Tag: MarTech

Salesforce Sales Agents

Einstein SDR chat transcripts.

Salesforce announced a pair of autonomous Einstein Sales Agents: Einstein SDR and Einstein Sales Coach. The products, built on Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Agentforce Platform, will be generally available in October.

Einstein SDR Agent, a chatbot, engages with inbound prospects and is not limited to pre-programmed responses. The multi-lingual conversational marketing agent manages top-of-funnel communications and hands leads off to sellers. The SDR Agent employs RAG to interpret and process information. It can answer questions, handle objections, qualify leads, and book meetings, with responses grounded by Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Data Cloud.

“Companies can upload existing sales materials like product FAQs, sales plays, and case studies for Einstein to use to generate a trusted and accurate response to lead queries,” explained the firm.”

Configuring Einstein SDR Agents.

Revenue Operations can customize the language, avatar, and tone. They can also set “guardrails for how often, what channels, and when Einstein should engage with inbound prospects.”

Einstein SDR Agent also lets RevOps set lead routing rules, log actions as Tasks, and monitor activity via existing reports and dashboards.

“Einstein SDR Agent makes decisions and prioritizes actions that align with the desired outcomes and analyzes a prospect’s question to autonomously determine what to do next — whether that’s answering product questions, handling objections, or scheduling a meeting,” stated Salesforce. “Each response is trusted, accurate, and personalized because it is grounded in a company’s CRM and harmonized external data using Agentforce’s retrieval augmented generation (RAG) service.”

When meetings are set, Einstein SDR Agent warmly hands off to reps with a pre-meeting summary that “critical lead information and previous interactions.”

The SDR Agent supports SMS and WhatsApp.

Einstein Sales Coach offers embedded role plays with feedback based on current scenarios.

The Einstein Sales Coach also employs RAG and text-to-voice to assist with sales role plays. Each roleplay is deal-specific, and Einstein provides post-roleplay feedback. RAG allows Einstein to customize sale scenarios based on Salesforce details about the deal, account, and prior correspondence.

The Sales Coach allows reps to practice pitching, handling objections, or negotiating before meeting with real customers.

“Using RAG, Einstein finds the relevant information in Salesforce — such as previous correspondence with that customer or external files provided, like buyer personas and buyer journey documents — and generates contextual responses in the buyer’s tone back to the seller during the role-play. For example, if a deal is in the negotiation stage, Einstein can create a role-play scenario sourced from the relevant context, including the opportunity record and buyer persona materials, to simulate the target buyer and engage in pricing negotiations.”

Salesforce Product Announcement.

Einstein Sales Coach “incorporates insights from thought leaders and reputable publications when offering seller feedback.” Feedback includes next steps identified in Salesforce and overdue tasks and uploaded content such as sales methodologies and objection handling.

Einstein Sales Coach provides both positive and critical roleplay feedback for current deal scenarios. Next Steps are also called out.

During calls, Einstein provides real-time feedback, noting competitor mentions with competitive insights and providing negotiation tips.

“Every AI conversation needs to be an ROI conversation, and that will happen only when AI augments your team to accelerate growth,” argued Sales Cloud GM Ketan Karkhanis. “Every sales team needs more at-bats and more enablement to accelerate close rates, and that’s what these new autonomous sales agents will help drive. The sales team of the future is humans working with AI to drive sales success.”

TechTarget / Informa Tech Merger

I have been posting my articles as LinkedIn posts for the past few months, but I wanted to link some of the recent articles. The biggest recent announcement was Informa’s bid to merge its Informa Tech division with TechTarget. I also covered their new IntentMail GenAI capability.

Informa Tech CEO Gary Nugent said, “This combination brings a new revenue scale, resilient revenue growth, and increased revenue stability.”

TechTarget Merges with Informa Tech

Informa PLC, a FTSE 50 UK Group company, announced a definitive agreement to combine Informa Tech’s digital business with TechTarget.  The combined business will “create a leading global platform in B2B Data and Market Access, focused on helping vendors in enterprise technology and other markets accelerate revenue growth.”

