B2B marketers can use emerging channels to build pipeline when every channel has a clear role in the buying journey.

Connected TV (CTV), programmatic audio, direct mail, and live events can create attention, reinforce memory, capture intent, and activate sales when they are coordinated around the same audience, message, and measurement strategy.

This coordination matters because B2B buyers research in bursts, decisions stretch for weeks or months, and buying groups often include multiple stakeholders. A streaming ad, forwarded webinar invite, or timely direct mailer may not convert alone, but together they can move an account closer to a sales conversation.

This article breaks down where emerging channels fit and offers a blueprint you can run without rebuilding your entire engine.

How Should B2B Marketers Orchestrate Emerging Channels?

Channel orchestration means assigning each channel a role, sequencing the message, and measuring how each touchpoint contributes to pipeline. Emerging channels create leverage when they have clear jobs and clean handoffs.

• Attention: Build recognition and category memory
• Education: Share proof, differentiation, and use cases
• Intent capture: Track search, site actions, and content engagement
• Sales activation: Convert momentum into meetings and opportunities

Orchestration is what ties this together. In practice, that means:

• Same audience definitions across channels (so you're not marketing to multiple versions of "IT decision-makers")
• Sequenced messaging (introduction to proof to action) instead of random repetition
• Unified measurement that reflects contribution across the path (and not only the last click)

Programmatic advertising makes this easier by connecting activation and measurement across formats so emerging channels can support the funnel rather than sit beside it.

Where Do Emerging Channels Fit in a B2B Revenue Program?

Emerging channels fit into a B2B revenue program by supporting specific moments in the buying journey. Let's look at how some emerging channels fit into your media mix along with more traditional channels.

Programmatic Audio

Programmatic audio reinforces brand memory in screenless moments such as commutes, workouts, and workday listening. IAB reports that digital audio accounts for 20% of time all people ages 18 plus spent with digital media, making digital audio useful for reach when paired with demand-capture channels.

Audio is often underused in B2B because it's measured like a last-click channel. Its real value is reinforcing your POV between heavier touches like webinars, launches, and sales outreach.

Audio also fits B2B learning behavior. Business and industry-specific podcasts create strong contextual alignment so your message can run alongside topics buyers actively choose.

CTV

CTV supports B2B pipeline by combining sight, sound, and motion with audience targeting. It can introduce a category POV, educate buying groups, and help internal champions make the case.

Use CTV to educate (why this matters), differentiate (why us), and provide proof (how it works/who it's for). And connect it to outcomes.

• Use completion/time signals to trigger sequenced retargeting
• Use QR codes or on-screen CTAs to send stakeholders to evaluation assets (case studies, comparisons, walkthroughs)
• Keep the same story consistent across the whole buying group

Direct Mail

Direct mail works best as an activation channel when it is triggered by account intent rather than scheduled as a static ABM touch. Use it when engagement rises on key pages, priority accounts return to your site, momentum stalls mid-evaluation, or a launch creates a timely reason to re-engage.

Direct mail lands best when recipients have already seen related digital messaging, so recognition is immediate. Then use retargeting and a dedicated landing page to reinforce the same promise, proof, and next step.

Live Events

Live events, whether virtual or in-person, help B2B teams build trust and align buying groups. They also generate strong intent signals including attendance, session engagement, topic interest, and Q&A participation.

Use events for roundtables, workshops, demos, customer panels, and consult-style sessions. Afterward, follow up based on what attendees consumed, reinforce the same narrative with retargeting, and use engagement signals to prioritize account-level actions.

A Coordinated Flight Blueprint

Here's a simple, repeatable structure that treats emerging channels as multipliers, not silos.

How Should B2B Marketers Measure Emerging Channels?

B2B marketers should measure emerging channels by contribution across the buying journey, not only by last-click conversions. CTV and audio often influence awareness, recall, return visits, and assisted conversions before another channel captures the final action.

Use a simple measurement stack.

• Upper funnel: reach and frequency (plus brand lift where available)
• Mid funnel: qualified visits, engaged sessions, return visits, and content depth
• Lower funnel: assist conversions, lift studies, incrementality tests, and media mix modeling inputs

To make this measurable:

• Align audience naming across channels so reporting connects exposures to actions
• Define success metrics before launch (what does 'good' look like at each stage?)
• Call out assisted conversions explicitly—especially for channels like audio and CTV that often influence rather than close

Emerging Channels Drive Revenue When They're Part of a System

Emerging channels drive revenue when they reinforce the channels B2B marketers already rely on. Search, LinkedIn, content syndication, retargeting, and sales outreach should remain part of the plan, but they should not have to do all the heavy lifting.

Programmatic channels like CTV, audio, and direct mail add reinforcement around core campaigns so attention can turn into intent, and intent can turn into opportunities.

If you're planning your next B2B campaign, add one emerging channel, but plan the handoffs on day one. Define its role, audience, message sequence, landing page, and success metric before launch.

That's where "interesting" starts turning into pipeline.