If you were evaluating your own product, would you buy from you?
Here we are, one year later, asking the same question.
When we first published our Evidence Gap report last year, we finally had the data to prove our hypothesis that buyer trust was eroding and vendors were struggling to prove their value. The response blew us away. We hoped for 100 downloads in the first week. We hit that number within 24 hours.
Clearly, we’d struck a nerve.
Fast forward to today, and the trust problem hasn’t just persisted—it’s intensified. Between AI-generated everything flooding the market and buyers drowning in the crowded tech landscape, distinguishing real proof from polished marketing has become nearly impossible.
But here’s what’s changed: The game board itself is different. Buyers aren’t just more skeptical—they’re shopping differently, evaluating differently, and making decisions differently than they were 12 months ago.
Our latest research reveals three seismic shifts that are rewriting the rules of B2B software buying:
AI search is reshaping discovery. Buyers are increasingly turning to LLMs to cut through vendor noise, which means the evidence that surfaces first needs to be both trustworthy and AI-friendly.
Blind-but-verified are just as trusted as named testimonials. Blind-but-verified testimonials are proving more persuasive than marquee customer logos—opening new doors for industries where customer proof traditionally stays locked away.
Competition is everywhere, but competitive evidence is nowhere. With 97% of buyers considering multiple solutions (and half evaluating four or more), the number one gap in most vendor arsenals is competitive storytelling.
Younger generations trust different types of proof. Gen Z is coming into buying power––and they’re more trusting of peer validation (like influencers) more than ever before.
Through all this change, one thing remains constant: relevance is still the north star. Buyers need to see themselves in your evidence—their industry, their company size, their specific use case. And with AI getting better at understanding buyer intent, generic proof points won’t cut it anymore.
Something is still missing: the concrete, substantive proof buyers need to go from “I know what it can do” to “I know what it will do for me.”
This year’s data shows us exactly where the evidence gap persists—and more importantly, how smart vendors are finally closing it.
CEO and Co-founder, UserEvidence
Methodology and demographics
Altogether, we surveyed 811 B2B software professionals across three distinct roles:
- Buyers
- Sellers
- Marketers
We asked buyers about how they search for software, their biggest challenges along the way, and what kind of collateral and evidence they need to make a strong business case for a new vendor to their leadership.
We surveyed sellers and marketers about what (they think) matters to their buyers, what’s missing from their customer evidence arsenal, and the challenges they encounter in collecting and producing customer evidence.
Buyers
Most buyers worked in tech-related industries, with the two largest groups coming from IT and services (40%) and computer software (26%).
Respondents were overwhelmingly software purchase decision-makers: 44% at the director level, 29% from the C-suite, and 14% at the senior director level.
Sellers
While the majority (67%) of seller respondents worked in sales and business development, the audience included a mix of other fields, including 12% in revenue or sales operations, 11% in customer success or account management, and 9% in executive leadership roles.
Their typical functions were:
- Sales management: 46%
- Sales leadership: 23%
- Sales development: 18%
- Account executive: 13%
- More than $100k: 24%
- Between $50k and $100k: 21%
- Between $20k and $50k: 22%
Marketers
Just over two-thirds (69%) of marketing respondents reported working in marketing roles, with another 17% in executive leadership and 14% in product management or product-led growth (PLG) roles.
Average contract values among marketing respondents were split among:
- Between $20k and $50k: 33%
- Between $50k and $100k: 23%
- Between $10k and $20k: 21%
The state of buying: Plot twist—it's actually getting easier
Here’s a stat that might surprise you: 83% of buyers say it’s gotten easier to buy over the last year.
Wait, what? In a world where we’re constantly hearing about longer sales cycles, more stakeholders, and endless committee meetings, buying is…easier?
Turns out there’s more to the story. The same buyers also told us that 67% of their tech budgets have increased year-over-year. When you’ve got more money to spend, suddenly those purchase decisions don’t feel quite so daunting.
