59% of manufacturing buyers name supplier websites as the source they rely on most when researching a company, ahead of search engines (50%), trade publications (36%) and AI tools (19%). Research from myClearOpinion Insights Hub and BNP Media found this across readers of ASSEMBLY, Quality and Industrial Safety and Hygiene News. For most manufacturers, that means the bulk of a buyer’s first impression forms entirely on the website, before a phone call, an email or a trade show conversation ever happens.
Why are manufacturers losing bids to competitors they don’t hear about?
Manufacturers lose bids when a competitor gets on the buyer’s shortlist first, often before anyone on the sales team hears there was a deal to pursue. This article outlines the data on where buying decision shortlists actually get built: supplier websites, search and trade media, most often before a phone call or meeting with a sales team.
For most manufacturers, somewhere in your market, a buyer who fits your ideal customer profile researches online, builds a shortlist, and moves on. The deal never shows up as a loss because it never made it into the pipeline at all.
This pattern is common across complex B2B purchasing decisions. The 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report from 6sense, a global study of business-to-business buying, found that, 95% of the time, the vendor who won the deal was already on the buyer’s shortlist on day one. By the time a buyer contacts or responds to sales, the field has often already narrowed due to research conducted by buyers outside of normal sales efforts, driven by web and marketing efforts of competing manufacturing companies.
That is the cost of underinvesting in marketing and demand generation: not one bad quarter, but the slow erosion of a brand, website, and body of published expertise that buyers rely on before your sales team gets a call.
Without a complete website, thought leadership, and published technical content, your competitors get discovered first, and your company does not. Because nothing visibly breaks when marketing work gets postponed, companies that delay these updates feel it further down the road, when recovery costs are much higher.
How much research do technical B2B buyers do before contacting sales?
Technical buyers complete 62% of their research online before contacting a vendor, according to the 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers report from GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing. This figure holds even among buyers 56 and older.
Separate research from Gartner, released in March 2026, found that 67% of business-to-business (B2B) buyers now say they prefer a sales-rep-free experience for at least part of the process. By the time a technical buyer talks to a sales representative, much of the decision has already been shaped.
Relationships and field sales still close manufacturing business. What has changed is how companies get the chance to be part of that conversation at all. For many buyers, discovery, trust and consideration happen outside the sales conversation and change who gets selected to be part of that conversation in the first place.
Where do manufacturing buyers look for suppliers before requesting a quote?
Manufacturing buyers rely most on supplier websites, search engines, trade publications, and AI tools, in that order. Research from myClearOpinion Insights Hub and BNP Media asked readers of ASSEMBLY, Quality and Industrial Safety and Hygiene News (ISHN) which sources they rely on most for credible, work-related information:
- 59% named supplier websites
- 50% named search engines
- 36% named digital trade publications
- 19% named AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT or Copilot
No single channel carries buyer research on its own. A supplier that is well known on its own website but invisible in search, or well covered in trade media (but thin on its own site), is only discoverable to part of its market. Being easy to find across several channels, not just the strongest one, keeps a company in the running before a buyer decides who to request a quote from.
Does trade advertising work for manufacturing marketing and sales?
Yes, trade advertising still works to help companies get discovered and known online. The impact of advertising in a manufacturing trade publication is concentrated early and frames how buyers become aware of manufacturing supplier options and decide who to trust, not when the deal actually closes.
A 2026 research study from myClearOpinion Insights Hub and BNP Media, across ASSEMBLY, Quality and ISHN, found that buyers with purchase influence rely on trade media less as they get closer to a decision:
- 61% rely on trade media for researching and learning about options
- 51% for comparing brands or suppliers
- 24% for reaching a shortlist
- 12% for making the final decision
Advertising and placing content in trade media helps a company get seen as an option before the shortlist forms. It doesn’t drive a win once the shortlist is already set. That lines up with separate 2021 research from McKinsey, which measured industrial brand visibility partly through media mentions, including coverage in industry publications, and found visibility differences that carried through to pricing and returns, which are covered below.
What should happen after a buyer sees us in a trade publication?
The next action most manufacturing buyers take after learning of a company through trade media is to go straight to the company website. The same 2026 BNP Media research found that current readers across the five-brand aggregate report:
- 68% visited a company’s website after seeing it featured in a BNP Media publication
- 49% downloaded a brochure, spec sheet, or other material
- 38% requested pricing, samples or a sales contact
- 27% added the product to a consideration set for an upcoming project
Trade media’s job is to get a company noticed; what happens after that depends on the website.
The pattern is clear enough to act on: media advertising and earned mentions earn new visits from manufacturing buyers, and the website decides what happens next. When prospective buyers land on a website they are looking for authentic, accurate information that makes the buying decision easier. A dated, thin, or hard-to-navigate site wastes a visit that trade media worked to earn.
Will AI like ChatGPT mention my company when a buyer asks?
