Bombora Intent Data Added to InsideView Apex

InsideView Apex now supports intent segmentation across 3000+ B2B Bombora topics.
InsideView Apex now supports intent segmentation across 3000+ B2B Bombora topics.

InsideView added Bombora intent intelligence to its Apex “go-to-market” ICP/TAM service.  InsideView highlighted two use cases: Refining a list of ideal prospects to focus on those showing intent and expanding a list of buyers to find additional prospects with similar intent and other characteristics.

Refining an ICP list helps marketers target their best prospects based upon open web research currently being performed at their ICP accounts.  Thus, custom campaigns can be targeted to accounts likely in market for specific solutions.  Instead of blanketing ICP accounts with general messages, a more refined approach can be taken with a higher likelihood of the message resonating.

Conversely, Intent data can be used to expand an ABM list.

“InsideView’s Targeting Intelligence platform provides a single point of access for all B2B data and targeting signals, from firmographics, contact details, news events, personal connections, technographics, and now intent data. Adding Bombora intent data makes go-to-market planning in Apex that much more powerful. Now you can discover even more ideal prospects, and home in on the specific accounts in your target market that are not only an ideal fit for what you sell but are also currently in-market.”

  • InsideView VP of Products Marc Perramond

I find the first use case, refining a list for targeted messaging, to be more compelling.  Intent data is ephemeral.  A firm that is researching a topic this month will have moved onto other topics a month or two later.  Using intent data to message to these companies on intent-based topics today is powerful.  It allows vendors to reach out to prospects before they have begun talking to prospective vendors.  It is a powerful method to answer the questions whom to call (account-wise), when to call, and what to say.

InsideView Apex intent filtering allows marketers to target their ABM list with messages that are likely to resonate.
InsideView Apex intent filtering allows marketers to target their ABM list with messages that are likely to resonate.

However, vendors should be careful about using intent to expand their targets.  Identifying the key intent topics is crucial, but building an ABM list based upon ephemeral intent signals risks adding firms that had surging interest over the past few weeks, but have already made purchasing decisions, chosen not to pursue a technology, or were simply performing due diligence.  Surge scores simply mean that there was a recent peak in topical interest above the mean.

Defining who are your best candidates amongst your pool of ABM accounts for specific messages is a clear winner.  Adding accounts to an ABM list based upon a short-term surge in interest is likely to result in wasted marketing dollars.

Until recently, Bombora has had more success selling their intent file to predictive analytics companies than sales intelligence firms.  However, sales intelligence companies are now figuring out how to present intent data to sales reps and marketing professionals without having to provide sales training sessions on the nuances of intent data.  For example, DiscoverOrg recently redesigned its OppAlerts to focus on the few key topics relevant to the client and then limited the intent signals to the top few percent of surging accounts.  This level of refinement gives sales reps confidence that when they see a surging topic at an account, it is truly surging and not simply an anomaly.  And because numeric surge scores have been removed, the rep merely needs to know that there is a high certainty that individuals at the account are actively researching the topic in question.

B2B tech media company TechTarget delivers intent data to sales reps from its Priority Engine service.  While other intent services are at the company level, TechTarget has opted-in readers performing current research on a topic.  Thus, TechTarget can identify company, executive, topic, and buying stage for its intent file.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on Data Privacy

Speaking at the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC), Apple CEO Tim Cook forcefully called for expanded global privacy protections akin to GDPR:

Our own information — from the everyday to the deeply personal — is being weaponized against us with military efficiency. These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold. Taken to the extreme this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you may know yourself. Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content, pounding our harmless preferences into harm…

We shouldn’t sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance…

We should celebrate the transformative work of the European institutions tasked with the successful implementation of the GDPR. We also celebrate the new steps taken, not only here in Europe but around the world — in Singapore, Japan, Brazil, New Zealand. In many more nations regulators are asking tough questions — and crafting effective reform.

It is time for the rest of the world, including my home country, to follow your lead.

We see vividly, painfully how technology can harm, rather than help. [Some platforms] magnify our worst human tendencies… deepen divisions, incite violence and even undermine our shared sense or what is true or false.

