This page collects published third-party research for 15 questions. 14 have no reliable published benchmark as of October 2026. None of these figures are Revspire results. Vendor numbers are labelled with their evidence type.
How many content assets are shared per closed-won deal vs lost deal?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published study compares the number of assets shared in won and lost deals. The closest data describes how much content buyers consume, or how they engage with one document.
Proxy evidence
- FocusVision found buyers consumed an average of 13 pieces of content before choosing a vendor: 8 from vendors and 5 from third parties. The sample size was not published, and respondents were marketing executives buying martech.MarTech (FocusVision survey), 2020 · Trade press report of a survey · Sample size not stated; marketing executives at companies with 500+ employees
- Across 742,137 proposals sent in 2025, winning proposals were viewed about 12 times on average, against about 8 for losing ones. This measures one document per deal, not the number of assets.Proposify, 2026 · Vendor platform data · 742,137 proposals sent through Proposify in 2025
How to measure this in your team: Count the distinct assets shared externally per opportunity, then compare closed-won and closed-lost medians by segment and deal size.
What percentage of a sales content library is never used?
The most cited answer is 60–70%. That figure is old: SiriusDecisions presented it at its 2013 Summit. It covers content produced by B2B marketing organisations, not sales libraries alone, and the method is not published on the page that cites it. Newer surveys measure perception rather than actual usage.
Best available evidence
- SiriusDecisions research presented at Summit 2013 found 60–70% of content produced by B2B marketing organisations goes unused. Some clients reported more than 80%.Forrester (SiriusDecisions research), 2013 · Analyst research · Method and sample not published on the page
- In Forrester’s 2023 Portfolio Marketing Survey, 53% of respondents said fewer than half of their sales enablement materials were being used by sales. The sample size is not stated on the page.Forrester, 2023 · Analyst survey · Sample size not stated on the page
- In Spekit’s 2025 survey of 100+ enablement professionals, 24% of respondents said 80% of their enablement content is not used.Spekit with the Sales Enablement Collective, 2025 · Vendor survey · 100+ enablement professionals
How to measure this in your team: Take active, customer-facing assets and calculate the share with zero external shares, views or downloads in the last 90 days. Exclude archived and internal-only items.
What does unused sales content cost per year?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
We could not find a published, sourced estimate of what unused sales content costs a year. The Forrester pages reviewed describe the waste but give no dollar figure. Many teams also do not know what they spend on content in the first place.
Proxy evidence
- In CSO Insights’ 2019 study (900+ participants), 28.1% of respondents did not know how much their organisation invests in sales content.CSO Insights (Miller Heiman Group, now part of Korn Ferry), 2019 · Independent research-firm survey · 900+ participants worldwide
How to measure this in your team: Multiply the fully loaded production cost per asset (agency fees plus internal hours) by the number of assets with no external use in 12 months.
What is a good sales content utilization rate?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
There is no agreed definition of content utilization, and no published benchmark for it. The only comparable figures are the unused-content estimates above and single-customer case studies.
Proxy evidence
- In Forrester’s 2023 survey, 53% of respondents said sales used fewer than half of their enablement materials. That implies utilization below 50% for those respondents.Forrester, 2023 · Analyst survey · Sample size not stated on the page
- Single-customer case study (Highspot): HSBC reported a 32% increase in content usage and an 83% improvement in content findability. No baseline utilization rate is given.Highspot, n.d. · Single-customer case study · One customer
How to measure this in your team: Define utilization as active assets used externally at least once in 90 days, divided by all active assets. Report it by asset type and segment.
What share of reps share content with buyers every week?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published benchmark reports weekly content-sharing rates by reps. Surveys instead measure how hard reps find it to get content.
Proxy evidence
- Allego’s 2021 survey (n=330 sales and marketing leaders) found reps at organisations with an enablement platform were almost 6x more likely to say it is easy to get the materials they need.Allego, 2021 · Vendor survey · n=330 B2B sales and marketing leaders, Lucid panel, ±5.3%
- In a 2013 Brainshark survey of 400+ sales professionals, one in three said getting the right collateral to close deals was a daily struggle.Demand Gen Report (Brainshark “State of the Sales Rep” survey), 2013 · Trade press report of a survey · 400+ sales professionals
How to measure this in your team: Divide the number of reps who shared at least one asset externally in a week by all quota-carrying reps. Track the trend weekly.
Do top-quartile reps use more or different content than average reps?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No independent study compares content habits by performance quartile. The only data is a vendor case study that compares high and low adopters at one company, which shows a correlation, not causation.
Proxy evidence
- Single-customer case study (GTM Buddy): MoEngage’s high-adopter sellers won 59.11% of deals, against 28% for low adopters. The adopter definition, sample and period are not disclosed.GTM Buddy, n.d. · Single-customer case study · One customer; adopter definition and sample not stated
How to measure this in your team: Compare assets shared per opportunity and the asset-type mix for top-quartile reps (by attainment) against the median rep, controlling for segment.
How long does sales content stay effective (content shelf life)?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published study measures how long sales content stays effective. The available data is opinion: practitioners estimating how much of their content needs a refresh.
