What’s Going On: The Shift
Many B2B marketers are observing that social media advertising — especially paid social (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) — is delivering diminishing returns. Audiences are increasingly oversaturated, ad fatigue is growing, CPMs/CPCs are rising, and performance per dollar is slipping. As a result, marketers are reallocating part of their budget towards channels that offer better ROI, better control, less waste, and more direct communication. Email retargeting is one such channel gaining ground.
Retargeting via email means using email (often automated or triggered) to re-engage users who have already shown some interest — e.g. by visiting the site, abandoning cart or demo forms, downloading assets, or otherwise interacting. Because these users are “warmer,” the cost to convert tends to be lower, and the messaging more relevant.
Evidence & Supporting Data
Here are numbers and findings from recent reports that support this shift:
| Finding | Detail |
|---|---|
| Diminishing returns from paid social | A study by Taboola & Qualtrics found ~70% of performance marketers are testing new ad formats because many see returns declining on social. Audience saturation and ad fatigue were cited. (Marketing-Interactive) |
| Preference for email among B2B buyers | Around 77% of B2B buyers prefer being contacted via email over other methods. (Sci-Tech Today) |
| Email delivers strong ROI | One source states email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent. (marketingltb.com) |
| Increasing or stable budgets for email | Many B2B marketers are keeping or increasing email marketing spend. In several reports, email is among the top channels marketers want to maintain or grow. (Sci-Tech Today) |
| Role of retargeting | Retargeting in general is being more relied upon. Also, email retargeting is identified in some data as offering conversion rate improvements (for example +10%) when used well. (salesso.com) |
Root Causes / Drivers
Why is this happening?
- Social Ad Fatigue & Saturation
- Users see the same ads repeatedly, leading to “banner blindness” or ignoring ads. (Marketing-Interactive)
- Frequency caps and repetitive creative often fail, so performance drops with more spend. (ETBrandEquity.com)
- Rising Costs and Declining Margins
- As competition grows, ad prices on social platforms go up.
- Incremental spend yields smaller incremental results.
- Privacy & Tracking Challenges
- Cookie deprecation, more restrictions (e.g., iOS, GDPR, etc.) weaken social ad targeting.
- Email uses first-party data, which is more reliable and less subject to those restrictions.
- Better ROI / Predictability from Email
- Email lets you engage directly with those who have already shown interest.
- It’s easier to segment, personalize, automate.
- Often lower cost per action (or per conversion) compared to broader social ad spend.
- Better Control Over Messaging and Frequency
- Through email, you control cadence, messaging, content more tightly.
- You avoid “ad fatigue” in public ad spaces; instead you try to build ongoing dialogue.
- Shift in Buyer Behavior
- In B2B buying, long sales cycles — nurturing is essential. Email retargeting / drip workflows are well suited.
- Buyers expect personalized follow-ups, content, case studies etc., that social ads aren’t always able to deliver.
Implications of the Shift
This trend has several implications for how marketers plan, execute, measure campaigns:
- Budgets reallocated: Less spend on broad paid social/awareness campaigns and more toward retargeting (email, CRM, maybe even direct mail or push).
- Increased investment in data & tooling: To enable email retargeting you need good lead-capture, clean lists, segmentation tools, marketing automation, possibly trigger-based workflows.
- Emphasis on content & personalization: Since email relies heavily on what value you’re delivering (relevant content, timely follow-ups, etc.), the creative/content side becomes more important.
- Measurement & attribution gets more important: You need to prove that moving budget from social to email retargeting yields better efficiency. This means tracking from lead capture through email engagement to conversion.
- Possible channel cannibalization concerns: Some customers might already respond to social or other channels; shifting too much away could risk losing reach or top-of-funnel visibility. So balancing is needed.
- Creative fatigue doesn’t go away entirely: Even in email, people can get tired of repetitive or irrelevant messages. So the same considerations—variation, freshness, value—apply.
Best Practices for Email Retargeting in B2B
To make this shift work well, these are some of the practices that are often successful:
- Build & Maintain Good First-Party Data
- Collect email addresses through gated content, webinars, etc.
