The New B2B Influence Model: Why Your Best Growth Engine Isn't Paid Media

The traditional playbook for B2B growth is a familiar one: build a product, secure funding, and pour resources into paid search and social channels. It’s a strategy built on the assumption that demand can be bought. But for Andy Lambert, Co-Founder of ContentCal (acquired by Adobe), this approach quickly proved to be a costly misstep.

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In a recent episode of the FINITE Podcast, Andy shared the hard-learned lesson from ContentCal’s early days: "We immediately think, hey, guess what? We've got a brand that we can then start putting some paid budget [into]... and we learned a very expensive lesson very quickly, put it that way."

The mistake? Misunderstanding the relationship between brand and demand. Entering a mature category, no one knew who ContentCal was. They were just another ad in a busy feed.

This pivotal failure led Andy and his team to pivot their entire go-to-market strategy away from buying reach and toward building genuine advocacy. The result was an influence engine that doubled pipeline velocity and average sales price, leading directly to the company's acquisition by Adobe.

At Clarity, we champion this kind of strategic pivot. This is why we partner with FINITE, the podcast dedicated to B2B technology marketers. FINITE provides a platform for elite conversations, sharing the nuanced, expert strategies - like those from Andy Lambert - that define effective modern B2B growth.

The lessons from Andy's journey, spanning from a lean startup to a global enterprise like Adobe, offer a clear mandate for every B2B marketer: the future of growth is Personality-Led.

3 Key Takeaways for Building an Influence Engine

1. Shift Your Focus from the "Influencer" to the "Influence"

The most common error in B2B influence is treating it like a B2C transaction: paying someone with a large follower count for a one-off post. As Andy discovered, this often looks and performs exactly like an expensive ad.

The winning mindset requires a fundamental shift, as articulated in the episode: "We'd be like, 'Who do I know is influencing my customers? And I will go find them.' Simple as that."

This means focusing your resources on micro-evangelists, loyal customers, and niche community leaders who already hold trust within your target customer's "sphere of influence." These are the individuals who will drive organic, high-converting word-of-mouth growth.

2. Attribution Must Go Beyond Google

Andy noted that attribution software typically flags leads as coming from "Google," even if the customer's actual motivation was an event, a specific person, or a podcast. This misclassification severely biases budget allocation.

To solve this, Andy instituted a non-negotiable step for his sales team. They had to ask the question: "What specific individual or moment inspired you to sign up to ContentCal today?"

This question, posed at the point of conversion, is essential for unlocking the true source of high-quality leads. It allows marketers to accurately attribute value to communities, webinars, and key personality-led initiatives, providing the necessary data to scale the things that actually work.

3. At Scale, You Buy Creativity, Not Just Reach

Moving from ContentCal to Adobe Express presented a new set of challenges: shifting the main KPI to unaided brand awareness. At this scale, Andy's team partners with macro-influencers like Steven Bartlett, but their investment is strategic: they are buying creativity and integration.

The goal is to embed the product so authentically that it becomes a necessary part of the creator’s narrative or workflow. For instance, Adobe Express created the "Manifesto Method" with Bartlett, providing templates for the concept he advocated. The tool was an indispensable means to an end, not an awkward ad break.

For B2B brands, this means moving beyond simple sponsored posts to co-creating valuable, long-form content or tools that position your product as the essential mechanism for achieving the creator's vision.

Conclusion

Andy Lambert’s journey—from the expensive failures of a young startup to the sophisticated strategic plays of a multinational giant—proves that a foundation of genuine advocacy is the most powerful growth lever. By cultivating influence over chasing influencers, B2B marketers can build a robust, high-velocity engine that delivers sustainable, valuable growth.