What does Corpdata Ltd do?

Corpdata Ltd supplies GDPR-compliant B2B marketing data for UK companies, used for direct marketing campaigns.

Is Corpdata's data GDPR compliant?

Yes, all Corpdata business data is processed in line with GDPR and maintained for accuracy and compliance.

How is B2B data compiled?

B2B data is compiled using multiple sources including publicly available data, company websites, and data modelling techniques to ensure accuracy and coverage.

UK's leading B2B Marketing Data Services Company, B2B done properly!

You think you’re diversified. The downturn proves otherwise.

Ten clients across five industries feels like a hedge. It isn’t. When the downturn hits, every one of them gets the same advice from their board, in the same week, with the same playbook: cut marketing. They cut together. Your “diversified” book becomes one big risk you didn’t see coming. The agencies that retain through this are the ones who get in front of clients with the evidence before the cut is decided — not after, when the conversation is about the rebuild.

−14% UK marketing-services revenue

Sector-wide contraction in 2008–09. In 2020, the IPA Bellwether recorded the fastest decline since the survey began in 2000.

See the evidence

Agency revenue is structurally exposed to client-side budget cycles. In 2008–2009, UK marketing-services revenue contracted by approximately 14% sector-wide; in 2020, the contraction was sharper still — the IPA Bellwether recorded the fastest decline in marketing budgets since the survey began in 2000. Because client cuts are correlated rather than diversified — driven by the same CFO instinct, in the same quarter — agencies experience the contraction simultaneously across the book. The protective lever sits upstream of the cut: equip the agency to defend the client’s budget before the decision is made.

Sources

IPA Bellwether Reports (2008, 2020, 2025)
Creative Salon — Recession in the UK Advertising Industry
Advertising Association — written evidence to UK Parliament

In a downturn, the buyer’s attention goes on sale.

This is the conversation to take into the next QBR. Most client marketing budgets sit heavily in digital; the buyer’s attention is now on sale right alongside it, and direct access is best placed to capture what digital is leaving on the table. Less competing noise, sharper buyer focus, more receptive recipients. Your client’s £1 of marketing budget, redirected to direct access, does the work of £2 in a healthy market — same money, more results. (Card 4 has the mechanism, backed by forty years of IPA research.) That’s a sentence you can put on a slide.

4.4% Direct mail

0.12% Email

0.04% Display ads

DMA UK Response Rate Report — like-for-like B2B response rates by channel. Display ads = sponsored / programmatic banner advertising (broadcast).

See the evidence

In a downturn, two effects compound. First, with broadcast competition gone quiet, named decision-makers actually engage with what arrives in their inbox or on their desk. Second, B2B buyers shift toward deliberate, focused research as decision-making becomes more risk-aware. The DMA’s response-rate triple captures the result on like-for-like methodology: direct mail at 4.4%, email at 0.12%, display advertising at 0.04%. Direct mail and email are both direct-access channels — sent to named recipients. Display is broadcast — sponsored / programmatic banner advertising reaching a general audience. The gap between direct and broadcast widens in a downturn, because broadcast competes harder for less attention while direct-access response rates hold (and often climb).

Sources

Futuri Media — The Strategic Advantage of Advertising During Economic Downturns
DMA — Response Rate Report (most recent comparable cycle)
Advertising Association — written evidence to UK Parliament (2020)

The cut-marketing reflex is the most expensive instinct in business.

Your clients’ first move in a downturn is to cut marketing. You feel it twice — the lost retainer now, plus the reputation drag when the client underperforms in the recovery. The 2008 evidence — +3.5% for the maintainers, −7.2% for the cutters — is the line that holds the client’s nerve. Bring it to the next meeting. Quote the IPA. Move on.

+3.5% Maintainers

−7.2% Cutters

IPA Effectiveness Databank — 2008 recession cohort, like-for-like methodology.

See the evidence

The IPA Effectiveness Databank holds over 1,600 case studies dating back to 1980. Its most-cited finding from the 2008 recession: businesses that sustained marketing investment grew revenues by an average of 3.5%, while those that cut their budgets saw declines averaging 7.2%. Comparable methodology, comparable conditions, opposite outcomes — and Analytic Partners’ research finds that around 60% of brands which increased recession-period marketing outlay realised better ROI.

Sources

Binet & Field — IPA Effectiveness Databank
Analytic Partners — recession-investment ROI study
SRH Agency — What we know about advertising in a recession (2024 synthesis)

More bang for your buck — the closest thing marketing has to a law.

This is the evidence that lets you tell a client to hold their nerve. Spend more than your size says you should, and you grow — by roughly 0.5–0.7% a year for every 10 points above your size. Forty years of IPA Databank cases (1,600 of them) back it up. The mechanism works in any channel. Direct access is the most controllable, measurable form your clients can buy. Name it on the slide. The number defends itself. (This is the proof behind card 2’s promise that £1 of direct access does the work of £2 in a healthy market.)

See the evidence

Excess Share of Voice (ESOV) — the difference between a brand’s share of category advertising and its share of the market — is the single most reliable predictor of market-share growth in the IPA Effectiveness Databank. Binet and Field’s analysis finds that every 10 percentage points of positive ESOV typically delivers 0.5–0.7% market-share growth a year. The relationship is not channel-specific: the underlying mechanism is share of attention captured, regardless of whether that attention is captured by category advertising, content, PR, or direct access. In a downturn, direct access is the lowest-cost route to above-share attention.

