Survey Finds Most US B2C Marketers Can't Trace AI Agent Leads to Sales
TLDR
An Invoca survey of 451 US B2C marketers found only 19% of those running AI agents send outcomes back to ad platforms, and 74% cannot track whether AI agent leads become sales.
Optimixed Overview
Optimixed's original report on this story.
Invoca's survey of 451 US B2C marketers found that just 19% of those running AI agents send outcomes back to ad platforms, and 74% can't track whether AI agent leads turn into sales, as first reported by PPC Land. The gap raises questions about what bidding systems are learning from those conversations.
How we got here: earlier coverage
On October 19, a Basis survey of 184 marketers found that 51% now use AI agents, yet only 6.5% measure AI ROI against benchmarks. Later, on October 30, a Metric Sherpa study produced with Sprinklr found that most organizations say AI is meeting expectations, but few can prove results, with success metrics, baselines, and outcome owners missing. Now, an Invoca survey of 451 US B2C marketers finds that only 19% of those running AI agents send outcomes back to ad platforms, and 74% cannot track whether AI agent leads become sales.
Summary of earlier coverage
- Oct 30Most Marketers Report AI Gains but Few Can Prove Them, Metric Sherpa Study Finds
A Metric Sherpa study produced with Sprinklr finds most organizations report AI meeting expectations but few can prove results, largely because success metrics, baselines, and outcome owners are missing.
- Oct 24IAB Europe survey finds 86% of European ad businesses using AI for marketing, but only 48% have governance policies in place
An IAB Europe survey of 50 ad businesses shows heavy AI adoption among marketers but significant gaps in governance and compliance policies.
- Oct 19Only 6.5% of marketers measure AI ROI as adoption of AI agents surges to 51%, Basis survey finds
A Basis survey of 184 marketers shows ChatGPT adoption declining to 74.5%, Claude rising to 72.3%, and 51% now using AI agents—yet only 6.5% measure AI ROI against benchmarks.
- Sep 7Study: AI Chatbots Talked 57.5% of AI Users Out of Making Purchases
Semrush surveyed 2,338 US consumers and found that 57.5% of AI users have been talked out of purchases by chatbots, and 65% have replaced some product searches with them.