The “New TechTarget” will be positioned as a “unique end-to-end solution provider across the go-to-market: from strategy, messaging and content development to in-market activation via brand, demand generation, purchase intent data and sales enablement,” declared the firms.  “The combination brings scale benefits, diversified revenue streams, and strategic expansion opportunities by expanding TechTarget’s current addressable market and enhancing the resilience of its business by increasing its presence in new markets and new buyer personas.”

Informa is contributing its Informa Tech digital business and $350 million in cash in exchange for 57% of the combined company.  The cash is to be paid to existing shareholders when the deal closes.  TechTarget’s shareholders will retain a 43% equity stake in the combined company…

Continue on [LinkedIn]

TechTarget IntentMail AI

IntentMail employs GenAI to draft Priority Engine Emails framed by Prospect-level intent.

TechTarget unveiled IntentMail AI, a beta GenAI feature that drafts Priority Engine emails.  TechTarget emphasizes its intent data as it is tied to opted-in readers of its 150 B2B Technology websites.  Thus, IntentMail AI offers opted-in prospect-level intent that supports precision messaging around top-of-mind topics when buyers are in-market.

“Unlike other offerings recently reaching the market, only IntentMail AI combines recent, relevant account information together with deep insights on what the specific targeted recipient has been actually researching on TechTarget’s global publishing network,” explained TechTarget.  “As such, IntentMail AI will not only help drastically reduce the time it takes for sales teams to more effectively personalize outbound outreach, it stands to dramatically increase conversion.”

IntentMail AI is part of TechTarget’s “personalized assist AI-driven product strategy.”  CEO Mike Cotoia believes that opted-in prospect-level intent will differentiate its GenAI offerings from competitors across three dimensions: relevancy, efficiency, and precision focus…

Continue on [LinkedIn]

HubSpot INBOUND

I have been experimenting with posting LinkedIn Newsletters, so I have not been placing my content here for the past month. I posted a pair of articles about HubSpot, which held its annual INBOUND conference in Boston.

HubSpot Brings GAI to Its Hubs

Like many other RevTech vendors, HubSpot is all in on Generative AI (GAI) and infusing it across its Hubs.  CEO Yamini Rangan and Product EVP Andrew Pitre emphasized GAI in their INBOUND keynotes, emphasizing GAI’s ability to foster customer connection and please the customer.

Rangan stated that the “most intelligent way to use intelligence is to drive customer connection,” which can be “scaled to hundreds or thousands or maybe even millions of your customers by observing their patterns, anticipating their needs, and offering them insights.”

Rangan cited HubSpot research…

[Continue on LinkedIn]

HubSpot Rising

A decade ago, vendors looked at SAP and Oracle as the second CRM they supported after building their Salesforce connectors.  Five years ago, the momentum had shifted towards Dynamics following the 2016 launch of Dynamics 365 in the cloud.  It seems that HubSpot is now vying with MSD to be the second-supported CRM.

HubSpot has long been viewed as a decent CRM for SMBs to start on before they grow up and require enterprise features, and research from Adam Schoenfeld at Keyplay backs up this impression.

IDC, which doesn’t include HubSpot in its CRM market share analysis, noted that HubSpot has been growing much faster than the overall market, with 31% growth in 2020 and 47% in 2021…

[Continue on LinkedIn]

Shea Named Mediafly Co-CEO

Mediafly Co-CEO Mary Shea

Mary Shea was named co-CEO of Mediafly, where she will join Carson Conant in managing the Revenue Enablement company.  Shea joins with a solid RevTech pedigree.  She was a Principal Analyst at Forrester and Chief Evangelist at Outreach.  Shea first met Conant as a newly minted Forrester Principal Analyst in 2015 and later served as a company advisor.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled to have Mary join us as co-CEO.  I’ve known Mary for over a decade and have benefited immensely from her deep knowledge of the revenue enablement landscape, her prescience in identifying the next big trend, and her vision for the future of B2B buying and selling,” said Conant.  “Mary brings deep empathy for the day-to-day challenges sellers face and a forward-leaning sensibility for the brand experience B2B companies need to create for buyers.  She will be a force multiplier for the Mediafly team and our customers.”

