Most B2B teams don't have a targeting problem.
They spent weeks on the ICP. Industry, size, region, tech stack, the right job titles. The list is clean. It's in the CRM. It's loaded into a sequence.
Then it gets worked in rotation. Next 50 names this week, next 50 the week after. Every company gets the same treatment, because every company passed the same filter.
That's where it breaks. A perfect-fit company that signed a three-year contract with your competitor last month is a bad target this quarter. It's still a great fit. It just can't buy.
Fit tells you who. It doesn't tell you when.
An ICP answers one question: could this company ever buy from us? Useful. Also static. It describes the company, not the moment the company is in.
Buying happens in moments. Someone new takes over a function. A budget gets approved. A tool stops scaling. A deadline shows up. Before that moment, your perfect-fit account is busy with other things, and no sequence changes that.
So the list isn't wrong. It's incomplete. It has no time dimension.
The 95/5 rule, and the part people skip
The best-known number here comes from Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, in work for the LinkedIn B2B Institute. His logic is simple. Companies change providers like their main bank or law firm around once every five years. So roughly 20% of business buyers are in the market over a year, and something like 5% in a quarter. The other 95% aren't. [1]
Two details before you put that on a slide.
First, Dawes says the 95% isn't meant to be precise. It's a heuristic. His own example: if your category is bought every two years on average, around 13% of buyers are in the market in a given quarter. [1] Your number depends on how often your category gets bought. Work it out for yours.
Second, the conclusion. The 95/5 rule gets quoted in signal and intent circles as "only go after the 5%". The research argues close to the opposite. Advertising works mainly by building memories, so the brand that comes to mind when a buyer moves into the market is the one that gets bought. The B2B Institute's advice is to run lead generation for the in-market few and invest far more heavily in brand for the whole category. [2]
I agree with that. With one addition.
Brand is for the 95%. Signals decide where sales time goes this week.
Two budgets, two jobs. Marketing reaches everyone who could buy someday, so they remember you when they do. Sales spends its limited hours on the companies where something just changed.
Which one you need more depends on your situation. A new category nobody has heard of needs memory first. A known product in a crowded market, sold by a small team, probably needs better timing first. Neither is universally right.
What timing looks like in practice
Timing isn't a feeling. It shows up as a change you can observe:
- A new leader in the function you sell to
- A hiring wave, or the first hire in a role
- A funding round or an acquisition
- Expansion into a new office, country or site
- A regulation deadline that now applies to them
- A change in their tech stack
- Interest in you: repeat visits, a reply, a conversation at an event
Each one is a reason the status quo might be moving. None of them guarantees a purchase. Two or three together usually mean a conversation is worth starting. I've written up the signals most teams overlook, and where to find them, in Buying signals teams miss.
Signals also go stale. A new leader sets their agenda early. A job ad gets filled. Found three months late, a signal is mostly history.
What changes on Monday morning
For a small team, this isn't a new strategy deck. It's a different list on Monday.
Instead of the next 50 names in the sequence, sales gets a short list. Five companies some weeks, fifteen in others. Each one comes with three things:
- Why now: the change that happened, and when
- Who to talk to: the role first, then the person
- What to say: an opener that references the change, not your product
The rest of the target list doesn't disappear. It stays in the brand and nurture motion until something changes.
The first message changes too. "You're in our ICP" is not a reason anyone wants to hear from you. "You just opened an office in Amsterdam and you're hiring for finance ops" at least gives them one.
How you're allowed to deliver that message is a separate question. The rules for cold email and cold calls differ a lot between European countries, so don't assume what works in one market works in the next. I've broken it down in GDPR and buying signals.
Measure it, or it stays an opinion
Timing beating targeting is a claim like any other. Test it on your own pipeline.
Split it into two cohorts: companies that came from a signal, and companies that came from the regular rotation. Track meetings booked and opportunities created for each. Not opens, not clicks. Give it a quarter.
If signal companies don't convert better for you, that's useful too. Maybe your category is bought so often that timing matters less. Maybe you're watching the wrong signals. Either way you'll know, instead of debating it in a pipeline review.
If you want the full system behind this (scoring, the weekly loop and how it changes across EMEA markets), it's in Signal-based ABM in EMEA.
Keep the list. Add the clock.
The ICP work wasn't wasted. It tells you who is worth watching. It can't tell you who to talk to this week. That needs a second input, and it changes every week.
This is what I do for B2B teams across EMEA. Every Monday you get the companies in your market showing buying signals that week: why now, who to talk to and suggested messaging. If you want to see what that looks like for your market, ask for a free sample of 3 companies.
References
- John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, for the LinkedIn B2B Institute: Advertising effectiveness and the 95-5 rule: most B2B buyers are not in the market right now. business.linkedin.com (PDF)
- Ty Heath, LinkedIn B2B Institute: The 95-5 Rule. business.linkedin.com