Demandbase Unveils “Real-Time Intent” to Transform B2B and Account-Based Marketing

By Sudipto Ghosh On Aug 9, 2017

Demandbase New Artificial Intelligence-Based Technology Gives B2b Companies A Head Start On The Buying Cycle

More than 70% of B2B buyers start their research with a generic search. For ABM success, it is critical for companies to identify, reach and engage the key decision makers as early as possible in the buyer’s journey. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) can prove to be very handy for B2B marketers seeking a head start. To help such marketers, Demandbase, the pioneer in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), has announced Real-Time Intent.

Demandbase’s Real-Time Intent will be available to all customers in the fall, and will enable website personalization at the persona level later this year.

The Data Machinery Driving Real-Time Intent

Demandbase’s Real-Time Intent technology leverages AI and Machine Learning to analyze and track billions of interactions every month. The company combines its proprietary IP-based data and patented identification technology, data from its ad networks and exchanges, third party firmographic data, and publicly available online data such as social media APIs, articles, press releases and SEC data to map out what an account is interested in and research in real-time.

Real-Time Intent Automatically Triggers Sales and Marketing Actions throughout ABM Funnel

Demandbase’s Real-Time Intent is a new artificial AI technology that gives B2B companies a head start on the buying cycle and makes B2B signals more actionable. Similar to how a keyword search signals intent, Real-Time Intent identifies the interests of accounts and buyers at the beginning of the online research stage and then automatically triggers sales and marketing actions throughout the entire ABM funnel.

In an interview with MarTech Series, Peter Isaacson, Chief Marketing Officer at Demandbase, had said —

“Artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to upend our B2B world in ways than once seemed impossible. Recently, we conducted a survey of 500 B2B marketers in conjunction with Wakefield Research, and the results revealed that 80 percent of marketing executives anticipate AI would revolutionize marketing by 2020.”

The launch of Real-Time Intent proves that AI/ML would be the key to constructing one-to-one personalized conversations, converting data into insights, and insights into automated actions.

Build and Deliver Personalized Marketing Content at Scale with Improved Sales Intelligence

Real-Time Intent technology will help companies discover accounts who are interested in their products and services, create hyper-targeted ads, improve sales intelligence, and personalize website content at scale at the account level.

Using Real-Time Intent from Demandbase, B2B marketers can:

Identify accounts that are showing the greatest intent for a specific topic
Target accounts who are starting to research one of your competitors
Deliver customized, relevant messages that fit each phase of the journey
Trigger sales outreach for any account that shows a spike in intent

Demandbase’s network currently receives over 400 million B2B visitors every month, which is 3X LinkedIn’s reported monthly active users. This yields more than 60 billion B2B monthly interactions that Demandbase is able to monitor, identify signals, and then make those signals actionable across the entire sales and marketing funnel.

Real-Time Intent Captures the ‘First-Moment’ of the Buyer’s Interest

Chris Golec, CEO of Demandbase, said, “Our scale of business audience reach across the entire web paired with our AI capabilities results in an unparalleled ability to understand business interests in real-time. This technology will give our customers greater reach and superior precision and timing than previously possible. More importantly, Real-Time Intent will be delivered through a platform and suite of targeting, engagement and conversion solutions so that customers can take immediate actions on the insights.”

According to CEB, B2B buyers are already 57 percent of the way down the path to a decision before they actually perform an action on a business website. Potential buyers signal interest in the form of what they’re reading, long before they’ve identified solutions and visited a corporate website or begin posting online.

Demandbase’s Real-Time Intent leverages AI to allow B2B companies to capture this first moment of a potential buyer’s interest and intent to get ahead of the competition and deliver the right messages across multiple channels at the very beginning of the buyer’s journey.

Steven Shapiro, Vice President of Digital and Buyer’s Journey at Informatica, said, “As the leader in Enterprise Cloud Data Management, Informatica understands the disruptive power of data. Our marketing vision is to use data and data science to drive relevant engagements. Demandbase’s Real-Time Intent is an exciting step forward that will help us deliver the right message at the right time by both extending intent data with more context and determining the Next Best Action to accelerate the buyer’s journey.”

Eric Wittlake, Senior Analyst in the Marketing Practice at TOPO, said, “B2B marketers have been using intent data for a couple years, but are now looking for new possibilities that make this data more actionable and integrate it better with their existing technology stack. AI will make it possible for data to become more actionable and valuable in marketing programs.”