Shea argued that the RevTech unicorns “amassed large financial war chests” that helped them develop market recognition but that Mediafly and Boathouse Capital took a slower “Midwest approach” that relied more on individual investors than institutional funds.

“While this non-traditional route likely cost Mediafly some market recognition, today this ‘Midwest’ approach appears wise,” argued Shea.  “Fast-forward to the past 6-10 months.  As competitors and adjacents hunkered down and paused innovation to slow ‘burn’ to avoid ‘down rounds,’ Carson and the Mediafly team quietly acquired and integrated five companies — revenue intelligence provider InsightSquared, conversation intelligence providers ExecVision and Sonero, the enablement workflow solution, UserIQ, and talent intelligence provider Aptology.”

These acquisitions brought together underfunded assets with “great and complementary tech and talent” but which “lacked robust distribution channels,” argued Shea.

While Mediafly emphasized its contrarian approach, it is not immune to the layoff bug. It confirmed layoffs last Friday, attributing them to post-acquisition efficiencies, not the current tech slowdown.

“Today, the pendulum swings in the other direction as we made the difficult decision to let go of a number of talented individuals to achieve the efficiency desired after an intense year of acquisitions and integrations,” posted Conant on LinkedIn.  “With these actions, Mediafly will be in a strong position as a uniquely profitable, revenue enablement company.”

Conant listed three organizational goals: “an unwavering commitment” to its customers, product innovation and category leadership, and profitability and operational excellence. Mediafly did not indicate the scope of the layoffs.

Mediafly offers a set of modules that can be purchased as standalone solutions or as part of an integrated suite.  Functionality includes enterprise content management, revenue and conversation intelligence, value realization, coaching, deal management, and forecasting.  To supplement this functionality, it developed a partnership ecosystem spanning seventy-five solutions across the RevTech space.

Mediafly has acquired six RevTech companies to build out its platform quickly.  In 2022, it acquired and integrated revenue intelligence platform InsightSquared, conversation intelligence provider ExecVision, and talent intelligence provider Aptology.

Mediafly noted that customers are increasingly consolidating their tech stack with Mediafly while reducing their technology spend by thirty percent or more and enjoying “improved revenue team performance.”

Customers include PepsiCo, Nestle, Databricks, Honeywell, Sealed Air, Zscaler, and TransUnion.

“I’ve watched Mediafly for many years and always thought of the company as a hidden gem.  Mediafly has grown organically and through acquisitions and has quietly compiled the most complete revenue enablement platform in the market — everything B2B teams need to successfully navigate today’s complex buying journey,” said Shea.  “With this push towards a unified revenue enablement platform, it’s now time for Mediafly to step out of the background and help more B2B organizations create confident sellers who can deliver efficient predictable growth.  I’m hitting the ground running — if you’re looking to improve seller effectiveness, buyer engagement, or consolidate your tech stack, take a fresh look at Mediafly.”

Shea announced the following goals over the next few months:

  • Expand and deepen the value we deliver to customers.
  • Partner with more large global brands.
  • Rebrand and rename our company.
  • Create provocative and actionable thought leadership.
  • Innovate through organic and inorganic product development.

Shea sees the RevTech industry at a “critical and exciting crossroads which includes the rise of digital buying and selling, sweeping generational shifts, rapid technological advancement, the proliferation of tools focused on efficiency, and market and tool consolidation.”

To compete in this dynamic environment, Mediafly “will continue to build onto our platform, integrating each new asset through a modern and scalable data architecture, complete with a revenue business intelligence layer.”  As a result, Mediafly’s Revenue360 solution will become “the most complete revenue enablement platform in the market.”

Volaris Acquires ClickDimensions

ClickDimensions new SEP supports sequences and templates.

Private Equity company Volaris Group acquired SMB RevTech vendor ClickDimensions from PE firm Accel-KKR.  The acquisition comes two months after the firm launched a Sales Engagement Platform.