Proxy evidence
- In Spekit’s 2025 survey of 100+ enablement professionals, 48.8% of respondents said 80% or more of their sales content needs refreshing.Spekit with the Sales Enablement Collective, 2025 · Vendor survey · 100+ enablement professionals
How to measure this in your team: For each asset type, track the median number of days from publication until usage falls below half of its peak month, and when win rates for deals using it begin to fall.
What share of a sales library is past its review or expiry date?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No one publishes the share of sales libraries past their review date. The closest evidence is survey data showing that reps often go off-message.
Proxy evidence
- In Allego’s 2021 survey (n=330), nearly 70% of companies said their reps frequently go “off message” when selling.Allego, 2021 · Vendor survey · n=330 B2B sales and marketing leaders, Lucid panel, ±5.3%
How to measure this in your team: Divide the number of active assets whose review or expiry date has passed by all active assets. Report it monthly by owner.
How often do reps send outdated versions to buyers?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published study measures how often outdated versions reach buyers. The available evidence is leaders’ perceptions of message consistency and rep knowledge.
Proxy evidence
- Allego’s 2021 survey reports that reps cannot answer about 40% of the product questions customers ask, as estimated by the 330 leaders surveyed.Allego, 2021 · Vendor survey · n=330 B2B sales and marketing leaders, Lucid panel, ±5.3%
How to measure this in your team: Calculate the share of external shares and links that point to a superseded version of an asset.
How much duplicate content sits in a typical sales library?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
We found no published statistic on duplicate content in sales libraries. One driver is visible in the data: sellers create a meaningful share of their own content.
Proxy evidence
- CSO Insights’ 2019 study found sellers create about 21.3% of their own content. Marketing was the largest source, at 38.8%.CSO Insights (Miller Heiman Group, now part of Korn Ferry), 2019 · Independent research-firm survey · 900+ participants worldwide
How to measure this in your team: Run near-duplicate detection, using file hashes plus text similarity, across the library. Report duplicate clusters as a share of active assets.
How long do sales content approvals take?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published cycle-time data exists for sales content approvals, and we found no credible proxy.
How to measure this in your team: Report the median time from submission to approval, and the number of rework loops, by asset type and risk tier (for example, pricing or regulated claims).
How long does it take a rep to find the right content?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
There is no current, independent benchmark. The often-quoted “440 hours a year” appears in vendor blog posts attributed to Aberdeen Group, and we could not locate the original study. The best-documented adjacent figure covers all knowledge work, not sales alone, and dates from 2012.
Proxy evidence
- McKinsey Global Institute (2012) estimated that interaction workers, a group that includes salespeople, spend 19% of their time searching for and gathering information.McKinsey Global Institute, 2012 · Analyst research · MGI analysis of interaction workers’ time use
- In Salesforce’s 2024 survey (n=5,500), reps reported spending 70% of their time on non-selling tasks. This covers all non-selling work, not search alone.Salesforce, 2024 · Vendor survey · n=5,500 sales professionals in 27 countries, March 8-April 18, 2024
- A ClearSlide post from around 2016 states that reps spend 440 hours a year searching for content and attributes the figure to Aberdeen Group. No study is linked.ClearSlide blog (attributing Aberdeen Group), c. 2016 · Secondary citation (original not located) · Original Aberdeen study not linked or located
- Single-customer case study (GTM Buddy): at Keelvar, content discovery fell from about 7 minutes per search to under 2.GTM Buddy, n.d. · Single-customer case study · One customer; measurement period not stated
How to measure this in your team: Measure the median time from a rep’s first search to a share or download, plus the number of searches per successful find.
What share of seller searches return nothing useful?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No vendor or analyst publishes a seller search-failure rate. Older survey data shows that finding content is a common struggle.
Proxy evidence
- In Brainshark’s 2013 survey of 400+ sales professionals, one in three described getting the right collateral as a daily struggle.Demand Gen Report (Brainshark “State of the Sales Rep” survey), 2013 · Trade press report of a survey · 400+ sales professionals
How to measure this in your team: Count zero-result searches plus searches with no click or share in the same session, as a share of all searches.
What content do sellers search for most but cannot find (content gaps by stage)?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published dataset maps unmet seller searches to deal stages. Surveys show that knowledge gaps are large, but not where they occur.
Proxy evidence
- Leaders in Allego’s 2021 survey (n=330) estimated that reps cannot answer about 40% of the product questions customers ask.Allego, 2021 · Vendor survey · n=330 B2B sales and marketing leaders, Lucid panel, ±5.3%
How to measure this in your team: Cluster zero-result and no-click queries by topic, then join them to the CRM stage of the opportunity the rep was working on.
Which words do sellers search with vs how content is titled (vocabulary mismatch)?
No reliable published benchmark exists as of October 2026.
No published research measures the gap between seller search terms and content titles or tags. We found no credible proxy.
How to measure this in your team: Compare the top search terms with asset titles and tags. Report the share of searches that succeed only through synonyms or semantic matching.
Summary: the best available figure for each question
14 of the 15 questions on this page have no reliable published benchmark as of October 2026.
