Why Your Best Marketers Don’t Work for You

The New Rules of Growth in the AI Era

The Breaking Point for B2B Growth

For two decades, B2B growth followed a predictable rhythm: inbound search, outbound email, and industry events. That rhythm is now breaking.

AI has flooded every channel with noise. Search traffic is flattening as AI engines rewrite discovery; inboxes overflow with automated outreach; event fatigue sets in as travel budgets shrink and attention spans contract. The playbooks that once scaled entire industries now yield diminishing returns.

The problem isn’t effort, it’s saturation. Everyone is louder, faster, and algorithmically optimized. The signal is gone.

In this new landscape, shouting louder doesn’t win. The real growth advantage lies not in direct reach but in borrowed trust, through the people and networks your audience already believes.

Instead of chasing your prospects, the fastest-growing companies are moving through ecosystems: creators, partners, and communities that already command credibility. It’s not about any single tactic. It’s about creating a compounding flywheel where partners create and distribute content, you amplify it, and the cycle strengthens with every customer touch.

As Tom Orbach, Director of Growth Marketing at Whiz, put it:

“Why start at zero when you can start at 10,000?”

The Majority of Revenue Now Comes from Partners, Not Direct Sales

The numbers make the shift undeniable. Fifty-eight percent of revenue for top-performing B2B companies now comes from partners and ecosystem initiatives, not from direct sales. These aren’t side channels; they’re the new engines of growth.

And the curve is accelerating. Sixty-seven percent of B2B organizations expect their indirect (partner-driven) revenue to grow more than 30 percent year over year.

Ecosystem growth is now the competitive edge. Leaders have moved from “owning the channel” to orchestrating the network. They understand that reach without trust is noise, but reach through trust compounds.

This shift also reframes efficiency. Seventy-two percent of companies report lower customer-acquisition costs from partner-led initiatives, proof that credibility shortens the path to conversion. Co-branded campaigns, from webinars to research releases, see 53 percent higher attendance rates than single-brand efforts.

The future CMO is no longer a gatekeeper of internal messaging. They are a “Channel CMO”, an ecosystem orchestrator who builds bridges across shared audiences and multiplies trust across every touchpoint.

Partner-Sourced Deals Aren’t Just Better, They’re Faster, Higher Value, and More Trusted

Ecosystem-sourced deals now outperform traditional outreach across every metric that matters.

• 40 percent higher average order value

• 53 percent higher close rate

• 46 percent faster conversion speed

These aren’t marginal gains; they’re structural advantages.

While traditional sales channels grind under shrinking response rates, just 26 percent of cold outreach emails now get any meaningful engagement, partners cut through instantly. Forty-two percent of salespeople say social channels, often through partner amplification, deliver their highest cold-outreach response rates.

Why? Because partners bring pre-qualified trust. They already speak the audience’s language, already have the relationship equity you can’t buy. Each partner introduction carries the implicit signal: this brand is safe to engage with.

The compounding effect is extraordinary: greater deal value, shorter cycles, lower cost per acquisition, and reputational lift across the board.

Your Most Powerful Marketers Are People You Don’t Employ

In a saturated content economy, brand logos don’t inspire, people do.

Sixty-seven percent of B2B influencer campaigns now outperform brand-only content. Audiences crave real voices, not press releases.

Companies like Gamma, the AI presentation platform, attribute more than half their growth to creator-driven ecosystems. ElevenLabs reached $100 million ARR with just 50 employees by building a paid creator network through its Voice Library, paying over $1 million to creators in 2025 alone.

Smaller teams. Outsized reach. Deep authenticity.

On LinkedIn, content from individuals performs eight times better than content from brands. Every creator who speaks about you extends your message into communities you could never reach alone.

Elena Verna, Head of Growth at Lovable, summarizes the new model:

“The goal is no longer to produce everything in-house, but to empower creators to generate content about you, and then repurpose it across paid and organic.”

This is the new distribution engine: human, decentralized, infinitely scalable.

The New Moat Isn’t Your Product, It’s Your Network

As AI makes product innovation faster and cheaper, feature advantages evaporate overnight. What endures is ecosystem gravity: the density of trust, relationships, and co-creation orbiting your brand.

Seventy-six percent of business leaders now see ecosystems as the primary disruptor and growth multiplier heading into 2026. Another 65 percent say partnerships directly enhance innovation and market adaptability.