“We view this acquisition as a great opportunity for both Volaris and ClickDimensions to provide innovative solutions for the ever-evolving MarTech and sales enablement industries,” said Jay Hoffman, Group Leader at Volaris. “I’m eager to work alongside ClickDimensions’ leadership team to propel their strategy forward and continue to serve their global footprint of customers and partners.  We’re pleased to welcome ClickDimensions to the Volaris Group.”

ClickDimensions Marketing Automation supports email marketing, campaign automation, surveys, events, landing pages, forms, SMS, and Social.  While the company now offers marketing automation and sales engagement, its long-term plans are to provide a “full RevTech solution” built on the Dynamics platform.  This future platform and services organization will be built both organically and via acquisitions.  It will support embedded AI for sentiment analysis, next-best actions, opportunity scoring, and activity capture.

ClickDimensions is a Microsoft VAR and consultancy with a global footprint across 76 countries and 3,500 customers.  Its solutions integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Sales.  Half of its revenue is derived in the EMEA region, with most of the rest in North America.  It serves a broad set of industries, with no segment representing over 25% of its customer base.

ClickDimensions also offers consultancy services that provide “fractional access to skilled resources that are in short supply.”  Services include onboarding, training, and execution; demand generation; customer data services; and marketing operations.

“With the strength and global scale of Volaris behind us, we envision a bright future for ClickDimensions and the customers and partners we serve,” stated Mike Dickerson, CEO at ClickDimensions. “We look forward to continuing development of our product suite and further solidifying our long-term commitment to the Microsoft ecosystem, innovation, and SMB market.”

ClickDimensions will continue as an independent organization. 

“Small to medium businesses are just as keen as large enterprises to acquire and build deep, loyal customer relationships, and ClickDimensions has put the capability to do so into the hands of thousands of companies worldwide,” said Rob Palumbo, Managing Partner at Accel-KKR, which invested in ClickDimensions in 2016.  “It has been gratifying to help ClickDimensions grow just as the company itself has helped thousands of small to medium businesses grow and expand.  We look forward to cheering ClickDimensions and Volaris from the sidelines.”

ClickDimensions Launches Sales Engagement

RevTech Vendor and Consultancy ClickDimensions rolled out its Sales Engagement service that works alongside its other Dynamics 365 sales and marketing services.  ClickDimensions is looking to unify sales and marketing motions, particularly among SMBs.

“ClickDimensions Sales Engagement makes this unification possible, giving teams control over leads and better visibility into revenue-driving activities.  Once these teams are better aligned, companies see an average revenue increase of 34%,” stated the firm.

ClickDimensions aims to “democratize best-in-class tools for all companies” and unify sales and marketing strategies.  According to ClickDimensions, Sales Engagement “offers a unified approach for sales and marketing teams and eradicates the potential for customer drop-offs and miscommunication between each team as leads progress through the funnel.  The result is greater sales team efficiency, higher-quality buyer journeys, and increased customer loyalty and revenue.”

ClickDimensions Chief Growth Officer Margaret Wise explained to GZ Consulting that many of their Microsoft Dynamics customers “aren’t the digital leaders.  They are often digital laggards.  They are often in manufacturing, associations, and nonprofits.  They’re not bleeding edge typically from a marketing perspective.”

So, the question for Wise becomes, “How do we provide solutions that are accessible, integrated, easy to use, and affordable for that specific kind of customer that doesn’t want to be bleeding edge on the latest and greatest?  They want something dependable, easy, [and] that they can find resources for.”

At SMBs, CEOs often take an active role in the technology purchasing decision “because it is tied directly to revenue and growth,” continued Wise.  “A lot of the change urgency is being driven out of the C-suite.”  Thus, their messaging needs to address C-level issues around lead generation and revenue management.

ClickDimensions argues that these laggards often lack a digital strategy, have uncoordinated social media marketing, and mostly transmit one-off email messages.

ClickDimensions Sales Engagement, which runs natively in Dynamics, offers templated emails sent through Outlook, sales sequences, lead scoring, and next-best-action recommendations.  When combined with ClickDimensions Marketing Automation, revenue teams have a “complete view of every step of the customer journey.”

