Broken trust: Why digital B2B advertising is in crisis, and what to do about it - with Dan Shaw

Trust in B2B marketing has never been more critical—or more fragile. While much attention focuses on thought leadership and content credibility, a more fundamental trust crisis is emerging in digital advertising that threatens to undermine the entire foundation of how B2B marketers reach their audiences. Listen to the full audio episode here.

The numbers are stark: B2B digital advertising represents nearly 10% of global advertising spend, yet the sector is experiencing what industry veteran Dan Shaw describes as systemic failures in efficiency and integrity. Where B2C marketers might accept 10-20% wastage due to their massive scale, B2B marketers are seeing 50-60% of their advertising spend fail to reach intended targets—a crisis that strikes at the heart of marketing accountability and trust.

In this episode of the Trust and Influence in B2B Marketing podcast, Joel Harrison explores this emerging trust crisis with Dan Shaw, founder of Funnel Fuel and a veteran of 15+ years in B2B media and ad tech. Shaw's perspective reveals how the fundamental mismatch between consumer-built advertising technology and B2B marketing objectives is creating a trust deficit that demands immediate attention.

The trust deficit in digital advertising

The crisis manifests in multiple ways, but at its core lies a fundamental breach of trust between advertisers and the platforms they depend on. Shaw points to increasingly opaque practices across major platforms, where advertisers are essentially told to provide budgets and creative assets, then step away while platforms handle everything else with minimal transparency.

"The impact of those decisions on smaller businesses is actually quite material," Shaw explains, referencing Google's prolonged uncertainty over cookie policies. This opacity extends beyond cookies to basic accountability measures that any trustworthy advertising partner should provide.

The trust crisis becomes particularly acute when examining industry standards that appear designed more for platform convenience than advertiser success. Consider the current viewability standard, which defines an advertisement as "viewable" if half of it appears on screen for just one second. This standard was established without meaningful input from the advertisers who ultimately pay for these placements.

"I can guarantee you there's nobody who would define that as good viewability," Shaw observes, highlighting how industry standards often fail to serve the actual needs of B2B marketers who require much higher levels of precision and accountability than their consumer counterparts.

Brand safety and integrity failures

The trust crisis extends beyond efficiency metrics to fundamental questions of brand safety and advertising integrity. B2B brands are finding their advertisements appearing alongside content that ranges from questionable to outright inappropriate—placements that would never pass muster if subjected to proper oversight and transparency.

These brand safety failures represent more than just embarrassing misplacements; they signal a broader breakdown in the duty of care that advertising platforms owe to their business customers. When a B2B technology company's advertisement appears next to content that undermines its professional credibility, the platform has failed in its fundamental obligation to protect the advertiser's brand integrity.

The problem is compounded by the reactive nature of most brand safety measures. Rather than preventing inappropriate placements, platforms typically respond only after damage has been done, leaving B2B marketers to discover through third-party monitoring or, worse, through customer complaints that their carefully crafted brand messages have been compromised.

The scale problem: B2B as an afterthought

Central to the trust crisis is the realization that B2B marketers are operating within systems designed primarily for consumer brands. While B2B represents substantial spending in absolute terms, it lacks the scale to drive platform innovation specifically designed for business marketing objectives.

This creates what Shaw describes as a fundamental misalignment: "B2B marketers are using consumer built tech, trying to strong arm a B2B objective into that. It doesn't work." The result is that B2B marketers must accept advertising solutions built for mass market reach when they need precision targeting, and transparency tools designed for brand awareness when they need detailed performance accountability.

The scale problem also means that when platforms make changes—whether to privacy policies, targeting capabilities, or reporting mechanisms—B2B marketers have little influence over decisions that can dramatically impact their advertising effectiveness. They become subject to changes optimized for consumer marketing objectives that may directly conflict with B2B requirements.

The Complexity Shield: When Opacity Masquerades as Sophistication

One of the most insidious aspects of the trust crisis is how complexity is often used to shield questionable practices from scrutiny. When advertising platforms describe their targeting algorithms, attribution models, or optimization processes in highly technical terms, they create a barrier to accountability that many marketers find difficult to penetrate.

Shaw acknowledges that many people in the industry prefer to avoid asking difficult questions, adopting an attitude of "it kind of works enough, I don't want to ask the awkward questions." This willful ignorance, while understandable given the complexity of digital advertising, ultimately perpetuates the trust crisis by allowing platforms to operate without meaningful oversight.

The solution, Shaw argues, lies in demanding answers to fundamental questions that should be easily answerable regardless of technical complexity: "How are you actually targeting this audience? Where is my ad being served? And what will it do for me as a marketer in terms of supporting my marketing objectives?"

These questions cut through technical complexity to address basic accountability. If an advertising partner cannot provide clear, comprehensible answers to these questions, it suggests either incompetence or deliberate obfuscation—neither of which inspires trust.

The cookie confusion: A trust crisis in real time

Google's prolonged uncertainty over third-party cookie policies provides a perfect case study in how platform decisions can erode trust even when the ultimate outcome might benefit advertisers. The company's repeated announcements, reversals, and delays around cookie deprecation forced advertisers to invest significant resources in preparing for changes that were ultimately postponed indefinitely.