Why the budget boost?
The explanation isn’t as straightforward as “the market is good.” It’s more nuanced than that.
“Economic and market signals from the past had C-suite executives preparing their companies to weather the storm,” explains Mark Huber, VP of Marketing at UserEvidence. “And I think now, they’re seeing that the storm might not have been as bad as they anticipated. They’re opening up checkbooks a little bit more, year over year.”
Although companies battened down the hatches, expecting the worst, the economic apocalypse never quite materialized. Now, they’re realizing that if you want to grow, you actually have to spend money—on tools, on people, on innovation.
There’s another factor at play, too. “The advent of AI has made people much more likely to go out and test new solutions dedicated some of their budget to experimental tools, give something new a try,” says Jess Cook, Head of Marketing at Vector. AI tools are often lower-cost, monthly subscriptions that make it easier to experiment without a massive upfront commitment.
(That’s not to say there’s no competition, of course. As of 2025, there are roughly 70,000 AI companies globally. Many of these AI startups are launching SaaS products, making the need to earn trust quickly even more pertinent.)
The old “forever home” mentality around software purchases? It’s dead. Buyers are more comfortable with the idea of testing, iterating, and moving on if something doesn’t work out.
Some of this “easier buying” trend might also be driven by market consolidation. As Julien Sauvage, CMO at Cordial, points out: “Multiple use cases are now addressed by a single platform. The consolidation happening in the market makes it easier in a way because, as a buyer, you don’t have to shop for three different point solutions. You just look for that one platform that will deliver on all three use cases.”
When you can solve three problems with one purchase, the math gets a lot simpler.
But there’s a catch
Before you start celebrating this seller’s market, here’s the reality check: Having budget and feeling optimistic about buying doesn’t automatically translate to closed deals.
While buyers might have more money to spend and feel more confident about making purchases, they’re still incredibly skeptical about the evidence vendors are sharing with them.
The Evidence Gap
What exactly is customer evidence?
Customer evidence is substantive, direct proof of success and value from verified users. Showing ample and diverse customer evidence gives your buyers credible proof that your solution can solve their problems.
What it is:
- Aggregated, quantifiable ROI data or statistical proof
- Feature-specific validation
- Competitive evidence
- Industry proof points
- Account-level stories from many users in an account
What it isn’t:
- Puffed-up ROI stats based on your banner customer’s best results
- Vague customer testimonials
- Marquee logos without context
Together, these types of evidence can be the deal-maker that gives prospects the confidence to become customers.
The Evidence Gap is the disconnect between what buyers actually need to make purchasing decisions, what marketing teams are creating, and what sellers are sharing during the buying process.
The Evidence Gap by numbers
Think about the irony here: You’ve got buyers with bigger budgets who are feeling more confident about purchasing. You’ve got happy customers, proven ROI, and real success stories. Yet deals are still falling apart at the moment of truth because you can’t bridge the trust gap with the right proof points.
The Evidence Gap is the one thing standing between vendors and the deals they should be closing.
“The disconnect exists because what buyers value and what sellers want are two different things. That disconnect has always existed. Unchecked, it’s going to continue to cause problems now and in the future.”
Founder of The Reeder
The problem isn’t that customer evidence doesn’t exist—it’s that the evidence buyers trust most isn’t what marketers are creating or what sellers are sharing. While buyers are looking for concrete, statistical proof and hyper-relevant use cases, vendors are still defaulting to one-size-fits-all case studies and logo walls.
The disconnect runs deeper than most realize. Buyers have evolved their evaluation criteria in response to tight budgets in previous years, increased scrutiny, and a more crowded marketplace. But many vendors haven’t kept pace with these changing expectations.
The good news? This Evidence Gap represents a massive opportunity for the vendors willing to close it. In a market where buyers want to buy and have the budget to do it, the competitive advantage goes to whoever can deliver credible proof that actually builds trust.
