How can you win a race when you can’t see 73% of the track? That’s essentially the problem B2B marketers are dealing with today. According to The APAC B2B Buyer Journey Research Report by Green Hat and 6sense, B2B buyers spend nearly three-quarters of their buying journey researching anonymously before ever contacting a vendor. This is the “dark funnel” in B2B—the invisible but critical phase where buying decisions are increasingly being made. 

If you want to become a standout in your market, you need to not only understand this dark funnel but find ways to navigate through the darkness, implement tools and strategies, and meet your audience where they’re at. The good news: You can make more moves than you might realize. 

What Is the Dark Funnel?

The dark funnel represents the portion of the B2B buying journey that happens outside your visibility. This is the stage where buying groups are gathering everything they need to know to make a decision. This includes:

• Researching business problems and solutions
• Forming vendor shortlists
• Developing requirements
• Making initial vendor preferences
• Consulting with analysts and peers

They’re doing all of this before you even know they’re in the market (and usually over a long period of time). By the time these prospects emerge from the dark funnel, research shows they’ve likely already made their decision. 

82% of buying teams have requirements mostly set before vendor contact.

82% also reach out to their preferred (and eventual winning) vendor first.

The average buying journey spans 13 months, with first vendor contact typically happening around 9.5 months. 

With such long lead times and so much decision-making happening before first contact, there is a great deal of action that may feel out of your control. However, consider this: Buying groups average 12.8 people and have 1,280 interactions during their journey. Each one of those interactions presents an opportunity to identify, engage, and move your audience down the funnel—before you ever have your first sales conversation. 

How to Illuminate the Dark Funnel

From IP identification to interactive tools, there are many ways you can optimize your marketing strategy to make stronger inroads into the dark funnel. The key is focusing on smaller components that contribute to the larger journey (and using the right tools and tactics to enhance those smaller components). Here are some of the most powerful ways to do that. 

1) Start by tracking intent signals.

Data tools can do a great deal of heavy lifting, helping you identify buying signals long before anyone reaches out to you. 

Explore topic-based intent monitoring.

• Use platforms like 6sense, Bombora, or ZoomInfo to track research on specific topics.
• Create comprehensive keyword clusters around your solution area.
• Monitor competitor research patterns.
• Track industry-specific pain points and challenges.

Example: A cloud security company might track searches around “zero trust architecture,” “cloud compliance,” and “security mesh architecture” to identify companies actively researching security solutions.

Use surge detection.

• Establish baseline research activity levels for target accounts.
• Set up alerts for significant increases in relevant content consumption.
• Monitor spikes in specific topic areas.
• Track changes in research patterns over time.

Pro tip: Look for multiple stakeholders from the same company researching similar topics—this often indicates an active buying committee.

Look for cross-channel engagement.

• Monitor social media engagement with industry content.
• Track attendance at relevant webinars and virtual events.
• Observe participation in industry forums and communities.
• Analyze email engagement patterns with industry newsletters.

Pro tip: Look for “forwarding chains” where your newsletter gets shared within an organization. For instance, if your technical whitepaper gets forwarded from IT to Finance to Procurement, this often indicates an active evaluation process.

2) De-anonymize web traffic.

With helpful tech tools, you can better understand who’s looking up your solutions and adjust your strategy accordingly. 

Implement IP-based account identification.

• Try reverse IP lookup tools like KickFire.
• Cross-reference visiting IPs with your target account list.
• Use account-based marketing (ABM) platforms to identify company-level activity.
• Set up alerts for high-value account visits.

Pro tip: Don’t just track the account – track the context. When a target account is identified through IP lookup, immediately capture their entry point (like a Google search for “enterprise workflow automation”) and subsequent page path. This initial context often reveals their specific pain point or use case, allowing you to prepare more relevant content and outreach strategies for when they do make contact.

Analyze behavioral patterns. 

• Create visitor journey maps based on content consumption.
• Identify common paths through your website.
• Track time spent on different resource types.
• Monitor return visitor patterns.

Example: A visitor who reviews your pricing page, then technical documentation, then case studies might indicate a technical buyer building a business case.

Track resource access and engagement. 

• Implement progressive profiling for gated content.
• Track PDF downloads and video views.
• Monitor tool and calculator usage.
• Analyze webinar registration and attendance patterns.

Example: Let’s say a prospect first downloads your “Cloud Migration Basics” whitepaper, then two weeks later views your technical implementation video, and finally accesses your TCO calculator. A week later, three more people from the same company register for your “Cloud Migration Best Practices” webinar. This progression of resource access—from educational, to technical, to financial content, followed by multiple stakeholder engagement—typically indicates an active buying committee moving through their evaluation process. This pattern should trigger internal alerts to begin warming up personalized outreach content for each stakeholder role. 

3) Create illuminating content. 

Develop content that serves as “light sources” in the dark funnel by addressing specific buying committee needs. 