This crisis is real. Those of us who believe in technology’s potential for good must not shrink from this moment…

They may say to you our companies can never achieve technology’s true potential if there were strengthened privacy regulations. But this notion isn’t just wrong it is destructive — technology’s potential is and always must be rooted in the faith people have in it. In the optimism and the creativity that stirs the hearts of individuals. In its promise and capacity to make the world a better place.

It’s time to face facts. We will never achieve technology’s true potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it.

He also warned about the dangers of AI which fails to protect privacy:

Artificial intelligence is one area I think a lot about. At its core this technology promises to learn from people individually to benefit us all. But advancing AI by collecting huge personal profiles is laziness, not efficiency.

For artificial intelligence to be truly smart it must respect human values — including privacy. If we get this wrong, the dangers are profound. We can achieve both great artificial intelligence and great privacy standards. It is not only a possibility — it is a responsibility…

Yesterday, Cook tweeted that privacy is a human right

Tim Cook on GDPR

based upon four principals:

  • Data Minimization – Personal data collection should be minimized or de-identified.
  • Transparency – Individuals have the right to know what is being collected and for what purpose.
  • Right to Access – “data belongs to users” with personal data available to individuals for copying, correcting, and deleting.
  • Right to security – “security is foundational to trust and all other privacy rights”

Cook isn’t the first CEO to call for a global GDPR. Microsoft has built GDPR into its products and CEO Satya Nadella has expressed similar thoughts. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff discussed data privacy and cybersecurity on a May earnings call and SugarCRM CEO Larry Augustin has also voiced concerns.

Linkedin Sales Navigator List Building, Mobile Lead Profiles, & SNAP Integration (Q3 2018)

Last month Sales Navigator began rolling out its Q3 release.  Amongst the features are a Pipeline Review and Buyers Circle (discussed last Friday), improved Search, and additional SNAP integrations.

Sales Navigator Account and Lead Search have been redesigned for speed and ease. The Account and Lead Search functions and results (see 1 below) are more prominent, offer streamlined search filters (see 2), and deliver simplified save search and alerting processes. Other enhancements include hover cards (see 3) which display company intelligence when mousing over a company name. Hover cards include a Save as Account button.

Improved Searching includes an improved navigation (1), redesigned filters (2), and account hover cards (3).
Improved Searching includes an improved navigation (1), redesigned filters (2), and account hover cards (3).

LinkedIn originally designed their mobile app to complement the desktop service but is working to make mobile a “full-featured Sales Navigator experience.” Last quarter, they focused on Account enhancements and this quarter they brought the mobile Lead experience to parity with the desktop service.

“We will continue to narrow the gap between our mobile and desktop experiences in upcoming releases, and take advantage of the unique characteristics of mobile as well.”

  • Doug Camplejohn, VP of Product Management at LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

LinkedIn continues to invest in its SNAP partner program. This quarter, Adobe Sign was added as a partner and three partners (Salesforce, MS Dynamics, and SalesLoft) took advantage of their version two capabilities. SFDC and MSD now broadly embed LinkedIn intelligence in Lead, Account, and Opportunity pages. Users may also send InMails from within the CRM.

SalesLoft has built research, connect, InMail, and messaging features within cadences, providing a robust LinkedIn channel alongside phone and email.

The next generation SNAP integrations are modular, providing greater flexibility around where content is displayed. New modular features include InMail support and the handling of Potential Profile Matches.

New SNAP modular elements from within Microsoft Dynamics.
New SNAP modular elements from within Microsoft Dynamics.

LinkedIn has taken a “Switzerland approach” to its partnerships, working with both Microsoft and its competitors.

The firm reiterated its commitment to data security and GDPR compliance. “LinkedIn maintains ISO 27001 & ISO 27018 certifications, as well as a SSAE-18 certification, SOC 2 Type I report,” noted the firm in its briefing to Admins.

Finally, LinkedIn added an Ideas site to its Sales Navigator Community portal where admins can “submit, vote on, comment on and track status of ideas for how to improve Sales Navigator.”

