Month: May 2018

Predictive Analytics Is Losing Steam as AI Becomes Prevalent across SalesTech & MarTech

On Monday, Radius Intelligence and Leadspace announced their merger and plans to become the “leader in B2B data intelligence.”  The firm, which will continue under the Radius brand, is no longer emphasizing predictive analytics.

The predictive analytics market has failed to develop as a standalone segment. According to Radius Chairman Darian Shirazi, the total investment in the space was over $600 million.  However, Gartner sized the market at $100 million to $150 million in 2016 revenue, suggesting that the promise of predictive analytics was developing slowly.

In his just released 2018 MarTech Landscape, Scott Brinker removed Predictive Analytics as a segment as machine learning is being integrated broadly across marketing products.

For B2B predictive tools to work, they require high quality reference data sets for initial and ongoing enrichment, but the predictive analytics companies black-boxed their data sourcing. Radius was one of the few exception to this opacity as they were transparent about their data acquisition model (web crawling combined with a customer contributed data model), but most of the other firms have been vague about their data models.

The predictive analytics companies were also slow to offer ABM tools and similar company and contact recommendations. These features are now commonly offered by both predictive analytics companies and sales and marketing intelligence firms such as D&B Hoovers, InsideView, DiscoverOrg, and Zoominfo. What’s more, the sales and marketing intelligence firms have all developed light predictive scoring or ranking tools. While none of these firms approaches Radius or Leadspace in predictive capabilities, they all provide company and contact insights for sales reps, ABM tools for sales and marketing, and integrated data enrichment processes.

The predictive analytics firms also initially black boxed their models, preferring to hide complexity. They have since become more transparent and begun displaying the top reasons for recommendations. However, Salesforce Einstein has provided similar functionality with predictive scores and insights.

Todd Berkowitz of Gartner summed up the situation well.

I’ve been covering the market for B2B predictive marketing analytics for almost four years. A few years ago, predictive lead scoring was all the rage. Then it became about fit and intent models for demand generation and prospecting. Then these tools were used for selecting accounts for large-scale ABM programs. But in the end, the standalone market for these applications never fully reached its potential. Many of the original vendors got acquired for their technology (Fliptop, SalesPredict, Infer and others) and predictive scoring became a standard feature of marketing automation and SFA systems.

Just because the standalone market went away, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of value here. In fact, the solutions have essentially moved into two other markets (and you’ll see this reflected in our upcoming Hype Cycle reports). On one end, you have the Data Intelligence for Sales market where predictive and AI-driven solutions are competing with traditional data vendors for demand gen, prospecting, and segmentation use cases. On the other end, you have the broader ABM solutions market where these applications not only help with account selection and planning, but are moving towards engagement and orchestration.

Berkowitz predicted that one or two of the remaining predictive analytics vendors will be acquired in the next six months.

With over 6,000 MarTech companies, the market is quite fragmented. Although the MarTech sector continues to expand, there is already momentum towards consolidation as clients look for broad, integrated functionality instead of many point solutions. For example, marketing and sales departments adopting ABM need a broad set of functionality which includes

  • AI scoring and recommendations
  • Real-time, batch, and continuous company and contact enrichment
  • Data hygiene (e.g. de-duplication, data standardization, and verification services)
  • Third-party verticalized data enrichment
  • Programmatic marketing
  • Website visitor id
  • Lead-to-account mapping
  • Look-a-like company and contact prospecting
  • Segmentation, TAM, and pipeline analysis
  • CRM, MAP, and sales engagement connectors
  • Sales triggers
  • Account social media monitoring
  • Company and contact intelligence

At this point, nobody offers a full suite of these ABM capabilities for sales and marketing departments.

Radius Intelligence Merges with Leadspace

Radius graphic highlights the complementary assets of the two firms (Source: Radius Intelligence)
Radius graphic highlights the complementary assets of the two firms

On Monday, Leadspace and Radius Intelligence announced their merger.  The two firms were early entrants into the predictive analytics space, but the market for standalone predictive intelligence services has not developed as predicted.  Thus, VCs and private equity companies are sitting on large bets that have yet to pay out.

The merged company will continue under the Radius brand as the “leader in B2B data intelligence.”  Leadspace CEO Doug Bewsher will take over as the CEO of the merged firm while Radius founder Darian Shirazi will assume the role of Chairman.  The two positioned the merger as a coming together of firms with complementary assets across company (Radius) and people (Leadspace) intelligence.

“Radius and Leadspace as one company will deliver a standout go-to-market platform with the best data, artificial intelligence and integrations at its core… What’s truly exciting is that our mission remains the same. Radius will be the nucleus that powers data and intelligence across all B2B applications, channels, and users — now built on The Global Network of Record.”