Sequences can be built for initial meeting requests, prospecting, follow-up, inbound, events (both invitation and follow-up), periodic check-ins, account review, and upcoming renewal.  This breadth supports sales and customer success teams across the customer lifecycle.

Sequence analytics are also provided with step-level results (e.g., calls, bounces, opens, replies) and post-activity disposition capture (e.g., interested, not interested, interested – not now).

Sequenced tasks include manual and automated emails, phone calls, LinkedIn, and generic tasks; however, they do not yet support dialer or LinkedIn integrations. 

Admins also set up sequence-based rules for scenarios such as reply action for sequenced emails and bounce handling.  Admins can also set sequences to automatically trigger or wait for sales review before triggering.

ClickDimensions Sales Engagement sequence status at the contact level across leads.

“The modern buying journey has completely transformed from what it was a mere three years ago, which means companies need to adapt how they sell – and fast,” stated ClickDimensions CEO Mike Dickerson.  “Launching ClickDimensions Sales Engagement is our way of responding to these industry challenges, equipping our customers with critical tools to boost revenue, and unifying sales and marketing teams around a digital-first customer experience.”

ClickDimensions Sales Engagement is a “natural progression and the perfect complement to its flagship solution, ClickDimensions Marketing Automation,” continued the firm.  “The platform helps marketers optimize campaigns, automate follow-ups, create lead nurturing processes, and target leads to sales.  From there, ClickDimensions Sales Engagement will help salespeople with the next best action, automating outreach to leads and redirecting leads to marketing for further nurture if they’re not ready to purchase.”

ClickDimensions Marketing offers one-to-many outreach during the nurture phase (e.g., newsletters, marketing campaigns, event invitations).  Later, ClickDimensions Sales Engagement supports one-to-one or one-to-few communications with prospects and customers.  Marketing Automation can send leads to sales reps based on triggers or lead scores, and Sales Engagement offers a button to return prospects to nurture for leads that are not in active buying cycles.  Thus, the problem of MQLs being ignored and dropped by sales as not qualified has a logical resolution – return the lead to marketing nurture and support a “non-linear customer journey.”

The passing back and forth of leads between sales and marketing enables a “continual process until the actual opportunity progresses,” said Wise.

ClickDimensions Marketing Automation supports email marketing, campaign automation, surveys, events, landing pages, forms, SMS, and Social.  While the company now offers marketing automation and sales engagement, its long-term plans are to provide a “full RevTech solution” built on the Dynamics platform.  This future platform and services organization will be built both organically and via acquisitions and support embedded AI for sentiment analysis, next-best actions, opportunity scoring, and activity capture.

ClickDimensions is a Microsoft VAR and consultancy with a global footprint across 76 countries and 3,500 customers.  Half of its revenue is derived in the EMEA region, with most of the rest in North America.  It serves a broad set of industries, with no segment representing over 25% of its customer base.

ClickDimensions also offers consultancy services that provide “fractional access to skilled resources that are in short supply.”  Services include onboarding, training, and execution; demand generation; customer data services; and marketing operations.

ClickDimensions Sales Engagement sequence options include pausing the sequence and managing responses to engagement activity.

Leadinfo Acquires WebProspector.de

Dutch lead generation vendor Leadinfo is acquiring WebProspector.de, a German visitor tracking company, with the deal closing on November 1.  Deal terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition expands Leadinfo’s presence in Germany.  It acquired Leading Reports in April and opened an office in Düsseldorf in July to improve its sales and support in German-speaking markets.

Leadinfo claims to be the market leader in Benelux and the most prominent international provider in the D-A-CH region.  It consolidated its position in the Netherlands over the past year with the acquisitions of Leadexpress (December 2021) and LeadElephant (January 2022). 

Leadinfo supports over 3,000 customers in Benelux, D-A-CH, Great Britain, and Scandinavia.  Customers include Lavazza, Quis Machinery, Channable, and Creditsafe.

Both Leadinfo and WebProspector.de have focused on their partner networks, with Leadinfo supporting over 1,100 partners.

