In this episode of the Immediate Future podcast, Tom Platt is joined by Immediate Future Managing Director Colin Jacobs to explore why B2B paid social is facing more scrutiny than ever before and what marketers need to do to prove its value.

As budgets tighten and leadership teams demand clearer evidence of commercial impact, many B2B marketers are finding themselves under pressure to demonstrate how paid social contributes to pipeline growth, lead generation, and revenue. The challenge isn't that paid social is broken. The challenge is that many organisations are still measuring, reporting, and deploying it using outdated approaches.

Throughout the conversation, Colin shares why data integration has become the defining factor in paid social success. He explains how many businesses continue to rely on disconnected reporting systems that fail to capture the true influence of social media on customer journeys. From LinkedIn Insight Tags and CRM integrations to custom conversion events and end-to-end attribution, the discussion highlights the practical steps brands can take to move beyond vanity metrics and demonstrate genuine business outcomes.

The episode also tackles one of the most common misconceptions in B2B marketing: the belief that LinkedIn alone can drive immediate demand generation. Colin argues that successful paid social strategies require a broader view of audience behaviour, recognising that decision-makers spend time across multiple platforms and often need between five and nine meaningful touch points before they are ready to convert.

Whether you're struggling to demonstrate ROI, improve attribution, increase lead quality, or simply make sense of evolving platform algorithms, this episode offers practical guidance for building a more effective B2B paid social programme.

Across a lot of marketing teams, the same headache keeps turning up. People are being pushed towards follower counts, posting frequency, channel debates, and quick-win lead pressure when the bigger problem is weaker fundamentals, reduced senior experience, and too little confidence to push back.

It also builds on Immediate Future’s recent work on practical AI for marketers and social search readiness, where the same pattern keeps surfacing: more tools and more activity do not save time when decision-making is weak.

That matters because the market has got harder, not easier.

Here is the backdrop worth using in the live:

· 74% of CMOs say they are under more scrutiny to prove marketing ROI. The money is watched more closely and every line of spend is being picked over.

· Marketing budgets are flat at 7.7% of company revenue, and 59% of CMOs say they do not have enough budget to execute their strategy.

· In the GTM Confidence Index FY26, only 9% of senior B2B leaders say they are highly confident in achieving their 2026 growth targets. 44% report fragmented stacks and 34% say lack of AI skills is the main barrier to making AI effective.

· In 6sense’s 2025 buyer research, buying groups average 10+ people, journeys take nearly a year, and buyers fill most of their shortlist on day one, then buy from that shortlist 85% to 95% of the time.

· Edelman and LinkedIn found 95% of hidden buyers say compelling thought leadership makes them more open to outreach, and 79% are more likely to champion a vendor during an RFP if that vendor consistently publishes quality thought leadership.

· Forrester says 94% of B2B buyers now use AI in purchasing. In a later 2026 note, it says buyers use AI to research product information (54%) and compare products (55%).

· Metricool’s 2025 study suggests LinkedIn is still a useful attention environment for B2B, with interactions up 122%, clicks up 99%, engagement up 51%, and average impressions up 33% year on year.

Put simply, marketers are under pressure to prove value while buyers are doing more of their homework before sales ever gets near them. That means the old lazy questions are actively unhelpful.

In this episode, Katy Howell, CEO at Immediate Future, sits down with Maxine Ashbrook, Marketing Director UK at Fujitsu, for a senior, no-nonsense conversation about the messy middle of modern B2B marketing.

Today’s buyers are shortlisting without you in the room. Boards want ROI yesterday. And marketing teams are under constant pressure to deliver more with less. So what actually needs to change?

Maxine shares a perspective leaders genuinely need. Instead of trying to outwork the chaos, she reworked the system reshaping team structures, redefining operating rhythms, and changing how marketing shows up internally. The result? Less time lost to friction, rework, and internal politics and more focus on what drives impact.

Social plays a key role in this approach. It acts as the fastest, most visible signal of whether your story, proof, and internal alignment are truly landing. But at its core, this episode is about something bigger: engineering marketing to fit the reality we’re all operating in.

If you’re navigating the pressure of modern B2B and looking for a smarter way forward, this is a conversation worth your time.