  • Radius Intelligence Statement to Customers

Both Leadspace and Radius have edged closer to prospecting and data enrichment than other predictive vendors.  Leadspace has long offered contact enrichment and prospecting, even appearing in a 2015 SiriusDecisions report on Contact Data Management.  Meanwhile, Radius has built its own database of US company and contact data which it named “The Network of Record” and positioned as the “single source of truth for account data.”  The Radius database spans 18 million US companies and 25 million contacts with verified emails and direct dials.  Radius also offers digital ad targeting.

Radius is positioning itself as being at the center of B2B predictive analytics, B2B Audience Management, and B2B data management. However, several of the data solution vendors also offer advertising solutions including Infogroup and Dun & Bradstreet. (Source: Radius Intelligence)
Radius is positioning itself as being at the center of B2B predictive analytics, B2B Audience Management, and B2B data management. However, several of the data solution vendors also offer advertising solutions including Infogroup and Dun & Bradstreet. (Source: Radius Intelligence)

The new Radius will help sales and marketing teams “find the right data on the right buyers, and reach those buyers across any channel.”  Revenue teams will have access to the “industry’s most comprehensive data intelligence solution.”  Features include account and people targeting, data management, ABM execution, and integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Marketo, Eloqua (Oracle Marketing), and Pardot (Salesforce).

Shirazi is positioning the company as an Einstein competitor with expanded assets to compete against Salesforce.  “We’re excited about this because it will create the largest number of customers, largest revenue base and really provide a company that is at scale in B2B data and intelligence,” said Shirazi.  “The only other major player in this space we believe is Salesforce Einstein, and we’re excited to really give them a run for their money.”

Shirazi provided the following list of planned enhancements to be rolled out over the next year:

Master Data. Master Growth

  • Extend reach and accuracy as The Network of Record unites with Leadspace’s proprietary, real-time virtual database sourcing
  • Take complete control of data governance with added data dashboard functionality
  • Enhance data matching and append for contacts, as well as lead-to-account matching features

Real Intelligence. Real Buyers

  • Strengthen targeting on individual decision makers in both the U.S. and international markets
  • Access enhanced segmentation, scoring, and insights on contacts
  • Leverage features from two effective sales intelligence tools

Scale Channels. Scale Revenue

  • Expand audience reach with the largest deterministic reach of any platform
  • Source more contacts with even higher accuracy and contactability rates
  • Connect more channels with more seamless integrations and partners 

Shirazi describes Radius as the next “backbone go-to-market platform.”  The combined assets “will enable marketing, sales, revenue ops, and customer insights teams to finally address their data gaps and conquer their targeting challenges. We will create a standout solution in a crowded, fragmented space of point-solutions where customers are forced to stitch together multiple products or change vendors every year.”

Back in 2015, Radius Intelligence had a market value of $500 million and funding of $107.6 million.  Leadspace never disclosed a valuation, but it received $59 million in funding with a $21 million Series C in December.

LinkedIn lists 100 Leadspace employees and 160 Radius employees.

The merged company has over 200 customers including Sam’s Club, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Comcast, MetLife, and American Express.  Both firms maintain “innovation centers” in San Francisco and Israel.

Part 2: Predictive Analytics Is Losing Steam as AI Becomes Prevalent across SalesTech & MarTech

Rhetorik Extends its UK/Irish NetFinder Service

Job Function Searching in Rhetorik NetFinder
Job Function Searching in Rhetorik NetFinder

UK Technology Sales Intelligence vendor Rhetorik released an enhanced version of its UK and Irish NetFinder service. The revised edition covers over 40,000 corporate and public-sector sites. The service doubled its technology buyers to 215,000 and increased its technology coverage five-fold including enhanced install data on cloud, enterprise and vertical industry applications, system software and middleware applications.

The Rhetorik database tags over 10,000 products from 6,000 vendors and maintains over 150 technology categories. Data coverage spans 164 biographic, firmographic, and technographic variables including email, phone, revenue, employees, line of business, and site-level technographics. All contacts are GDPR compliant and 92% contain emails.

“Rhetorik has adapted its policies and procedures to upgrade DPA regulatory standards to meet GDPR requirements,” said the firm. “While monitoring closely progress on the e-Privacy legislation, Rhetorik follows best-practice processes as set by PECR – Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulation. We have implemented clear and easy to follow procedures for individuals to be informed and manage their own Business Card Data. We keep access to all B2B information secure and protected.”

Data is gathered through a combination of automated means and editorial research.

Over the past year, Rhetorik has partnered with the European Market Intelligence Group (EMIG) and CNCData to provide European and AsiaPac coverage. The EMIG coverage spans 14 countries, 180,000 companies, and one million contacts. The CNCData partnership delivers over two million contacts and 1.2 million companies across 23 AsiaPac countries.

Rhetorik, which has provided technology intelligence for over two decades, underwent a management buy-out last summer. At the time, CEO Meredith Amdur, set a goal of expanding their “data gathering and analytics capabilities to create new products for technology sales and marketing professionals worldwide.”