- Keep your lists clean, and ensure opt-ins are well managed.
- Set Up Triggered / Behavioral Flows
- Abandoned demo requests, form abandons, content downloaders, trial non-converters etc.
- Automatically follow up.
- Segment & Personalize Deeply
- Not all “interested” users are equal; segment by behavior, firmographics, purchase cycle, etc.
- Personalize subject lines, content, timing.
- Optimize Frequency & Cadence
- Don’t overload inboxes; ensure spacing.
- Use performance data to adjust according to what users tolerate.
- Integrate with Other Channels
- Use email retargeting in concert with social retargeting, display, etc. Eg. combined campaigns where someone sees an ad, then gets an email, etc.
- Use multiple touchpoints in the buyer journey.
- Test Creatives & Messaging
- Vary approaches; test subject lines, content types (case studies, whitepapers, demos, pricing), send times.
- Ensure Deliverability and Email Hygiene
- Respect compliance; avoid spam traps; monitor bounce rates, unsubscribes.
- Use good infrastructure or platforms.
- Monitor & Measure ROI Rigorously
- Track metrics like open rate, CTR, conversion (lead → SQL → opportunity) from email flows.
- Compare cost per lead / cost per acquisition via email vs via social.
- Factor in long-term value of leads (since many B2B sales are not immediate).
Counter-points & Risks
It’s not all upside; some risks and challenges:
- List fatigue / unsubscribes if emails aren’t valuable or are too frequent.
- Deliverability issues: spam filters, bounces, domain reputation.
- Upfront cost / time to set up sophisticated email retargeting (automation, content, segmentation, tech stack).
- Top-of-funnel reach may drop: if too much focus shifts to retargeting, you might lose visibility among cold audiences, which can affect future pipeline.
- Competition in inbox: as more shift to email, the inboxes get crowded; differentiation matters more.
- Privacy / consent: must follow regulations (GDPR, CASL, etc.), especially when sending follow-ups/retargeted emails.
Current Gaps / What’s Not Yet Clear
- There is less public data about exact percentages of budget shifted from social to email, especially in B2B, and especially by geography.
- Much of what is available is survey data about intentions (e.g. “we plan to increase email spend”) rather than firm budget reallocation case studies.
- The effectiveness strongly depends on industry, buyer type, sales cycle, region. What works for tech / SaaS may differ from industrial or financial B2B.
Takeaways & Recommendations
If you are a B2B marketer thinking about leveraging this trend, here are some recommendations:
- Do an audit of your current spend: what returns are you getting from social ads, retargeting ads vs email follow-ups?
- Pilot shifting a portion of budget into email retargeting flows (e.g. re-engagement, cart/demo abandonment) and compare metrics.
- Invest in tools and processes: marketing automation, clean data, content/templates/etc.
- Focus heavily on giving value: email must provide content/information that moves the lead through the funnel.
- Keep diversity of channels: still maintain some social/paid reach so you’re feeding the top of the funnel.
- Revisit creative strategy: both for email and for other channels. Fresh creative helps fight fatigue.
- Nice — below are 6 concise, actionable B2B case studies (real-world / agency-published) that show how companies used email retargeting (often after or alongside paid social) to recover leads, boost ROI, or replace underperforming social spend. Each case includes the outcome, the tactics used, and the key takeaway you can reuse. Sources are cited after each case so you can dig deeper.
Case studies
1) SaaS company — 227% ROI from email + telemarketing (UnboundB2B)
What happened: A U.S. SaaS vendor used a combined email + telemarketing re-engagement program for mid-funnel leads.
Tactics: Targeted BANT-style outbound email sequences, follow-up calls for engaged recipients, strict list hygiene and segmentation.
Outcome: Reported 227% growth in ROI over a 12-week campaign.
Why it matters: Pairing automated email retargeting with human follow-up (tele) accelerated qualification and closed more pipeline from existing leads — lower incremental cost than scaling paid social. (UnboundB2B)
2) Agency roundup: Retargeting wins (CXL) — creative retargeting examples
What happened: Several retargeting experiments across e-commerce and B2B showed improvements in conversion when creative, offer, and sequencing were reworked.