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Pipeline Reviews & Buyers Circle (Q3 2018)

Buyer Circle, a new Sales Navigator feature released in Q3, provides drag-and-drop functionality for defining purchasing roles and players.
Buyer Circle, a new Sales Navigator feature released in Q3, provides drag-and-drop functionality for defining purchasing roles and players.

Last month, LinkedIn rolled out its Q3 Sales Navigator release to admins and trainers.  Enhancements include a new Deals feature to assist with pipeline reviews, “Buyer Circles,” an updated search user experience, and revised mobile lead pages.  Several partner platforms are also rolling out version 2 of their SNAP integrations.

During pipeline reviews, “managers are really trying to find out what are areas of weakness in the pipeline and how they can help. A lot of times, because the information that’s been put into CRM is incomplete, that can be a challenging conversation,” says Doug Camplejohn, VP of Product Management at LinkedIn Sales Solutions. “The problem Deals is ultimately trying to solve is how do you increase the quality of that data that is ultimately stored in the CRM, and by making it much easier for the rep to quickly see missing points of information as well as to add in what one could argue is the most important information—who are all the people that are involved in that buying decision at the target company.”

LinkedIn noted that pipeline review sessions are often frustrating due to incomplete and out of date CRM information resulting in a “20 questions” session in search of deal risks.  The new Deal feature pulls deal and contact intelligence from the CRM and streamlines the update process.  Instead of jumping between opportunity records, reps can manage their pipeline updates from a single pane of glass.  The update table allows reps to quickly enter deal intelligence including deal size, stage, close date, and next steps with information immediately written back to the CRM.

Deals requires that the Salesforce Admin enable CRM synch.  Reps will only be able to view and edit fields for which they have been granted permission and only for Opportunities in their name.  Managers will only be able to view Deals for their team members.

Deals includes a Buyer’s Circle feature which helps reps quickly fill gaps in their Buying Committee.  “The real power comes when you want to add missing role contacts,” Doug Camplejohn, LinkedIn Sales Solutions VP Products wrote to licensors.  “Buyer’s Circle makes it easy to select anyone on LinkedIn and drag them to a role, which, again, automatically updates your CRM. And if that contact is not already in your CRM, Deals lets you create a new CRM contact associated with that opportunity in just a few clicks.”

As LinkedIn does not deliver member-specific details to third-parties, Buyers Circle only uploads First and Last Name, Title, and Company.  Other buyer details would need to be keyed in by the sales rep or populated by a third-party enrichment vendor.

Deals is available in Salesforce.com with the Q3 release and will be available in Microsoft Dynamics in Q4.

The new Deals feature provides a tabular view of opportunities for rapid update and sharing with managers.
The new Deals feature provides a tabular view of opportunities for rapid update and sharing with managers.

Deals is part of the Team and Enterprise editions and is based on a Heighten capability “rebuilt from the ground up.”  Heighten was acquired in 2017.

“B2B selling is more complicated these days where you often have half a dozen people involved, but they’re not all recognized.  A sales rep will put a single contact into the system, and if the deal goes sideways it’s hard to figure out who to contact or how to move forward.”

  • Doug Camplejohn, VP of Product Management, LinkedIn Sales Solutions

“I think the Deals module is the most interesting part of this release because it offers the biggest benefit,” said Gartner analyst Todd Berkowitz. “If you are in a market like tech or manufacturing or a complicated services deal, the number of people involved keeps going up including those who can influence the deal or an assassin who can kill it. The more information you can provide about all the people involved in the deal, the better. And the way the Buyers Circle surfaces information on people and brings it forward with one click is a real benefit.”


Part II covering additional features such as new SNAP integrations and mobile Lead profiles will publish on Monday.

Radius-Leadspace Merger Aborted

Radius and Leadspace quietly called off their merger back in August, agreeing not to point fingers at each other and continue supporting joint customers.

“At the end of the day, private to private mergers are incredibly hard to pull off. In this case, despite all of the best intentions in the world, we could not get to something that would work for all sides,” Leadspace CEO Doug Bewsher told Demand Gen Report. “We are excited to see the evolution and clarity around the whole customer data platform really starting to define itself in B2B.”

