Hidden buyers. That undercover champion, influencer, or gatekeeper. The one that has your buyer's ear and the power to redirect your agenda. They might secretly be pulling weight for you through the entire sales process. Or step in last minute to tank the deal.
Every deal has these. Multi-stakeholder B2B deals are rife with them, but so is an everyday consumer sale.
This post is about the B2B side.
LinkedIn and Edelman delivered new insight into invisible influencers in 2025's B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report. It surveyed 1,934 management-level professionals, including both target and hidden decision-makers.
Here are key points.
The hidden buyer revealed
Hidden buyers are defined as internal stakeholders who exert significant purchasing influence despite not being the target buyer or functional user of your product or service. Significant meaning they hold as much purchasing influence as the main buyers.
Problem is, many business development, marketing, and sales efforts overlook hidden buyers. Sometimes because we don't understand how to connect with them. Other times because we don't know they exist. Either way, hidden buyers are core decision makers who can't be ignored or treated as an afterthought.
Driving home that point is the fact that buying group misalignment causes over 40% of B2B deals to stall.
So who are these people?
Edelman-LinkedIn broke hidden buyers down into two groups: hidden decision-makers and hidden decision-influencers.
- Hidden decision-makers are the members of final purchasing groups who aren't in a role requiring in-depth solution knowledge. E.g., procurement, finance, compliance, and legal.
- Hidden decision-influencers help evaluate options, manage the process, and give decision-makers input and recommendations.
This isn't the standard B2B stakeholder breakdown looking at economic buyers, champions, gatekeepers, etc. It's important to note that hidden buyers can be found across various stakeholder profiles. Even so, Edelman-LinkedIn found certain shared traits, behaviours, and priorities.
Traits of the hidden buyer
- Role doesn't require in-depth knowledge of your service or product.
- Less likely to have a direct relationship with the service or product provider.
- Less likely to be in sales meetings, with 71% having little to no interaction with sales.
- 95% credit strong thought leadership for making them more receptive to sales and marketing outreach.
- Strategic, holistic thinkers who prize original insights and are more open to disruptive ideas and challenger brands than target buyers.
- Deeply engaged with thought leadership content and actively discover, consume, and evaluate thought leadership almost as much as target buyers.
- Will advocate for lesser-known or new brands.
- More likely to advocate for companies with high-quality thought leadership.
What hidden buyers value in thought leadership
- Thinking that informs and even challenges their views.
- Insights presented in a way that inspires them to research and learn further.
- Accessible, approachable, and human insights with distinctive style.
- Quick straightforward takeaways over deeply technical, academic content.
- Fresh insights into their business and industry (even more than target buyers at 91% vs 81%).
- Like thought leadership content that uncovers challenges or needs they aren't familiar with.
- Getting a sense of the type and calibre of thinking an organization brings.
Factors hidden buyers prioritize in their final decisions
- 85% said vendor understanding of business’s challenges and needs.
- 76% said vendor understanding of trends affecting their industry.
- 74% said vendor being a leading expert in area relevant to the product or service.
- 68% said vendor being a strategic fit with my organization.
- 56% said vendor being a cultural fit with my organization.
- 41% said vendor was the safest choice.
- 53% said brand recognition matters less when thought leadership is high quality.
Main takeaways
Hidden ≠ unimportant, disengaged, or passive.
Invisible buyers are highly involved, actively engaged, and are often more receptive to a potential provider's outreach material than prime buyers.
The safe, staid choice isn't what interests them.
Your secret buyers spend their time on style-forward and human-centric leadership content that delivers relevant insights. When it's good enough, they advocate for the brands behind it.
See LinkedIn-Edelman's 2025 report here.