WebProspector.de clients will migrate to the Leadinfo platform and benefit from a broader set of integrations.  Leadinfo supports over fifty platforms, including Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, HubSpot, and Salesloft.

CRM integrations are bi-directional, with Leadinfo performing duplicate checking against lead and account records.  When sending to CRM, companies may be added as Lead or Account record types.  Additionally, company profiles include deal and task information gathered from CRMs, and users can create new deals and tasks from Leadinfo.

team.blue visitor information displayed in the Leadinfo service.

The Leadinfo platform supports a visitor inbox, real-time lead alerts, web forms, visitor browsing recordings, and triggered workflows.  In addition, its programmatic functionality supports Google Ads and LinkedIn retargeting.

Liquid Content, its site personalization functionality, adjusts websites based on firmographics.  As a result, marketers can customize the text, video, content, and images presented to the visitor, allowing them to segment their website presentation.

Leads are enriched by IP address matching against a reference database of 220 million global businesses.  Firmographics are gathered from global registry filings and web crawling.   Firmographics include address, phone, year founded, industry codes (US SIC 87 and local codes), sizing data, company logos, social media links, business descriptions, etc.  Legal information includes the registration number, entity type, ultimate parent, group size, and employees in the group.  Business descriptions are generally available in the local language.  Other information includes a pinned Google map, page view information, Leadinfo’s lead score, and Leadinfo tags.

Leadinfo company profiles include a proprietary lead score based on visitor behavior.  However, lead scores do not yet adjust for firmographic fit; thus, a company may score high based on behavior but may not be a qualified lead.

Leadinfo displays HubSpot Deal and Task information. Sales reps can also create new tasks and deals from Leadinfo.

In July, Leadinfo was acquired by team.blue, a European cloud services provider with an office in fifteen European countries and Turkey.  CEO Han Kleppe and the rest of the management team continue to run Leadinfo as an independent subsidiary.

Leadinfo is growing rapidly and was recently named to Deloitte’s Fast 50 technology list for the Netherlands.

RollWorks Journey Events and Sales Insights for HubSpot

ABX Platform RollWorks launched Journey Events for HubSpot, a consolidated account-level view of the customer buying journey.  The service helps B2B teams understand which activities are helping move customers through the decision process and which activities are sub-optimal and should be adjusted.

“Due to its ability to surface every marketing and sales activity driving an account’s progression, Journey Events for HubSpot also provides sales teams a comprehensive look (both immediately and over time) at how an account is moving—what is working and what is helping to drive the account progression, including seeing every action alongside an account spike,” stated the firm.  “This helps sellers plan and personalize outreach by identifying the optimal time to contact an account and tailor messaging based on the last action that may have had an effect.”

Journey Events pulls engagement, intent, and stage data from HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, RollWorks, and G2.

RollWorks Journey Events was announced last fall and is now available inside HubSpot.

RollWorks gathers time-stamped events such as meetings booked, opportunities generated, and SDR emails.  It then matches activity history against intent, engagement, and journey stage data.  As a result, sales and marketing professionals can visualize account progression against activity history to determine the efficacy of various activities. 

“At a critical time when marketers across the board are being asked to do more with far less, RollWorks Journey Events for HubSpot stands out for its ability to help all go-to-market teams be more efficient with their ABM strategies.  Being able to see each and every marketing and sales activity that’s driving account progression is huge.  With that, for example, you won’t send irrelevant messages in an email or waste money sending a gift to an account if it isn’t ready.  Instead, your organization can focus on what’s working and foster a common language between sales and marketing.”

Jodi Cerretani, RollWorks’ Head of Demand Generation

RollWorks has established HubSpot as a key partner and invested significantly in HubSpot connectors.  In June, it launched Sales Insights for HubSpot, which employs data science to provide a “360-degree view of accounts throughout the buying journey, helping B2B marketers and sales teams to eliminate the guesswork and create more timely and efficient sales outreach.”

It also has enjoyed significant success with its RollWorks ABM HubSpot App, which passed 500 installs in April, 150% above its nearest platform competitor.  The integration enables teams “to identify high-fit, high-intent accounts and buyers, reach them efficiently, and measure impact.”