Publish educational resources.

• Create “101” guides for industry newcomers.
• Develop in-depth technical whitepapers.
• Produce industry trend analysis reports.
• Offer best practice guides and frameworks.

Example: HubSpot’s comprehensive inbound marketing certification courses serve as educational resources while positioning them as industry authorities.

Produce quality thought leadership.

• Share original research and insights.
• Create predictive trend analysis.
• Develop point-of-view pieces on industry challenges.
• Publish expert interviews and perspectives.

Pro tip: Think “ecosystem” rather than “ego-system” with your thought leadership. Instead of just publishing your own perspectives, create content that brings together insights from customers, industry experts, and even competitors to address complex industry challenges. For example, after years of creating our own content, we launched the Best Story Wins podcast to spotlight voices of other marketing leaders who are winning hearts, minds, and market share. This collaboration has helped expand our network, increase our knowledge, and amplify our reach via through our guests’ networks. 

Provide evaluation tools.

• Create interactive ROI calculators.
• Offer solution comparison matrices.
• Provide easy-to-use self-assessment tools.
• Draft implementation readiness checklists.

Pro tip: Create content that helps buyers make decisions, not just understand your product. For example, a “Build vs. Buy Calculator” could help your prospects evaluate options objectively. (On that note, interactive content is especially helpful for evaluation.)

4) Enable self-service research.

Remember that much of the dark funnel is buyers doing their own research. Therefore, one of the best things you can do is make it easy for buying committees to find and share information. 

Create resource centers. 

• Organize content by role (e.g., Technical, Business, Financial).
• Create clear pathways for different stages of research.
• Implement strong search functionality.
• Provide content in multiple formats (e.g., text, video, interactive).

Example: Salesforce’s Trailhead platform offers self-paced learning paths for different roles and experience levels.

Improve your product information architecture.

• Create clear feature comparison tables.
• Provide detailed technical specifications.
• Offer implementation guides.
• Include integration documentation.

Pro tip: Build your product documentation like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Different stakeholders need different levels of detail at different times. A CTO might want to dive straight into security specifications, while a project manager needs implementation timelines first. Structure your documentation with clear “jumping off points” for different roles and scenarios.

For example, create a central hub page with paths like “For Technical Decision Makers → Security & Compliance,” “For Project Managers → Implementation Roadmap,” and “For Developers → API Documentation.” These are the types of small but significant interactions that help people find exactly what they need, when they need it. (And considering that buying groups engage with an average of 5 vendors, these are the types of things that can make you stand out.) 

Be transparent with pricing.

• Publish clear pricing tiers.
• Explain pricing models and calculations.
• Provide TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) guidelines.
• Include common add-ons and options.

Example: Implement an interactive pricing calculator that allows prospects to model different scenarios without speaking to sales.

Show social proof. 

• Feature detailed case studies by industry.
• Include specific metrics and outcomes.
• Share video testimonials from peers.
• Highlight third-party reviews and ratings.

Pro tip: Organize testimonials by industry, company size, and use case to help prospects find relevant examples quickly. (You should also shape your customer success stories into compelling narratives.) 

Provide technical documentation. 

• Provide API documentation.
• Include security and compliance details.
• Offer implementation guides.
• Create troubleshooting resources.

Remember: The goal is to empower buying committees to conduct thorough research independently while positioning your brand as the most helpful and authoritative source of information.

How to Measure Dark Funnel Impact

While the dark funnel is, by definition, harder to measure, there are touchpoints throughout the journey that can give you insights. Make sure you have the tools and infrastructure set up to monitor: 

• Anonymous website visitor patterns
• Content engagement metrics
• Resource download trends
• Industry mention volume
• Share of voice in key channels
• Intent data signals

Pro tip: Create a dark funnel dashboard that tracks leading indicators of future pipeline. To build your own dashboard, start by:

1. Tracking current customers’ pre-purchase behavior patterns.
2. Identifying which combinations of anonymous actions most often preceded sales conversations.
3. Setting baseline metrics for normal activity levels.
4. Creating alerts for significant deviations from these baselines.

This approach turns abstract dark funnel data into actionable intelligence for both your marketing and sales teams.

Navigating the Dark Path Forward

The truth is the dark funnel isn’t going away—in fact, it’s likely to become even more significant as digital research capabilities expand. If you want to be successful, you’ll need to:

1. Accept that much of the buying journey happens without your direct involvement.
2. Create content and resources that support independent research.
3. Build brand awareness and credibility that influences early-stage decisions.
4. Implement tools and technologies that provide visibility into buying signals.
5. Develop strategies that influence decisions before direct contact.

Remember: The goal isn’t to eliminate the dark funnel but to illuminate it enough to influence the decisions being made within it. By understanding and adapting to this reality, you can better position your brand to emerge as the preferred choice when buyers are ready to engage.