This week, we're revisiting one of the most important principles in modern marketing: the 95/5 rule. It's a simple idea with a big implication for how you spend your ad budget and how you think about reach.
At any given time, 5% of your potential buyers are in market for your product.
Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute first introduced this principle in 2021, drawing on purchase cycle data across B2B and B2C categories. For a category like home appliances, where replacement cycles average 10 years, only about 2.5% of buyers are in market during any given quarter.
What the 95/5 rule means for your marketing strategy
If most of my audience won't buy anytime soon, what is advertising actually doing?
It's building memory structures. When buyers do enter the market, they reach for brands they already know. Familiarity is built before the buying moment, not during it. That's the real job of advertising.
Does this rule apply to B2C brands, or just B2B?
Mostly yes, with nuance. For high-frequency categories like snacks or bottled water, people are technically in market all the time. But habits dominate buying behavior, and mental availability still determines which brand gets grabbed automatically.
So what's wrong with performance marketing?
Nothing, but it can only speak to the 5% who are ready now. Performance should harvest the demand that brand marketing creates. The research-backed benchmark from Binet and Field suggests a 60/40 split in favor of brand investment if long-term growth is the goal.
What does this mean for creative?
Broad, emotionally engaging creative wins. Logos, colors, sounds, characters and slogans repeated consistently build the memory structures that pay off later. A commercial that's nothing but a CTA might drive short-term clicks, but it trades away the brand-building that matters to the other 95%.
"What's Your In-Market Percentage?"
Want to see how the 95/5 rule applies to your specific brand and category? The free My Market Calculator tool from Marketing Architects lets you enter your website URL and find out what share of your buyers are likely in market at any given time.
The case for staying top of mind.
“The brand that gets remembered is the brand that gets bought.”
— Professor John Dawes
This newsletter comes from the hosts of The Marketing Architects, a research-first show answering your biggest marketing questions. Find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