Bewsher remains bullish about Leadspace and the Audience Management space:

Leadspace pioneered this space when we launched our Audience Management Platform two years ago. We continue to see great success with customers as they both simplify their data management processes and bring additional data driven insights and recommendations into their activities. Whether driving an ABM strategy, a content marketing / inbound lead driven strategy, or outbound prospecting, the right data and insights deployed into systems of engagement is typically the first step in any company’s success…

We look forward to working with you to develop, build and lead this category as we continue our mission to help B2B sales and marketing teams drive a new level of engagement, targeting and resulting revenue for their organizations.

Leadspace had a strong Q2 with its “best ever revenue growth.”  New customers include SAP and Splunk.  Growth was driven by the increasing recognition that B2B firms require a data-agnostic Customer Data Platform “which brings together many different data sources at the company- and individual-level, drives recommendations, insights and a single source of truth through AI, and then has a single point of integration into multiple executions systems (CRM, MAP, Ads etc),” said Bewsher.

“Radius and Leadspace agreed to continue operating independently and are now partnering to support joint customers,” said Radius.  “Radius’ customer data platform is the first for B2B, and we will focus on offering enterprise companies integrated, unified and trusted data across all go-to-market systems, while Leadspace’s audience management platform will continue to equip companies with audience enrichment and analytics.”

Both firms no longer talk about predictive analytics and emphasize Customer Data Platforms.  The Predictive Analytics space has been squeezed by both DaaS vendors with light scoring tools and integrated AI solutions such as Einstein.

Global5000 Database Adds Contacts

Back before the development of ICP / TAM tools and predictive analytics platforms, B2B marketers would simply describe their target market as the Global 2000 or Global 5000.  The description was overly broad, but it generally meant global enterprises with revenue in excess of $1 billion.

Of course, you could easily refine the list with broad segmentation.  For the sales intelligence vendors of 2005, it was the intersection of G5000 and (Professional Services, Financial Services, Tech firms).

So while there are now tools to refine your target universe, there remain companies that continue to focus on the G5000 concept.  This includes startups and companies with expensive B2B solutions.  It also includes Enterprise Sales groups.

Harry Henry has built a business around the G5000 concept.  For a long time, the Global5000 database consisted of a hand-researched list of billion dollar revenue companies; but, a few weeks ago he released a companion dataset of top US execs for G5000 with plans to sell international contacts in the future.  Henry has partnered with Salutary Data to build his new offering.

Marketers can license the G5000 company set for $2,300.  The accompanying US dataset of 25,000 executives spanning 2,100 firms is available for $3900.  Fields include

  • First & Last name
  • Job Title
  • Address (street, city, state & zip)
  • Email address — 100% fill rates
  • Phone number – Two possible phone numbers with a 35-50% direct dial fill rate.

The contact dataset focuses on Executive Management, Finance, HR/Personnel, Technology/IT, and Marketing.

“To provide you a sense of our vetting process, the contact records are aggregated from some 8 supplier sources and then tested using separate vendors who verify and score the accuracy of emails, phones, and name/title/company.   The results of these tests are used to identify the most accurate data, which enables us to create a data stack.  In addition, external and internal corroboration sources and techniques are also applied to further help identify the most current and accurate records.”

  • Global5000 Website

The contacts file is available with quarterly refreshes.  Segmented versions by industry or job function are not available.

The G5000 database consists of over 5,000 active companies generating $60 trillion in annual revenue and employing 130 million employees.  Revenue per employee of the G5000 firms is $397,000.  The file includes five-year employee and revenue data along with recent events, business descriptions, year founded, industry, segment, market and ticker, and business contact details (e.g. address, phone, URL).

 

HG Data Acquires Pivotal iQ

HG PIHG Data announced the acquisition of London-based Pivotal iQ. The acquisition brings together two complementary tech vendor datasets: HG Data’s Vendor / Platform database and Pivotal iQ’s IT contract data and spend intelligence. The combined content set will help clients target accounts, evaluate purchase likelihood, and identify when best to reach out to prospects.