“Honestly, I’ve seen this play out in the middle of deals more times than I can count. Marketing is producing these beautiful assets, and sellers are sharing whatever’s easiest to grab. Meanwhile, the buyer is sitting there thinking: ‘This doesn’t answer my question at all.’
So what do they do? They find the answer themselves. We think we’re arming the field, but in reality, buyers are already halfway down the road with somebody who gave them something authentic.”
CMO at Docebo
What the data reveals:
The Evidence Gap in action
After analyzing responses from the 800+ B2B software buyers, sellers, and marketers we polled, we identified three major insights that are impacting how we as vendors need to approach this gap:
The modern buyer journey is more complex than ever
Where buyers begin their search for new software is changing. While we’ve been hearing about “easier buying,” the reality is that buyers are casting a much wider net in their research—and that creates new challenges for vendors trying to influence their decisions.
Buyers are starting their research everywhere
The days of buyers starting with a single source are over. In 2025, buyers are beginning their research across multiple channels simultaneously:
The biggest shift? Buyers are taking research into their own hands rather than waiting for recommendations. Google search and review sites saw the largest increases, while peer referrals dropped significantly. And, a new player entered in the past year: AI tools have become the go-to starting point for 58% of buyers’ research process.
Most vendors are completely unprepared for AI-driven buyer research. They don’t have the specific, indexable customer proof that AI tools prioritize.
Why buyers are starting their search with AI
“AI gives me quick, clear answers without digging through ads and fluff, but I still use Google to check facts and find fresh opinions.”
“With AI, I’m able to get faster, more concise insights, compare options side by side, and save time filtering through ads and irrelevant links.”
“AI favors original, verified, substantive data sources. The vendors who can create targeted customer evidence across their key segments won’t just show up in AI research—they’ll dominate it.”
CEO, UserEvidence
“When it comes to searching for a new tool, AI—especially ChatGPT—has been really helpful. I can cut through all the noise in a Google search and go right to curated answers and facts that help me with my research. And you can talk to the AI like you’re actually having a real conversation with a human.”
“I use AI for its ability to synthesize information and provide a direct, comparative analysis, which is far more efficient for executive decision-making than manually sifting through search engine results.”
The evaluation process is getting more intensive
But here’s what’s really interesting: buyers aren’t just changing where they start—they’re fundamentally changing how they validate information.
This skepticism is driving buyers toward multiple validation sources, which creates both an opportunity and a challenge for vendors trying to influence early-stage research.
This presents a bit of a contradiction: Buyers feel more confident about purchasing, but they’re also being more thorough in their evaluation. The stakes feel lower (thanks to bigger budgets and subscription models), but the options feel endless.
The competitive implications are massive. In this crowded evaluation landscape, vendors need to excel not just at being discovered, but at standing out once they’re in consideration. Yet as we’ll see, most are falling short on the competitive evidence front.
“The most compelling way to stand out is by building a product people genuinely love and want to talk about; that gets you on the evaluation list in the first place. Real customer outcomes give end users confidence that you can meet their technical requirements and give decision-makers the business case they need to unlock the budget to fund it.”
Sr. Manager of Customer Marketing & Advocacy, LaunchDarkly
Why deals don't close
With an aggregate of 26% of deals failing due to customer evidence-related reasons (“ROI not proven,” “lack of live references,” and “no clear differentiation from competitor”), we’re looking at 1 in 5 deals that could have potentially been saved with better customer evidence. And that’s likely a conservative estimate, given that nearly every objection above could be mitigated with better, more relevant customer proof.
“When we prioritized collecting and sharing customer proof that clearly demonstrated ROI, stalled deals gained new momentum and we influenced millions in revenue. Strong customer proof not only helped overcome ROI-related objections but also unlocked new growth opportunities.”
Head of Customer Marketing at Klaviyo
The evidence buyers actually trust is shifting
To get to the heart of The Evidence Gap, we have to start with the most important group in the room: buyers. What they really trust should be our North star––but as we’ll cover a bit later, that’s not quite the case.
