B2C and B2B marketing have traditionally sat in overlapping circles. While B2C is typically influenced by fast-paced social trends and emerging technologies, these often filter through to B2B – drawing their circles closer together.
Today, more B2B brands operate in ecosystems where the end consumer has increasing influence – even when they’re not the direct buyer. From formulation and manufacturing to distribution and retail, what resonates downstream increasingly shapes decisions upstream. And whether you’re in B2C or B2B, we’re all trying to influence people and behaviour, not businesses. People are shaped by cognitive biases, emotional triggers and content preferences, whether they’re scrolling through Instagram or LinkedIn and trade media. As such, there’s more for B2B marketers to learn from B2C than we might think.
That’s why we were intrigued by an analysis of 500 top-performing Meta ads from 50 leading B2C supplement brands across 10 countries, spanning drink powders, capsules, gummies and functional snacks. While the dataset is firmly B2C, the patterns offer useful lessons for B2B marketers willing to work backwards up the B2B2C funnel – from the supplement types dominating advertising to the ad formats that stop the scroll and the copywriting techniques that drive conversion.
1. Which supplement formats rule advertising?
Out of the 500 supplement ads analysed, 40% promoted drink products, followed by pills (34%), gummies (14%) and bars (12%). From a B2B perspective, some of these figures are quite surprising, like the smaller percentage of ads promoting gummies. This format is often described in the industry as the rising star of supplements, with strong growth and consumer appeal. Yet in this dataset, they account for a small proportion of total advertising. At the same time, drinks represent a relatively small share of total dietary supplement salesi – but dominated this advertising set by a mile. This misalignment raises interesting questions, such as are supplement drinks still relatively new and therefore less familiar, requiring heavier awareness investment? Or are brands betting on future growth?
What does this mean for B2B brands?
- Advertising doesn’t always mirror demand. For example, gummies represent ~25% of total dietary supplement sales in the U.S.1, yet they only equate to 14% of the ads analysed in this dataset. B2B brands could use this as an opportunity to position themselves as enablers of growth in this high-demand, potentially under-advertised category.
- When a format dominates the media, like beverage-based supplements, differentiation becomes critical. This is where B2B brands can help their B2C customers stand out. That might mean novel liquid-based formats, clean-label credentials or greater efficacy.
- Market segmentation may not reflect consumer buying decisions. In the nutraceutical industry, brands typically create and manufacture either dietary supplements (capsules, soft gels, gummies etc.), or functional food and beverages. However, from a consumer perspective, they’re looking for a nutrition boost to their diet, with the format choice depending on preference, cost, health claims and often branding and marketing. The choice is more fluid and therefore the competition for brands greater than would first appear on paper.
2. Which B2C ad formats stopped the scroll?
Out of the 500 supplement ads analysed, here’s a breakdown of format types:
35.8%
single image ads
32.6%
user-generated content (UGC)
21%
video
8.4%
animation
2.2%
carousels
Single images remain dominant, likely due to cost-efficiency and ease of scaling. But the near-equal share of UGC is striking. This is likely due to consumers responding strongly to content that feels peer-driven rather than brand-scripted.
What does this mean for B2B brands?
- Consumers don’t like feeling ‘marketed to’. And neither do procurement managers or R&D directors. UGC is therefore just as important in B2B as it is in B2C, it’s just that the trust signals differ – from celebrities and creators in the B2C world to subject matter experts, scientists and credible authors in B2B. Here, UGC encompasses customer testimonials, expert commentary and industry thought leadership.
- At BDB, we consistently see that thought leader campaigns outperform purely corporate messaging. For instance, across all client accounts in 2025 we saw thought leader adverts generate 27% higher click-through rates (CTR) than posts boosted from company pages.
3. What do the best B2C ads show?
When broken down by content type, the top performing supplement ads focused on:
44.2%
product demos
17.4%
social proof
13%
lifestyle
11.6%
sale offer
11.4%
education
The dominance of demos is particularly notable, with almost half of all top-performing B2C ads showing how the product is used in real life, from swallowing a pill to mixing a powder into a drink or unwrapping a nutritional bar. While these ads dominated, there is still appetite for social proof ads – which authentically endorse products by sharing personal opinions, as well as lifestyle ads, sale offers and educational content.
What does this mean for B2B brands?
- Clarity converts. The success of demo ads highlights how people want to see how things work. In B2B, this could mean how an ingredient is made, how it works in a formulation or how it delivers its benefits. Short explainer videos or infographics are particularly useful for this type of content.
- Storytelling matters. Lifestyle ads in B2C lean on storytelling to portray the lifestyle that a product represents – whether it’s clearer focus at work or more energy at the gym. These types of ads are equally as useful in B2B, as they help customers visualise the downstream impact of your solution – and ultimately, the commercial opportunity.
4. What copywriting techniques drive conversion?
The analysis identified several recurring messaging techniques, including:
- Quantified benefits – lead with hard numbers
- Social proof and credibility – tap into customer reviews
- Promotional hooks – offers that drive urgency
- Outcome-oriented messaging – product benefits over product features
- Emotional triggers – embed experience-based emotion into benefit-led storytelling
What does this mean for B2B brands?
- The same principles that drive conversion in B2C apply in B2B. Quantify the value, reinforce trust and highlight the end benefit. While B2B buyers may operate within longer sales cycles and have to make more complex decisions, they are still influenced by clarity, social validation and emotional reassurance. The brands that win are those that combine hard evidence with human relevance – making the commercial case while reinforcing confidence in the decision.
- Avoid cliché phrases. Interestingly, while lots of the high performing B2C ads used emotional language, cliché phrases like ‘stress relief’, ‘you deserve’ or ‘peace of mind’ were rarely used, suggesting they do not land well with consumers. This is also true in B2B – where phrases like ‘cutting-edge’, ‘transformative’ and ‘revolutionary’ can make readers roll their eyes.
Final thoughts
While this dataset may represent only a snapshot of a big industry, it reinforces a broader truth – influence doesn’t start at the top of the funnel, it often starts at the end. By working backwards up the B2B2C value chain, brands can learn from the ads that convert consumers to better engage B2B buyers. The formats, messaging techniques and psychological triggers that drive action in B2C don’t disappear in B2B – they just show up differently.