Widely repeated figures to treat with care
- “60–70%” (often repeated as “65%”) of content goes unused. The verified origin is SiriusDecisions research presented at its 2013 Summit, about marketing content in general. We could not trace the exact “65%” wording to a primary source.Forrester (SiriusDecisions research), 2013 · Analyst research · Method and sample not published on the page
- Reps spend “440 hours a year” searching for content. Cited in vendor blogs and attributed to Aberdeen Group, with no study linked. We could not locate the original.ClearSlide blog (attributing Aberdeen Group), c. 2016 · Secondary citation (original not located) · Original Aberdeen study not linked or located
Methodology
Each question comes from Revspire’s list of buyer questions that lack a data-backed public answer. For each one, we searched for published evidence in October 2026 and opened every source cited here. We preferred primary research from analysts, research firms, academic studies and large vendor datasets that state a sample size and method.
Every figure keeps its original wording, date and sample. Vendor numbers are labelled by evidence type (vendor survey, vendor platform data, sponsored study or single-customer case study). Case studies describe one company and are not benchmarks. Where we found nothing reliable, we say so and show proxy evidence from adjacent fields, clearly marked.
Revspire has not published benchmark data, and no figure on this page comes from Revspire customers or the Revspire platform.
How evidence strength is graded
- Strong
- Independent or peer-reviewed research with a disclosed method that answers the question directly.
- Moderate
- Disclosed-method analyst, research-firm or large vendor dataset that answers the question directly but has limits (vendor-run, self-reported, or partial scope).
- Weak
- Indirect proxy, undisclosed sample, single-customer case study, or a figure more than ten years old.
- None
- No published evidence found.
Frequently asked questions
Is the “65% of sales content is never used” statistic still valid?
Treat it as historical. The verified version, 60–70% of B2B marketing content unused, comes from SiriusDecisions research presented in 2013. A newer Forrester survey (2023) found 53% of respondents believe sales uses fewer than half of their enablement materials. That is a perception, not a measurement.
How much time do sales reps spend searching for content?
No current independent benchmark exists. McKinsey Global Institute estimated in 2012 that interaction workers spend 19% of their time searching for and gathering information. The “440 hours a year” figure could not be traced to its original study.
What should we track instead of downloads?
Track external shares per opportunity, assets with zero use in 90 days, search failure rates and time from search to share. These are the measurements the published research lacks.
Related on Revspire
Revspire Content Hub records asset usage, search activity and content-gap signals for a governed library. That is the instrumentation a team needs to answer these questions for its own content.
Sources
All 14 sources were opened and checked on 2026-10-15.
- Allego. Allego Data Shows Sales Reps Lack Answers to Nearly Half of Product Questions Asked by Customers. 2021-10-26. Vendor survey; n=330 B2B sales and marketing leaders, Lucid panel, ±5.3%.
- ClearSlide blog (attributing Aberdeen Group). 14 Sales Stats That Should Scare You. Undated post, circa 2016. Secondary citation (original not located); Original Aberdeen study not linked or located.
- CSO Insights (Miller Heiman Group, now part of Korn Ferry). 2019 Sales Enablement Report: Fifth Annual Sales Enablement Study. 2019-10-01. Independent research-firm survey; 900+ participants worldwide.
- Demand Gen Report (Brainshark “State of the Sales Rep” survey). Sales Reps Struggle to Find Content to Close Deals, Study Finds. 2013-11-01. Trade press report of a survey; 400+ sales professionals.
- Forrester. A Call For Zero-Waste B2B Marketing (citing Forrester’s Portfolio Marketing Survey, 2023). Blog undated; survey fielded 2023. Analyst survey; Sample size not stated on the page.
- Forrester (SiriusDecisions research). It’s Not Content – It’s a Lack of Buyer Insights That’s the Problem. Blog undated; the figure was first presented at SiriusDecisions Summit 2013. Analyst research; Method and sample not published on the page.
- GTM Buddy. Keelvar customer story. Undated page, accessed 2026-10-15. Single-customer case study; One customer; measurement period not stated.
- GTM Buddy. MoEngage customer story. Undated page, accessed 2026-10-15. Single-customer case study; One customer; adopter definition and sample not stated.
- Highspot. HSBC success story. No publish date; last modified 2025-08-11. Single-customer case study; One customer.
- MarTech (FocusVision survey). B2B buyers consume an average of 13 content pieces before deciding on a vendor. 2020-02-14. Trade press report of a survey; Sample size not stated; marketing executives at companies with 500+ employees.
- McKinsey Global Institute. Social media’s productivity payoff. 2012-08-21. Analyst research; MGI analysis of interaction workers’ time use.
- Proposify. State of Proposals 2026. 2026-01-01. Vendor platform data; 742,137 proposals sent through Proposify in 2025.
- Salesforce. Sales AI statistics 2024 (State of Sales, 6th edition). 2024-07-25. Vendor survey; n=5,500 sales professionals in 27 countries, March 8-April 18, 2024.
- Spekit with the Sales Enablement Collective. The Impact of Enablement 2025. 2025-01-01. Vendor survey; 100+ enablement professionals.