"The impact of those decisions on smaller businesses is actually quite material," Shaw observes. For smaller advertising technology companies and specialized B2B marketing firms, the uncertainty around cookies required substantial investments in alternative solutions that were rendered unnecessary when Google reversed course.

This episode illustrates a broader trust issue: major platforms make decisions that significantly impact the entire advertising ecosystem, but they do so based primarily on their own strategic interests rather than the needs of the advertisers who ultimately fund the system. The lack of meaningful consultation with the advertising community before major policy changes suggests a fundamental imbalance in the platform-advertiser relationship.

Measurement and attribution: The ultimate trust test

At the heart of the trust crisis lies the question of measurement and attribution. If advertisers cannot verify that their spending is generating the intended results, they are essentially operating on faith rather than data-driven decision making. This represents a fundamental breakdown in the accountability that should underpin any trustworthy business relationship.

Shaw points to alarming gaps in measurement capabilities: many B2B marketers cannot definitively answer where their advertising spend is going, where their advertisements are appearing, or what specific results their campaigns are generating. This lack of visibility makes it impossible to optimize performance or even to verify that basic service delivery commitments are being met.

The measurement crisis is particularly acute for B2B marketers because their longer sales cycles and smaller target audiences require more sophisticated attribution models than consumer marketing typically demands. When platforms optimize their measurement tools for consumer marketing objectives, B2B marketers are left with attribution models that may miss the nuanced ways their audiences engage with advertising content.

Rebuilding trust through transparency

Despite the scale of the trust crisis, Shaw maintains optimism that solutions are achievable without completely rebuilding the digital advertising ecosystem. The fundamental infrastructure for delivering relevant advertising messages to specific audiences at scale works effectively; the problems lie in the layers of opacity and misaligned incentives built on top of that infrastructure.

The path forward requires a fundamental shift toward transparency and accountability. Rather than accepting opaque "black box" solutions, B2B marketers need to demand clear visibility into how their advertising dollars are being spent and what results those investments are generating.

This doesn't necessarily require revolutionary changes to advertising technology. Instead, it requires what Shaw describes as building "specific bits on top of that consumer plumbing to make B2B advertising work better." These B2B-specific enhancements focus on providing the transparency, precision, and accountability that business marketers require.

Looking forward: A more trustworthy future

Shaw's prediction that "B2B advertising will be in a better place than B2C advertising" within the next few years reflects his belief that the B2B community's demand for accountability and transparency will ultimately drive superior solutions. Unlike consumer marketing, where massive scale can compensate for inefficiency, B2B marketing's precision requirements make transparency and accountability essential rather than optional.

The international expansion opportunities Shaw describes for his company also reflect growing global recognition that current digital advertising practices fall short of business marketing requirements. As awareness of these trust deficits spreads, demand for more accountable solutions is likely to grow across markets.

The emergence of omnichannel opportunities in B2B advertising also provides reasons for optimism. As new channels become available for B2B marketing, there are opportunities to establish better practices from the beginning rather than trying to retrofit transparency into existing opaque systems.

The Path Forward: Immediate Actions for B2B Marketers

The trust crisis in B2B digital advertising demands immediate action, but the good news is that meaningful change doesn't require waiting for industry-wide transformation. Individual marketers can begin rebuilding trust and improving efficiency by taking specific, actionable steps with their current advertising programs.

The foundation of any improvement effort lies in Shaw's fundamental observation: "Can you tell me what my advertising dollar has been spent on, where it has been spent, and what results it has delivered for me?" These should be answerable within a single phone call, yet too many marketers cannot get clear answers from their current suppliers.

Immediate Action required: Audit Your Current Advertising Accountability

Start by conducting a comprehensive audit of your existing digital advertising programs. Schedule meetings with each of your advertising suppliers—whether direct platform relationships, agency partners, or ad tech providers—and ask three fundamental questions:

• Targeting verification: Can you show me exactly which audiences my ads are reaching and provide proof that targeting parameters are being honored?
• Placement transparency: Can you provide complete visibility into where my ads are appearing, including specific websites, content categories, and placement positions?
• Performance attribution: Can you demonstrate clear connections between advertising exposure and business outcomes relevant to my specific B2B objectives?

Document the responses carefully. If any supplier cannot provide clear, verifiable answers to these questions, you've identified a trust gap that needs immediate attention.

Building Long-Term Trust

The ultimate goal extends beyond immediate efficiency improvements to rebuilding the fundamental trust relationship between B2B marketers and their advertising suppliers. This requires a shift from passive acceptance of current practices to active demand for accountability and transparency.

Shaw's optimistic prediction that "B2B advertising will be in a better place than B2C advertising" within the next few years depends on marketers taking these concrete steps to demand better standards. The technology and capabilities exist to provide the transparency and accountability B2B marketers need; what's required is the collective will to make these standards non-negotiable requirements rather than aspirational goals.

The trust crisis in B2B digital advertising represents both a challenge and an opportunity. By taking immediate action to audit current practices, implement stronger accountability measures, and demand transparency from all suppliers, B2B marketers can begin rebuilding trust while improving efficiency and performance. The question is not whether better solutions are possible, but whether individual marketers will take the steps necessary to demand them from their advertising partners.