Analyst reports may still top the trust list, but the gap is slim. Third-party reviews (-3 points YoY) and peer recommendations (-6 points YoY) are right behind. Incorporate the factors that buyers consider most important when evaluating customer evidence, and things get even more interesting.
Buyers: Which factors are most important when evaluating new software?
Blind-but-verified testimonials carry (almost) equal weight as named ones
While 68% say they trust vendor data either “completely” (34%) or “more often than not” (34%), they’re still looking for external validation: 66% of buyers trust third-party review sites more than they did last year. And this carries over into how buyers perceive blind-but-verified testimonials.
While named testimonials are the most trusted (64%), blind but verified testimonials are a close second (60%). Buyers want authenticity, regardless of who said it.
The Gen-Z effect: Younger buyers are changing the game
Our data revealed some striking patterns among younger buyers (ages 20-30) that signal a fundamental shift in how the next generation evaluates software.
They’re skipping traditional starting points. While most buyers kick off their research with analyst reports (50%) and third-party review sites (68%), younger buyers are significantly less likely to start there—just 31% (-19 points) begin with analyst reports and 35% (-33 points) with review sites.
They want to talk to real people. Perhaps most tellingly, younger buyers are nearly three times more likely to say deals have fallen through because they couldn’t get a live customer reference (21% vs. 8% overall).
“There’s a massive (and well-documented) parasocial relationship between an influencer and their audience. Old school brands don’t really understand how powerful that relationship is. Brands that are early on this shift will stake their claim in the largest trust land grab we’ve ever witnessed.”
Founder, Growth Sprints
The evidence buyers actually trust is shifting
Vendors think they know what buyers trust… but they don’t
This is where the “gap” part of The Evidence Gap starts to really take shape. When we compared what buyers trust with what sellers think buyers trust, we found some glaring disconnects
Sellers are significantly off base
Sellers consistently underestimate how much buyers trust:
Meanwhile, they overestimate buyer trust in:
Marketers didn’t fare much better
Marketers underestimate buyer trust in:
Despite buyers ranking case studies and testimonials as the 4th most trustworthy type of evidence, over a third (36%) of marketers produced 2 or fewer customer stories in the last 6 months. A staggering 78% created 5 or fewer.
The volume problem gets even worse when you consider the relevance challenge. Buyers don’t just want case studies—they want case studies that match their specific circumstances.
“Most companies treat customer stories like one-off trophies, and the process is full of dependencies outside marketing’s control — from customer approvals to legal reviews. That’s why output stays low. But the goal isn’t volume for volume’s sake; it’s creating proof with real quality and impact. The opportunity is to operationalize customer evidence so it’s not rare, but a consistent growth engine.”
VP of Global Customer Marketing, Freshworks
With most vendors serving multiple industries, company sizes, and use cases, the math becomes daunting quickly. Yet most marketing teams are producing customer evidence at a rate that makes meaningful coverage impossible.
“Buyers crave matching. Whether it’s industry, company size, or use case, buyers need to see themselves in the evidence.”
CEO, UserEvidence
The gap goes beyond just "vendor vs. buyer"
One of the most overlooked parts of The Evidence Gap is that it actually gets wider when we dig into the gaps within GTM teams themselves. Marketers and sellers are often at odds when it comes to sourcing, creating, and sharing evidence.
Marketers are struggling to source the right evidence
We can’t call this a bandwidth issue anymore—it’s a strategic prioritization issue.
Think about it this way: If 80% of the time, marketers don’t feel like there are too many products, use cases, personas, or industries to support, and 65% of the time, customers can quantify the impact… what actually prevents marketers from creating this proof?
This lack of prioritization shows up for sellers, too, as they continue to share customer evidence that, frankly, isn’t changing buyers’ minds.