The example to watch is Supabase, the open-source database platform that grew from 1 million to 4.5 million developers in a single year. Its secret wasn’t product alone; it was community. Supabase turned its open-source contributors and integration partners into an unstoppable credibility flywheel.

As Aaron Cort of Craft Ventures explains:

“Community and virality aren’t intangible. Supabase shows how to turn organic pull, GitHub stars, YC adoption, developer buzz, into structured funnels, lifecycle paths, and monetization.”

Ecosystems aren’t soft power. They’re the new infrastructure of influence.

Ecosystems Outperform Traditional Go-to-Market Models

Data confirms what leading operators already sense: the future GTM is collaborative.

• Co-selling outperforms SDR models: Top performers are 843 percent more likely to overcome objections with partner support.

• Marketplace listings generate deals 81 percent larger, 11 percent faster, with a 106 percent increase in annual contract value (ACV).

• AI-powered ecosystem discovery tools now match brands with more than 10,000 potential partners, expanding reach exponentially.

In this context, growth isn’t linear; it’s geometric. Each partner or creator adds another layer of compounding distribution, another node in the trust web.

Don’t Just Build a Product, Build an Ecosystem

AI has leveled the playing field for production and promotion. The barrier is no longer making something; it’s getting it believed.

An ecosystem strategy is the force multiplier that turns isolated efforts into networked momentum. It strengthens inbound by adding authenticity, fuels outbound with built-in credibility, and accelerates every channel it touches.

Ecosystem growth isn’t a marketing department project, it’s an operating system for modern growth. It redefines how value, visibility, and validation flow through your organization.

And the economics follow. When 72 percent of partner-led companies see lower acquisition costs, and when co-branded campaigns outperform by 53 percent, the conclusion is simple: ecosystems aren’t a trend. They’re infrastructure.

The Strategic Imperative for 2026 and Beyond

The companies breaking through today share one defining characteristic: they no longer see audience as something to capture but as something to connect.

They design systems of shared trust, networks of aligned creators, partners, and customers who grow together.

AI may accelerate content creation, but human connection still determines what spreads, what converts, and what endures.

The next era of B2B growth won’t belong to the loudest brand. It will belong to the most connected one.

Facts and Stats

Here are the latest facts and statistics supporting the key role and impact of ecosystem strategies in B2B growth for 2025/2026:

Ecosystem Growth & Revenue Impact

• 67% of B2B organizations expect indirect (partner ecosystem) revenue to grow over 30% year-on-year.forrester​

• 58% of revenue for top-performing B2B companies is now driven by partners and ecosystem initiatives.partner2b+1​

• Partner-sourced deals have 40% higher average order value, are 53% more likely to close, and convert 46% faster than non-partner deals.partner2b+1​

• 76% of business leaders see ecosystems as the primary disruptor and growth multiplier heading into 2026.partner2b​

• 65% of organizations believe partnerships enhance innovation and market adaptability.partner2b​

Operational & Marketing Impact

• 72% of companies report lower customer acquisition cost (CAC) from partner-led initiatives.partner2b​

• Co-branded campaigns (like webinars) achieve 53% higher attendance rates than single-brand efforts.partner2b​

• CMOs are evolving into “Channel CMOs,” leading collaborative ecosystem marketing efforts across touchpoints.partner2b​

Social and Influencer Statistics

• 67% of B2B influencer campaigns outperform brand-only content on marketing impact.dsmn8​

• 42% of salespeople say social media delivers the highest cold outreach response rate vs. 26% via email.dsmn8​

• Gamma attributes more than 50% of its company growth to influencer and creator ecosystem strategies.forrester​

Accelerated Go-To-Market

• Co-selling outperforms SDR models: Top performers are 843% more likely to overcome objections with partner support.partner2b​

• Marketplace listings drive deals that are 81% larger, close 11% faster, and deliver a 106% increase in annual contract value (ACV).partner2b​

• AI-powered ecosystem discovery enables matching with over 10,000 potential partners, radically expanding reach.partner2b​

Ryan Edwards, CAMINO5 | Co-Founder

Ryan Edwards is the Co-Founder and Head of Strategy at CAMINO5, a consultancy focused on digital strategy and consumer journey design. With over 25 years of experience across brand, tech, and marketing innovation, he’s led initiatives for Fortune 500s including Oracle, NBCUniversal, Sony, Disney, and Kaiser Permanente.

Ryan’s work spans brand repositioning, AI-integrated workflows, and full-funnel strategy. He helps companies cut through complexity, regain clarity, and build for what’s next.

Connect on LinkedIn: ryanedwards2