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT or Copilot will only mention your company if you have already published something for them to summarize. AI search is already part of how manufacturing buyers gather information. The same 2026 BNP Media research found that among the manufacturing aggregate:
- 75% use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini for at least one work purpose
- 25% use those tools specifically to compare products or solutions
- 15% to 21% of readers across the three core brands name AI-powered tools as a source they rely on most
An AI tool can only summarize what a supplier has already published. A company with nothing current and specific published about its capabilities is overlooked, not because the tool failed to look, but because there is nothing published for it to find.
What’s the business payoff when manufacturers stay visible to buyers?
Being visible to buyers pays off in real numbers for manufacturers. McKinsey’s 2021 study of roughly 900 companies and 5,300 industrial brands found that the most visible brands commanded 5% to 10% price premiums, and that the most visible quartile of brands saw roughly 30% higher return on invested capital, a measure of how efficiently a company turns its investments into profit. McKinsey’s research shows the companies winning on price and returns are consistently the most visible ones.
When it works, a company shows up early everywhere a buyer looks: on its own website, in search, in trade media, and in what AI tools surface. That is what gets a company onto shortlists, since buyers build those lists from suppliers they already know. It also means sales spends less time re-explaining things the market could have learned on its own, relies less on a handful of individual relationships, and shows up accurately in the AI-generated answers buyers increasingly check first.
McKinsey found that roughly 60% of industrial brands became less visible over a five year period in their study (leading up to 2021). Companies that keep their marketing system fresh, relevant, and discoverable pull further ahead the longer they stick with it.
A scoped first step, such as a focused digital health check of the full marketing system, gives manufacturing leadership teams a clear, low-risk place to start deciding where to invest.
Where should we cut marketing spend first if the budget gets tight?
When cash flow and revenue are tight, protecting the channels that drive awareness and consideration- your website and targeted trade media visibility – matters more, not less.
The 2026 BNP Media research on manufacturing buyers shows buyers research company websites, and trade media drives them there. By the time buyers decide who to shortlist for a manufacturing quote request, before any conversation with sales happens, spending more on lead generation or contact-list building returns less than continuing to invest in awareness, trust, and consideration.
- Ensure your company website has the information buyers need. Research from myClearOpinion Insights Hub and BNP Media found that 68% of current readers across the aggregate visited a company’s website after seeing it featured in a BNP Media publication. A weak website won’t get discovered in search or AI summaries, and it wastes every dollar spent getting buyers there in the first place.
- Target channels that help you get discovered and considered by your core audience. Aim spend at the stages where buyers say they rely on trade media most: researching and learning about options, and comparing suppliers. Trim reach before cutting presence at those two stages.
- If something has to go, cut unproven lead generation and contact-list spend first, not trade media or the website. Only 12% to 16% of buyers say they rely on trade media by the time they are finalizing a purchase, the stage lead-generation tactics target, which makes it the lowest-return place to keep spending if you aren’t able to measure returns quickly.
If you are not sure what is working now, a good first step is a digital health check that shows a leadership team exactly what buyers find today, with no formal intake and no assumptions about what needs to change.
Are you losing bids to competitors you never even hear about?
Answer these five questions honestly. If you answer “no” to any of them, that’s where to start.
- If a buyer researched your application today, would they find what they need to understand who you are and what you do across your website, search, AI, and trade media?
- Are you visible where buyers say they actually learn and compare, not just where it is easiest to advertise?
- Does your website give buyers a clear next step to research and understand without requiring a sales call?
- If an AI tool summarized your category today, does that summary include current, accurate information about your company and capabilities?
- If you asked right now, could your team tell you what a first step would cost, and what it is costing you to do nothing?
Need help knowing where to start? BNP Engage helps manufacturing companies get discovered, get considered, and get chosen. We start with a digital health check to understand what’s already working and what to prioritize first.
About this research
This article draws on research myClearOpinion Insights Hub conducted for BNP Media among readers of ASSEMBLY, Quality and Industrial Safety and Hygiene News (ISHN), plus the 2026 manufacturing technologies aggregate built from those three brands together with Paint and Coatings Industry and Adhesives and Sealants Industry.
Brand-level base sizes run from about 120 to 140 respondents, and the aggregate ranges from roughly 390 to 550 depending on the question. Respondents are a 2026 sample of engaged BNP Media audiences, with an average age of 57 to 58; they are not a census of all manufacturers, and the questions capture what readers say they do and rely on, not independently observed behavior. Buyers in the paint and coatings and adhesives and sealants categories appear only inside the aggregate, so they sit one step removed from the figures above.
External sources, including GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing, Gartner and 6sense, are sponsored or vendor-produced research and are not manufacturing-specific except where noted.
Disclosure: BNP Media sells trade media advertising, including the kind of visibility this article recommends protecting.
Sources
- GlobalSpec and TREW Marketing, 2026 State of Marketing to Engineers
- Gartner 2026 survey coverage, 67% rep-free preference (Digital Commerce 360)
- Gartner abstract, Optimize Websites to Support B2B Buying Journeys
- 6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report
- McKinsey, The rising value of industrial brands
- 2026 Reader Preference Profile research for ASSEMBLY, Quality and Industrial Safety and Hygiene News, plus the 2026 Manufacturing Technologies Aggregate, conducted by myClearOpinion Insights Hub for BNP Media