“For years companies large and small have relied on HG Data to identify the software, hardware and cloud services being used by millions of companies worldwide. With the addition of Pivotal iQ, we are the first in the market to deliver a unique blend of IT spend, IT install and contract renewal intelligence,” said HG Data CEO Elizabeth Cholawsky. “This information can be accessed through the Pivotal iQ platform, allowing our customers to act more quickly on the best technology datasets with the deepest insights.”

Like HG Data, Pivotal iQ employs web crawling and natural language processing to build its dataset. Coverage spans 186 countries representing over 90% of the global ICT spend. The database is matched to D&B WorldBase, providing account and location level views across corporate hierarchies. The firm claims to cover installed technology for all global firms with $50M in revenue and global publics with $25M.

Pivotal iQ intelligence covers 600,000 companies, 8,500 vendors, 10 million supply-side announcements, and 40,000 contracts. Data is updated daily.

The Pivotal iQ InstalledView service details hardware and software installations at the account level. SpendView provides market and country-level analytics and competitor take-out campaigns across 21 spending categories and 22 sectors. SpendView includes a visualization engine for competitive and account analyses. The BuyerView service provides enterprise IT and purchasing departments with intelligence around which vendors are being deployed and which companies are managing outsourced projects within their peer group.

“Our vision for Pivotal iQ has been to deliver the best intelligence on the ICT sourcing activities of Organizations to empower businesses to make better supply and purchase decisions,” said Pivotal iQ CEO Tim Royston-Webb. “By joining with HG Data, our joint customer base now has access to an unparalleled portfolio of firmographic and technographic data along with intuitive decision tools that will help their businesses grow and succeed.”

Deal terms were not disclosed.

Zoominfo Acquires Datanyze and Y Labs

Zoominfo announced that it acquired both San Mateo-based Datanyze and Israeli firm Y Labs last month. Datanyze provides Zoominfo with a deep set of technographics and segmentation visualization tools to complement Zoominfo’s company and contact database. Y Labs, which is moving into Zoominfo’s recently opened office in Ra’anana, Israel, will operate under the name ZoomInfo Israel Limited (Ltd.). Y Labs will supplement Zoominfo’s product development and security operations.

“I am thrilled to be joining ZoomInfo at this time of tremendous growth in the organization,” said Datanyze CEO Ilya Semin. “Bringing together our two organizations is a perfect union, combining Datanyze’s real-time technographic data with ZoomInfo’s unparalleled – and the industry’s most current – company and contact data.”

Semin is joining Zoominfo as the Vice President of Data.

Both vendors heavily employ natural-language processing for building their respective datasets. Zoominfo also mines signature blocks of its voluntary community members. Zoominfo has some technographic intelligence available to its customers, but Datanyze provides a significantly more mature dataset and technographic capabilities. Datanyze has captured technographic intelligence for 35 million companies.

Datanyze provides a free market share analysis tool which segments by market and Alexa Rank or country. Share is based on installations, not revenue.
Datanyze provides a free market share analysis tool which segments by market and Alexa Rank or country. Share is based on installations, not revenue.

“Business data is rapidly changing and your data platforms must be built to adapt,” said Zoominfo CEO Derek Schoettle. “ZoomInfo has the largest, most complete data set of companies and contacts and a goal to enable our customers to automate, process, curate, and present the data on-demand and in real-time. Delivering industry-leading technographics, the Datanyze technology will be a significant addition to help us deliver the right data, at the right time, to the right person.”

Schoettle, who joined the company in July, just completed 50 customer discussions over five weeks providing him with insights to both Zoominfo’s strengths and gaps.

“The (customer) advocacy for the company and the product is phenomenal,” Schoettle said. “The second part of our effort now is to round out the data factory we have, looking at all the right data sources, the data quality, and present it to the right end users.”

The acquisition follows a blowout August with billings 53% above July’s numbers. August billing were up 71% year-over-year.

