Business Buying, 2024). Forrester. 2024. https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-the-state-of-business-buying-2024
- The B2B CEO and CMO LinkedIn Posting Influence on Sales Revenue. Roberto Mora Cortez, Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC). 2024. https://proceedings.emac-online.org/pdfs/A2024-119902.pdf
- Snowflake customer story (Thought Leader Ads). LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Undated (campaigns run in 2024). https://business.linkedin.com/advertise/customer-stories/snowflake
- Q4 Earnings and Business Highlights. LinkedIn Pressroom. 2026. https://news.linkedin.com/2026/q4-earnings-and-business-highlights
- Gartner Sales Survey Finds 61% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Buying Experience. Gartner. 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-sales-survey-finds-61-percent-of-b2b-buyers-prefer-a-rep-free-buying-experience