Tactics: Dynamic creative, sequential messaging (education → social proof → CTA), and segmented audiences based on behavior.
Outcome: Multiple case examples where retargeting outperformed broad prospecting ads in conversion rate and ROAS once flows were optimized.
Why it matters: Even when retargeting is done on ad networks, principles transfer to email retargeting: creative sequencing and behavior-based segmentation are the multipliers. (CXL)
3) RevNew / “Retarget lost leads via email” — recovery of dormant B2B leads
What happened: B2B buyers who downloaded content or started forms but didn’t convert were put into automated “lost lead” email flows.
Tactics: Multi-touch email sequences that used additional value content (case studies, ROI calculators), time-limited demo invites, and progressive profiling to reduce friction.
Outcome: Significant recovery of marketing-qualified leads at a fraction of new-acquisition cost — agencies report double-digit uplift in reactivation rates.
Why it matters: Email retargeting can recover pipeline from leads you already paid to attract (including via social), improving overall marketing efficiency. (revnew.com)
4) SaaS email-marketing case examples (Tabular.email) — cadence & trigger wins
What happened: Multiple SaaS companies optimized onboarding and trial-abandonment flows with triggered emails.
Tactics: Time-based onboarding sequences, event-triggered nudges (trial expiration, feature usage thresholds), and personalized product tips.
Outcome: Examples showing higher trial-to-paid conversion and improved LTV vs. previous one-off broadcast emails.
Why it matters: For B2B SaaS, shifting budget toward developing high-performing triggered email flows often beats pouring the same incremental spend into broadened social campaigns. (Tabular)
5) Agency/consultant anecdote — reallocate social spend to referrals & email
What happened: Several B2B marketers (agency posts/LinkedIn anecdotes) reported pulling budget from paid social and reallocating into customer referral programs, email automation, and CRM-driven retargeting when social performance degraded.
Tactics: Redirected paid-social dollars to list growth (webinars, gated content), then used that first-party data to power personalized email retargeting and referral incentives.
Outcome: Improved lead quality and a higher close rate; less waste on high CPM social placements.
Why it matters: This illustrates the strategic decision many teams are making: move spend to channels leveraging first-party data (email, CRM) when social targeting weakens. (LinkedIn)
6) Broader B2B retargeting playbook (Demandbase / Metadata guides)
What happened: Demandbase and other B2B-marketing guides summarize real implementations where account-based retargeting plus email sequences improved pipeline velocity.
Tactics: Account-based segmentation, ad + email sequence orchestration, sales notification triggers when engagement crosses thresholds.
Outcome: Companies reported improved conversion across ABM-targeted accounts when email sequences were tightly integrated into the retargeting plan.
Why it matters: Email retargeting works best when integrated as part of a multi-touch ABM strategy rather than as an isolated tactic. (Demandbase)
Common patterns across the case studies
- First-party data is the engine. Successful programs used lists built from gated content, webinar signups, trials, or CRM records — not just pixel audiences. (revnew.com)
- Triggers + sequencing beat one-offs. Automated behavioral triggers (abandon, inactivity, trial end) performed better than generic blasts. (Tabular)
- Human + automation combo scales conversion. Where applicable, email handoffs to SDRs/tele teams increased close rates (example: UnboundB2B). (UnboundB2B)
- Reallocation often isn’t 100% — it’s targeted. Most teams kept some social for upper funnel but moved incremental spend to email/CRM retargeting to protect efficiency and funnel velocity. (LinkedIn)
Quick playbook to replicate these wins (copy-paste ready)
- Audit: map all points where you collect email/first-party data.
- Prioritize: choose 2–3 high-intent trigger flows (demo abandonment, trial expiry, content downloaders).
- Create sequences: 4–6 touch automated flows (education → proof → direct CTA) with A/B subject + CTA tests.
- Integrate sales: push hot leads to SDRs when engagement hits thresholds.
- Measure: CPL, conversion rate from email → MQL → SQL, time-to-opportunity, and compare to social benchmarks.
- Iterate: refresh creative, adjust cadence, and expand to ABM lists when proven.