Sources

Les Binet & Peter Field — The Long and the Short of It (IPA, 2013)
LinkedIn B2B Institute / IPA — 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing
INVRSN — Excess Share of Voice: The Evidence-Based Guide

Disappear for a year, and it takes three to five years to get back.

When your clients cut marketing, the work to bring them back lands on you a year later — on a tighter budget, against incumbents who held their nerve. Other agencies will nod the cut through. The agency that walks in with the evidence — 2–4% market share lost, 3–5× to recover — keeps the client, keeps the income, and looks prescient when the rebuild conversation starts. Quietly letting a client cut marketing, knowing the long-term cost, is a professional sin. If you’re lucky, you’ll be asked to rebuild what you watched them break! The cheaper conversation — and the right one — stops the cut now. The high ground is yours to take.

3–5× Cost to recover

Ratio of recovery-period spend to the original sustained marketing investment that was cut.

See the evidence

Long-run brand-effectiveness research — the Advertising Association, the LinkedIn B2B Institute, and recession-marketing studies including the Wharton/Forbes 2020 Markets in Motion report — finds that brands going dark during a downturn typically lose 2–4 percentage points of market share. The asymmetry on the way back is well-documented: regaining the lost position requires three to five times the original sustained investment, because the mental availability that was let lapse has to be rebuilt from a lower base, in a more crowded post-recession market.

Sources

Wharton / Forbes — Markets in Motion (COVID-19 Recession Report, 2020)
LinkedIn B2B Institute — 5 Principles of Growth
Advertising Association — written evidence to UK Parliament (2020)

Most of your buyers aren’t shopping this week. They’re remembering.

About 95% of your clients’ future buyers aren’t in market right now. They’re building a mental shortlist for next year, mostly without realising it. The 5% your client’s performance team can reach today is a small slice. The 95% your client’s brand and direct access can reach is next year’s revenue. The cut-marketing reflex starves the larger half. That’s the conversation to have before the budget meeting, not after.

See the evidence

The “95:5 rule”, developed by research at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and adopted by the LinkedIn B2B Institute, finds that at any moment only around 5% of B2B buyers are actively in market. The remaining 95% are out-of-market — but they will buy eventually. Marketing’s job is to build mental availability with the 95% so the brand is on the shortlist when they switch into buying mode. Corporate Visions research finds 92% of B2B buyers already have a preferred vendor in mind before formal research begins; 94% rank their shortlist before engaging vendors at all.

Sources

LinkedIn B2B Institute — The 95-5 Rule (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute research)
Corporate Visions — B2B Buying Behaviour 2026
6sense — B2B Buyer Experience Report 2025

Sustained marketing means you don’t have to discount your prices.

This is the card that talks directly to your client’s CFO. McCain’s nine-year brand programme (IPA Grand Prix 2024) cut price elasticity by 47% and added £26m in net profit, even through the cost-of-living crisis. Translation: clients with sustained brand spend keep their margins. Clients who cut, end up discounting their products to stay alive. It’s the most CFO-legible argument in the marketing literature. Put it on the QBR slide before page three.

−47% Price sensitivity

£26m Net profit

McCain Foods — nine-year brand programme, IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix 2024.

See the evidence

McCain Foods’ nine-year brand campaign, awarded the IPA Effectiveness Awards Grand Prix in 2024, demonstrates the margin-protection effect of sustained marketing investment. Over the campaign period — including the 2022–2024 cost-of-living crisis — price elasticity fell by 47%, base sales rose 44%, and the brand delivered £26 million in net profit. The pattern is repeatable across other IPA-recognised cases: Xero’s UK programme returned £4.07 in long-term gross profit per £1 invested; Procell (Duracell’s B2B brand) grew revenues 12% and market share 10% after reframing its value conversation around “cost-to-replace” rather than “cost-to-buy”.

Sources

IPA Effectiveness Awards 2024 — McCain Grand Prix case study
IPA Effectiveness Awards 2024 — Xero case study
IPA — Procell Beware of Your Battery Changer case study

Most agencies arrive after the decision. The ones that arrive before, retain.

When a client’s board votes to cut marketing, the agency usually gets the call after the vote. By then it’s an exit conversation, not a strategy one. The agencies that retain through downturns get into the room first — with four case studies in their back pocket: McCain (£26m profit from sustained brand), Xero (£4.07 per £1 over the long run), Procell (12% revenue growth from a value reframing), and the IPA 2008 cohort (+3.5% vs −7.2%). Build the briefing once. Deploy it twenty times. It’s the cheapest retention move in the business.

See the evidence

The Board-Brand Rift report (IPA/FT) finds 83% of business leaders believe marketing contributes to the bottom line, but over half rate their own knowledge of brand-building as average-to-poor. That gap is the agency’s strategic opening. The case studies — McCain (IPA Grand Prix 2024: £26m profit, −47% price elasticity); Xero (£4.07 long-term gross profit per £1 invested); Procell (+12% revenue via value reframing); the IPA 2008 cohort (+3.5% vs −7.2% revenue divergence) — are the lingua franca of finance-led boardroom defence. Bringing them into the client conversation is a low-cost, high-leverage retention move. The recommendation the agency makes is also concrete: a direct-access programme to named decision-makers protects pipeline at predictable cost, where the deflating media auctions cannot.

Sources