“RollWorks is laser-focused on engagement quality innovation, and we are incredibly proud of our acceleration and momentum within the HubSpot ecosystem,” stated Justin Cooperman, VP of Product Management.  “With Journey Events for HubSpot, we’ve raised the bar on relevance and personalization between seller and prospect.”

RollWorks Sales Insights for HubSpot identifies spiking ad engagement and website visits.

Sales Insights identifies accounts with spiking engagement based on visitor intelligence and advertising views.  RollWorks flags accounts with Account Spikes compared to baseline activity and visualizes engagement within HubSpot.  As a result, revenue teams can prioritize marketing programs and sales outreach based on spiking engagement.

Sales Insights de-anonymizes existing HubSpot CRM contacts and automates sales alerts when engagement activity spikes.  It also identifies unassigned spiking accounts and notifies sales reps via email when there is spiking engagement.  Additionally, within the HubSpot Company Record, an account timeline displays activity across the website, ads, intent, CRM, marketing automation platform, etc.

Likewise, marketing can analyze which campaigns lead to engagement surges and tailor ABM campaigns accordingly.  They can also build nurture workflows for spiking accounts. “There’s a difference between ‘pipeline’ and ‘pipedream.’ I prefer the former,” said RollWorks VP of Sales Shawn Cook.  “When my sales teams know who and what content a prospect is engaging with, they can take on the role of trusted advisor and advance the conversations with the accounts that are likely to buy from us.  Sales needs to not only know what the content is but also why that piece of content was created.  This is where the alignment is magnified.”

Sales Insights for HubSpot is included as part of the $995 per month RollWorks Account Based Platform license.

Demandbase Unified CRM View

ABX Platform Demandbase announced that it is the first sales intelligence and account engagement platform to integrate both services jointly into CRM.  Demandbase offers a single view that combines first-party and behavioral data from the Demandbase ABX cloud and third-party datasets (firmographics, technographics, contact data, and news & social insights) from the Demandbase Sales Intelligence Cloud.

“Doing so gives B2B sellers access to all the information they need to spot and close larger deals faster,” stated the firm.  “This first of its kind application guides sales teams to know where and when to engage with the right accounts and decision-makers, leading to higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, and bigger deals — boosting CRM adoption in the process.”

Demandbase brought firmographic, contact, and technographics databases in-house following the May 2021 acquisitions of InsideView and DemandMatrix.  Intent data includes first and third-party intelligence, including Surging Intent, Demandbase Keyword Intent, Campaign Response, and Web Page Visits.

Revenue Operations can also select intent data from Bombora and G2, which are processed through the ABX platform’s predictive models.

The Demandbase Timeline provides current and historical intent data.

The Demandbase platform also supports activity timelines, product and competitor intent datasets, and persona-based engagement heatmaps, helping revenue teams assess account potential and determine where accounts stand in the buyer’s journey.

Heatmaps may be viewed by engagement, people, or journeys.  Both preset and custom options are available.  In addition, users can drill down to details by clicking on a row or column header.

The SFDC Heatmap is presented at the Account level with Engagement Minutes (Demandbase’s contact engagement model) displayed within the heatmap matrix.

Sales users can utilize this heatmap to find champions at an org via the highest engagement and understand with which roles they need to communicate.

The Demandbase Heatmap is available with both preset and customizable views.

The platform also supports long-running InsideView for Salesforce functionality, including

  • Company and contact profiles
  • Prospect list building for companies and contacts
  • Contact searching at accounts
  • A news viewer that combines company news, social posts, and blogs
  • Corporate family trees
  • Add to CRM with duplicate checking
  • CRM “stare and compare” updates

According to Demandbase, the unified UI lets customers “consolidate their tech stack, replacing ABM, sales intelligence, advertising, and other vendors with Demandbase One, the Smarter Go-To-Market solution.”