“We, as sellers, are closest to the story; we’re closest to the product. We believe in it. Obviously, the buyer is coming from a totally different perspective, where many buyers have been burned with empty promises and lack of follow-through, so they have to be skeptical. ”
Founder, DemandJen
Marketers and sellers are still missing the mark with buyers
Compared to what buyers trust, sellers are dramatically under-sharing:
But they’re over-sharing what buyers trust least:
This isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about effectiveness. In other words, sellers are defaulting to the most resource-intensive, least scalable form of customer evidence when buyers would actually prefer something else.
“If you have an SMB deal, and your rep thinks they need a 1:1 reference, that might not actually be true. If you have really good customer proof, it often obviates the need for a call.”
CEO, UserEvidence
The creation gap is just as problematic. Marketers are under-creating:
At the same time, they’re over-creating:
The competitive evidence crisis
Here’s where the evidence gap becomes particularly costly: a stark lack of meaningful competitive intelligence.
Remember, 97% of buyers are evaluating multiple options, with nearly half considering 4 or more products. Yet when it comes to helping buyers understand why they should choose them over the competition, vendors are falling dramatically short.
Only 35% of marketers create competitive battle cards, and just 32% of sellers share them. But here’s the bigger problem—even when they do exist, buyers don’t trust them.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever asked for a battle card as a buyer, because I’m already doing that evaluation on my own elsewhere. And if I do get one, I’m not sure I believe what’s in there because, of course, they’re going to say that their solution is better.”
VP of Marketing at UserEvidence
The solution isn’t better battle cards—it’s customer-driven competitive evidence. Buyers want to hear from other customers about why they chose your solution over alternatives, not from your marketing team.
- Buyers have gotten way more sophisticated—they’re doing deeper research, cross-checking multiple sources, and spotting generic vendor content from a mile away.
- Meanwhile, most vendors are stuck with outdated playbooks: a few case studies and begging customers for references. The result? A widening evidence gap.
- But…the upside here is huge: buyers want to buy, they’re clear about the proof they need, and vendors who can deliver trusted, scalable, and hyper-relevant evidence will win faster in today’s market.
So…How do we close The Evidence Gap?
In a market where buyers want to buy and have the budget to do it, the competitive advantage goes to whoever can deliver evidence that actually builds trust. The best teams––the ones truly closing The Evidence Gap––are the ones who are taking on these strategic shifts, organization-wide, by:
1. Rethinking what customer evidence looks like
Stop thinking “one customer equals one case study.” Start thinking “one use case equals one story.”
- Day-in-the-life stories that get specific about customer struggles and wins
- Tactical playbooks that show step-by-step how customers achieved results
- Behind-the-scenes glimpses into your ongoing relationship with customers, not just one-time wins
We’re shifting away from generic company metrics to human-centered stories. Instead of just saying that you “increased revenue by 400%,” share stories about how someone in their exact role solved the same problem they’re facing.
Think “living evidence,” not static assets. Create customer evidence that evolves alongside your customers—bite-sized proof points that can be deployed across your website, in sales conversations, and wherever prospects are looking for validation.
“It’s less about how a vendor increased their return on investment and more about personal stories. Think:, ‘Wow, before using this app, I was stuck doing tedious, manual work. Now, I have my Sunday evenings back with my kids, or I got promoted, or I got the visibility I need.”
CMO at Cordial
2. Embrace blind-but-verified proof
You don’t always need the customer’s name and logo to build trust. Anonymous but third-party verified customer evidence can be just as credible—and it’s infinitely more scalable.
When created alongside the more traditional, logo-stamped case studies, this approach is game-changing for industries like cybersecurity, financial services, or healthcare, where customers are typically pretty reluctant to go public.
The scalability benefits apply to every vendor struggling to create enough relevant customer evidence,because the proof is in the data. There’s not that big of a trust difference between third-party verified reviews and blind-but-verified reviews, or between analyst ratings and blind-but-verified proof.