“The growth we experienced in August will continue as we build the industry’s most robust and frequently updated platform for sales and marketing teams thirsting for real-time, on-demand customer data,” said Schoettle. “As we look ahead, we see significant potential to create a world-class development capability in Israel that will allow us to harness leading artificial intelligence and security capabilities which translates into smarter services for our 7,500-plus customers. The rate and pace of change in the data space requires a commitment to innovation and we are thrilled to have this team become part of ZoomInfo.”

Zoominfo also announced the hiring of Brad Noble as VP of Product Design. Noble previously led product design and advocacy teams at IBM Watson, Cloudant, Boathouse Group and MullenLowe.

Datanyze customers will continue to receive support for the Datanyze product offering. Terms of the two deals were not disclosed. Nathan Latka’s database of SaaS vendors listed Datanyze’s 2016 revenue at $6 million, up 50% year-over-year.

Zoominfo has more than doubled its staff over the past year. They are stratified over six locations: Waltham (MA), San Mateo (CA), Grand Rapid (MI), St Petersburg (Russia), Kazan (Russia), and Ra’anana. The Waltham headquarters office is relocating at the end of the year to Constant Contact’s old site along I-128.

The Datanyze acquisition is part of a broader consolidation trend in the technographics and sales intelligence spaces.

Consolidation in the Sales Intelligence Space

While yesterday I discussed consolidation in the technology sales intelligence space, there has been significant consolidation over the past twenty-one months in the broader sales and marketing intelligence space.

Amongst the key transactions in 2017 and 2018:

While the industry is growing rapidly, several services are being shuttered including Data.com (Salesforce), Hoovers (migrating clients to D&B Hoovers), and Unomy (WeWork).

Tim Baskerville, Chairman of Rhetorik Global, noted that the consolidation dance is likely to continue:

“These days in the data/AI space It’s something like a high school dance. Players on the main dance floor are strutting to prove they’re attractive acquirers, whether it’s a football hero preening in front of envious fans or a second-string guy trying to lure a niche player who has a valuable point solution. The musical chairs game is underway, and everybody except the most nimble fear they’ll be left without a chair when the music stops. The catchword is “scale,” and not many have it. The deals announced recently are a tiny fraction of what’s being discussed out there, and both the money people and the operators are scrambling to figure out who is predator and who is prey. Some will be both. Check back in 24 months and our world will look very different.”

Next week I’ll be discussing the two Technology Sales Intelligence deals (Zoominfo acquiring Datanyze and HG Data acquiring Pivotal iQ).

Consolidation in the Technology Sales Intelligence Space

Technographics, which were a relatively small segment five years ago, have grown rapidly and are in the midst of a consolidation phase.  Three years ago, DiscoverOrg acquired iProfile and then picked up RainKing last August.  This week, HG Data acquired London-based Pivotal iQ, Zoominfo acquired Datanyze, and DiscoverOrg rebranded.

Both acquisitions expand the scope of coverage of the acquiring firms.  Zoominfo had limited technographics prior to the Datanyze deal and now holds a deeper set of technographics along with analytics and visualization tools.  HG Data has expanded beyond product / vendor data to include contract and spend intelligence.

By my research, the IT sub-sector represents 18% of the sales intelligence space with DiscoverOrg in the pole position.  Overall, the IT sub-sector is $170 million and it is growing faster than the overall Sales Intelligence market.

“The recent acquisition activity shows the value and appetite for technology data enrichment,” said HG Data VP of Product and Marketing Kineon Walker.  “This consolidation cycle is happening as new companies continue to enter the space. As technology data continues to evolve and become more valuable to businesses of all sizes, we expect this sector to continue to grow and flourish.”

What we are seeing is the transition of technographic intelligence from a delighter five years ago to a must have content set for sales and marketing intelligence products.  Ten years ago, it was contacts and SMBs that made this transition. Eight years ago it was sales triggers.  Four years ago it was emails and direct dials.  Now it is technographics.

Next up it may be third-party intent data and the integration of first-party visitor intelligence into more sophisticated lead scoring and prioritization.

I will be covering both acquisitions over the next few days.