“The beauty of this unified sales UI is that all the data a salesperson needs is readily accessible, right in the CRM where they’re already working.  It’s revolutionary for sales teams,” said Demandbase CRO Allison Metcalfe.  “No more toggling between systems or wasting time in generic outreach that doesn’t drive sales.  Instead, they’ll have deeper insights and greater visibility into prospective deals, gaining knowledge about what buyers are doing around the web, what they engage with, who to contact (and how), and what the most relevant messaging is.  The actionability, productivity, and efficacy of such functionality is practically limitless.”

In other news, Demandbase was named to the Fast Company “100 Best Workplaces for Innovators.” The magazine noted that Demandbase reinvests 20% of its revenue in R&D.

HG Insights Platform 2.0

The Opportunity Generator assembles targeted lists based on fitness and intent.

Market Intelligence vendor HG Insights released version 2.0 of its platform to deliver the “actionable insights” technology vendors need to better “understand their markets in-depth, make decisions, and Go-To-Market (GTM) with precision and confidence.”  Platform 2.0 supports technographics, install data, spend data, twelve million company profiles, contract intelligence, and intent signals for nine million global companies.

“The HG Insights Platform goes beyond simple high-level market reports to provide business leaders with actionable insights to make successful Go-To-Market decisions,” said Robert Fox, CTO of HG Insights.  “Customers are already using HG Insights to allocate resources more effectively, prioritize the right product initiatives, and give their sales and marketing teams the account details they need to pursue the best opportunities—and now we are building on these capabilities with Platform 2.0.  I am excited at the speed of innovation the new platform launch unlocks as HG Insights maintains itself as the market leader of technology intelligence.”

HG Platform 2.0 supports modules for company profiling, marketing intelligence, contextual intent, and opportunity generation.

Platform 2.0 offers self-serviceable intent insights where marketers identify accounts with the highest current propensity to buy based on market signals.  Intent Insights begins by matching each vendor’s Ideal Customer Profile and intent topics to define a set of target accounts.  Account scoring then ranks the target accounts based on a combination of intent signals and market fit (firmographics and technographics).

Marketers can then employ IT spend intelligence to prioritize accounts by budgets, construct equitable sales territories, and analyze market spending trends.

The platform is supported by a “ground up” architectural refresh that improves HG Insights’ ability to scale up its data and insights delivery.  In Q4, the firm plans to release a new API and native Salesforce integration served by the new platform.

Other platform features include improved account scoring, saved search lists, account match logic enhancements, self-serve customer reporting, and UX enhancements.

Install data enhancements include company hierarchy mapping and “new trending features that capture intensity trending over time.”

“These improvements give a more dynamic experience to our technology install data and can answer a broader variety of questions about product usage,” said Darcy Moss, Director of Product Marketing.  “Data coverage and precision have improved—you are now able to profile installs at a global, country, and city/state level.  Intensity Trending and Momentum deliver an improved understanding of technology usage.”

HG Insights, which began as a technographics vendor, now supports modules for opportunity generation, market intelligence, account profiling, and contextual intent.  The Market Intelligence module, released in early 2021, helps marketing and strategy analysts size markets by IT spend, tech installs, firmographics, geography, company size, etc.  It also lets them:

  • Analyze vendor penetration and identify threats, trends, and opportunities
  • Allocate resources and territories more efficiently
  • Identify untapped market potential with whitespace analysis

Contextual Intent, an add-on service, combines technology install data and buyer intent signals “to create a new scoring and filtering experience for laser-focused company targeting.”  HG Insights processes two billion weekly intent signals spanning over 120 million verified tech installs.  Its technology taxonomy support over 14,000 products, solutions, and services.

Contextual intent helps identify prospects researching or evaluating a product that is

  • Not detected in a current install
  • In a category where HG Insights has detected the installation of another product from the same vendor
  • A potential displacement of a competitor’s offering

HG Insights expanded its IT spend and intelligence insights when it acquired Intricately back in March.  Intricately’s proprietary sensor network gathers cloud product adoption, usage, and spend data for seven million global businesses across 21,000 cloud offerings.  Data are collected from over 150 global Internet points of presence, helping Intricately map digital infrastructure.  Its insights are delivered via an API, integrations, data snapshots, and web applications.

Intent Activity identifies the signal strength, signal location, and buyer’s journey stage.