Why this works:
- Faster collection: No lengthy approval processes or legal reviews
- Higher specificity: Customers share more honest, detailed feedback when anonymous
- Broader coverage: You can target more industries, personas, and use cases
How to implement:
- Use a credible third party to verify customer feedback without exposing customer identity
- Augment logo walls with verified stats and aggregated proof points
- Create searchable content organized by industry, company size, and use case
- Make sure this content is published and crawlable, not buried in PDFs
“In industries like cybersecurity and IT, we have a really hard time getting customers to agree to signing off on testimonials, because they don’t want that to become a security vulnerability. It’s exciting to hear that we have a good plan B in blind-but-verified proof.”
Head of Marketing, Vector
3. Build competitive intelligence (the smart way)
Buyers are evaluating multiple options whether you help them or not. You can either guide that conversation or let them figure it out on their own.
The problem isn’t that buyers don’t want competitive information—it’s that they don’t trust vendor-created battle cards. They want customer-driven competitive evidence.
What buyers actually want to know:
- Why did similar customers choose you over specific competitors?
- Which features or differentiators tipped the scales in their decision?
- For customers who switched: What was the migration experience like, and what was the impact afterward?
Smart competitive evidence includes:
- Direct feedback from customers about competitive decisions
- Specific stories about why customers chose your solution over alternatives
- Migration experiences and post-switch impact data
“People are just trying to find the product that’s best for them. If you can come in and give them an understanding of the landscape, then that’s actually really helpful.”
Founder at Productive PMM
Not ready to go public? Start with sales enablement. Create internal competitive stories and battle cards that your sales team can use in conversations without publishing them on your website.
The key is helping buyers make informed decisions rather than avoiding competitive conversations altogether.
4. Renew your focus on advocacy efforts
Remember that 47% of marketers say getting access to customers is their biggest challenge in creating evidence? That’s not a logistics problem—it’s a strategic blind spot.
For too long, customer marketing and advocacy has been stuck in reactive mode—scrambling to find references when sales asks, digging through old folders when demand gen needs an industry-specific story. It’s time to get off the hamster wheel.
The most successful companies are shifting customer advocacy from a “case study manager” role to a strategic revenue driver. Instead of treating advocacy as an afterthought, they’re positioning it at the center of their go-to-market strategy.
Here’s what strategic advocacy looks like:
- Identify and activate advocates—build the system that enables you to know exactly who’s referenceable, who’s at risk of burnout, and who’s ready to help.
- Deliver the right proof at the right moment—from top-of-funnel quotes, to 3rd-party verified ROI stats to bottom-funnel peer-to-peer calls and competitive evidence. Match the evidence type to where buyers are in their evaluation process.
- Identify and activate advocates—build the system that enables you to know exactly who’s referenceable, who’s at risk of burnout, and who’s ready to help.
“Customer advocacy may soon be one of the only major differentiators left in the competitive world of SaaS and beyond. If nurturing customer advocates isn’t a designated motion in your organization, you’re leaving your best marketing channel untapped.”
Co-founder and CRO at Captivate Collective
The shift is clear: from reactive request-fulfillment to proactive revenue acceleration. When you treat customer advocacy as the steward of your most valuable asset—your customers—you’ll finally have the diverse, credible proof points buyers are demanding.
The evidence gap isn't going anywhere—but the opportunity is enormous
This isn’t about having better products—it’s about proving their value. The vendors who crack the code on credible, scalable customer evidence will dominate, while competitors will keep recycling generic case studies.
The data is clear: It’s time to build an evidence engine that actually works for AI-driven buyers, anonymous validation, and competitive differentiation.
Trust is still the biggest gap, and customer evidence is how you bridge it.
Ready to close The Evidence Gap? Let’s explore how UserEvidence can help you build the customer evidence engine your GTM team needs to win in today’s market. Schedule a call with our team to see what authentic, scalable customer proof looks like—and how it transforms your sales conversations.
