A lot can change in a year. For us, almost everything has.
Twelve months ago, Hallam made a decision that felt risky at the time: stop trying to be everything to everyone, and commit fully to B2B. It meant walking away from work that didn’t fit. It meant restructuring how we deliver. It meant rebuilding our commercial model from the ground up. And it meant doing all of this while transitioning to 100% employee ownership and retaining our B Corp status.
Here’s a recap of the last year.
Why we repositioned
It became clear to us the old B2B playbook was broken. Starting in 2023, the marketers who were coming to us were increasingly frustrated. We kept hearing that they were working harder to generate pipeline that simply wasn’t there and the pressure was piling on.
We were able to diagnose a rough pattern in B2B over the last few years. LLMs are now part of 94% of B2B buyers’ research cycles, and that’s set off a chain reaction. As information becomes freely available, gated content and demand gen have lost their pull, as buyers simply won’t trade their email for what they can find instantly elsewhere. Organic traffic is following suit, dropping an average of 34% a year as most Google searches now end without a single click to a website.
So marketers do the logical thing: shift budget to what still works and can be measured – paid media. But then the costs started spiralling. Platform costs are climbing, and more competitors are chasing the same 5% of in-market buyers, driving prices up. Average CPCs have jumped 29% in a year for most B2B search queries. It’s gotten so distorted that in B2B tech and SaaS, it can now cost £2 to acquire just £1 of ARR. We watched good marketers get “restructured” out of roles because the maths simply doesn’t add up anymore.
Since 2025, we’ve been retooling Hallam to solve this problem at both the structural and tactical level. We built Hallam’s capability to speak to how B2B buying actually works: 95% of buyers are out of market at any moment, and when they do buy, 93% choose a vendor already on their ‘Day 1 List’, the shortlist that exists in buyers’ minds before the search even begins.
We help our clients get chosen before the search begins, but also to be the answer when it does. This means meeting B2B buyers where they are at – which is increasingly in the LLMs – with a new, comprehensive AI search methodology.
The commercial results
The numbers tell a clear story about what repositioning has delivered.
Monthly recurring revenue has grown by 11% – a signal that clients are committing to longer, deeper relationships rather than one-off projects. Closed-won new business rose 36%, with 2026 tracking ahead of that.
Pitch conversion improved hugely, reflecting sharper positioning, better-qualified leads, and a proposition that resonates with the right clients. ICP-qualified leads grew from 57% to 68%, confirming we’re attracting more of the work we’re built for.
We’re on track for our strongest profit performance in recent history – an outcome that, as an Employee Ownership Trust, unlocks a tax-free bonus for the team.
What we’ve built for ourselves and for clients
The repositioning forced us to invest properly in proprietary capability – tools no competitor can replicate.
Share of LLM measures how visible our clients are inside AI-generated answers. The Third Eye delivers hourly automated site-change alerts via Gemini. The Brain connects CRM and marketing platform data in BigQuery to attribute marketing activity directly to pipeline and revenue. This is now deployed in client work, and connected via a live client portal.
Internally, we embedded Google Gemini Enterprise and Claude across the agency – connecting project management, finance, HubSpot, Slack, BigQuery, and Google Drive into a single queryable layer. The efficiency gains on data and development tasks are reinvested into client innovation rather than margin.
Across our client base we’ve seen a 135% average traffic growth year-on-year, 382% average branded search growth, and 70% of clients achieving significant lead growth. Our NPS score has risen to 71 which is rated “exceptional”. Our work for clients such as Infodesk, Holcim and plan.com show how we’ve created impact in B2B sectors, from redefining brands to scaling digital performance and growing pipeline.
The ownership model that makes this different
In August 2025, Hallam became 100% employee-owned through an Employee Ownership Trust. Every colleague now has a direct stake in the agency’s future. That’s not a PR story – it changes the incentive structure at every level.
The B Corp certification, retained through a period of significant structural change, confirms the rest: ethical operation and commercial ambition aren’t in conflict. We’ve donated over £100,000 to charity across our Nottingham Digital Summits and we continue to give a percentage of profits to charitable causes. We turn away clients who don’t share our values and ensure the company has a say in the types of businesses we work for.
Alongside this our staff retention is strong, with 33% of the team having been with Hallam for five years or more and 58% for three years or more. In an industry with notoriously high churn, that retention is a consequence of culture, not coincidence.
Building community
One of the clearest signals that Hallam’s repositioning is working isn’t a revenue number – it’s an online community of B2B marketers who have a space to gain valuable insights to propel their day-to-day role.
Better B2B launched in 2025 as Hallam’s community for senior B2B marketers: a space for honest conversation about what’s actually working, free from vendor noise and agency agenda. In just over 6 months the community grew to over 500 members, built around a programme of in-person and online events and peer exchange that money can’t manufacture. The community exists because B2B marketing is genuinely hard, and the people doing it deserve somewhere to think out loud.
What’s next
In 2026, we’re investing in expanding our AI search capability, targeting a 3X return in doing so. In 2027, we’ll launch a dedicated AI readiness service – helping B2B marketing teams build the infrastructure, automation layers, and agentic workflows that turn AI into measurable commercial results for our clients.
And as we look to the future, it’s our people who will drive the business forward, creating a work environment that serves to make your life better.
Are you a B2B brand looking to stand out in your sector and grow pipeline? Get in touch today.
