Demandbase Reveals Major Acquisitions, Deviates focus from ABM

On the 4th of May 2021, Demandbase announced two major acquisitions including integration with InsideView into a broad B2B go-to-market offering and with technographics provider DemandMatrix. These acquisitions are following Demandbase’s acquisition of ABM orchestration & analytics platform Engagio in June 2020.

With the integration of these solutions, the Demandbase One B2B Go-to-Market Suite will have ABM (restyled as ABX – account-based experience) as one of its core components. A company like Demandbase, which has been a global leader in Enterprise ABM since its inception in 2006, has certainly shifted focus towards integrated solutions, than merely being recognized as an ABM solution provider.

Demandbase CEO Gabe Rogol summarizes his enthrallment as follows:

“It’s a feeling of expansion, born of learning so much from our customers, and born of the digital transformation that has happened in the last year.”

He further stated, “This is an intentional step for us beyond being solely an ABM leader and into broader B2B go-to-market. That’s important because ABM is just a part of the go-to-market challenges that B2B companies face.”

From now onwards, Demandbase will be structured as a suite of clouds, including the ABX cloud, their B2B advertising solution, a sales intelligence cloud, and a data cloud. InsideView will be responsible for taking care of the intent and in-market data that Demandbase is known for capturing while DemandMatrix will handle the intricacies related to technographics (information on technology that companies already own) – a leading predictive indicator of intent for companies selling technology.

Rogol explained the importance of a holistic B2B suite as follows:

“Our focus has been on building the most complete ABM solution (we call it ABX, because its not just marketing)…, and that was the impetus behind acquiring Engagio, putting a lot of the top of funnel and lower funnel stuff together. That will still be important.”

Rogol accentuated that InsideView represents the adjacent space to ABX:

“Sales intelligence is what’s going on in accounts, who are the people in accounts, and what message should you reach out with? It’s a different category (from ABM), and it’s covered in a different way by analytics.”

Data from the ABX and sales intelligence clouds will help Demandbase’s DSP, a B2B advertising solution Rogol considers a differentiator for the company.

Finally, the data cloud will bring together five key B2B data assets – intent and real-time account ID, where Demandbase was already a strong leader; firmographics (general data on companies): technographics (data on technology owned by companies); and contacts. This suite also offers CRM data-cleansing capabilities.

“All the pieces come together with the combined companies,” Rogol said. It will be possible for clients to subscribe to individual parts of the suite as well. Rogol explained that this art is something that has been learned from global enterprises. He explained that the customers don’t necessarily desire everything at once and believe in infusing some flexibility.

Rogol explained the significance of technographics for clients in the technology vertical which Demandbase acquires from DemandMatrix:

“We do a lot of predictive analytics, looking at all different data that we have available and our customers have available, to predict who could become a customer – ever or soon. For technology companies, the number one feature in data science model is what technologies your prospect owns.”

Technographics according to Rogol is the most important data set in predictive models for technological compaDemandMatrixnies.

According to Meetul Shah, CEO Of DemandMatrix, “So far companies have been coming at the in-market concept in multiple ways.”

Marketers wouldn’t need to choose between Demandbase intent data,  technographic data, or data from dozens of different sources. Marketers will be able to combine fifty different systems to get the job done.

Shah, and Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView, will continue to run the day-to-day operations of their companies.

The integration is in turn a challenge. After ingesting Engagio last year, with co-founder and CEO Jon Miller becoming joint CMO and Chief Product Officer at Demandbase, the company now faces a double integration challenge.

According to Rogol, the integration process isn’t going to be easy, and a lot of work on the execution front remains to be done. He emphasized that acquisitions this time are different from that of Engagio.

Robol explained that when Engagio was acquired, the goal was to get the most comprehensive ABM platform. However, the recent acquisitions remain part of the adjacent expansion plan, so they’re most likely to operate as standalone businesses.

Why Are These Acquisitions Vital

Demandbase is a 14-year-old MarTech company. The entire 2020 was a year of reinvention for the company. There were executive changes at the top and Rogol replaced founder Chris Golec as the CEO. Also, the acquisition of Engagio by Demandbase grabbed the headlines. Now with two more acquisitions following this year, it has become clear that relegation of ABM is just a part of the holistic B2B suite.

Demandbase may now no longer be a cost-effective solution for every B2B marketer to consider. However, these developments imply important changes that will shape the new trajectories for the evolution of the B2B dominion in the future.

About Demandbase

Demandbase is amongst the fastest B2B companies in the world that help B2B companies maximize their go-to-market performance and drive their account0based strategies. Demandbase offers an end-to-end Account-Based Experience (ABX) solution that helps B2B companies find, engage with, and close the accounts that matter the most.

The company headquartered in 2006 is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, and specializes in marketing, account-based marketing, B2B marketing, B2B sales, company-targeted advertising, web analytics, B2B go-to-market, account-based experience, multi-channel orchestration, attribution, predictive analytics, and sales insights.

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