Benchmarks. Helpful? Sometimes. Harmful? Often.
They’re meant to offer perspective — on market trends, audience behaviours, performance indicators. And when they’re specific, timely, and relevant to your business, they can be a useful compass.
But here’s the problem: most of the time, they’re not, and they fall victim to bias.
They’re often generated from generic data sets, outdated, pulled from the wrong industry, measured in the wrong market, or based on businesses that look nothing like yours. And yet, they’re treated as THE blueprint — used to set strategy, measure success, and justify decisions. The output can be damaging, leading teams down the wrong path and influencing marketers to optimise against the wrong targets.
That’s why we put together the B2B Benchmark Bias Matrix.
A simple visual to provoke better thinking and to help you sense-check whether the benchmarks you’re using are actually guiding you – or quietly leading you astray.
