Why Most B2B Influencer Reports Don't Survive a CFO Meeting (with Will Beech and Chris Peters from Moon at Dawn) | Ep. 15

Most B2B influencer reports celebrate impressions and call it a campaign. The CFO signs off because the spend sits inside marketing. Nobody walks into the renewal confident about what the money actually bought.

ㅤ

On this episode, David Walsh, founder of Limelight, talks with Will Beech and Chris Peters, co-founders of Moon at Dawn, a tech-first B2B influencer agency built around outcome-based pricing. They get into ICP resonance, attribution, and what it takes to put guarantees on an influencer campaign.

ㅤ

Will Beech is co-founder of Moon at Dawn, leading client strategy and product. He spent eight years in B2B influence at Onalytica, working on programs for Siemens, IBM and AWS.

ㅤ

Chris Peters is co-founder of Moon at Dawn, with 15 years in agency land, most recently as B2B Global Client Lead at Wavemaker (WPP). He writes the B2B Excellence newsletter.

ㅤ

• Who Moon at Dawn sells to: The three personas they target: enterprise brands, mature brands already running programs, and mid-market companies. Each measures success differently.
• Influencer, not creator: Why they treat "influencer" as an umbrella covering subject matter experts and executives, which lands better with enterprise buyers.
• What outcome-based pricing means: Guarantees on impressions against ICP accounts, frequency, and lead volume at a cost competitive with paid media.
• The $20K floor: Around $20K for an outcome-priced engagement, $10K to $15K for an organic-only pilot. Below that, the data won't support a guarantee.
• Resonance over reach: Why a single CEO like is happenstance, and how depth across the full buying committee is a better signal of commercial impact.
• The Cyber Things campaign: A cybersecurity pilot tied to the Stranger Things finale that doubled the previous agency's metrics through ICP-based selection.
• Aurora Scouts: The platform that surfaces collaboration opportunities, flags risk signals, and alerts the account lead when a client gets acquired.
• The agency of the future: Chris on why 30 people and £3M turnover is the dead zone, and why the next acquisition cycle rewards service businesses with real tech inside.

• Onalytica: where Will built his B2B influencer career.
• B2B Excellence newsletter: Chris's Substack, recommended by David on air.
• Riverside and Gamma: cited as examples of mature brands running sophisticated programs.

ㅤ

Safe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.