• Account-based marketing (ABM) platform Demandbase has partnered with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Microsoft’s B2B customer data platform (CDP) included within its enterprise cloud platform, which also includes a B2B and B2C marketing cloud. The partnership also extends to InsideView, an ABM platform that directly connects to CRM tools, and DemandMatrix, a database providing relevant business intelligence on B2B accounts. These were both acquired by Demandbase in May 2021.

• The partnership would allow DemandBase’s clients to directly connect customer leads from Microsoft’s CDP with Demandbase’s predictive capabilities, providing insights on customer intent. This is further enriched with the connectivity to InsideView and DemandMatrix, which can draw on its contact data, such as company size and product offerings (firmographic data) and its demographic data, such as geographic location and number of employees (technographic data), to provide richer insights.

• According to Demandbase’s management, the partnership would help to break down data silos that exist between sales and marketing teams by providing a unified view of the customer to help manage them across the customer journey. 

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake: The integration between ABM and CDP platforms is reflective of a growing shift away from leads-based marketing towards ABM as the standard for B2B marketing. Salesforce’s 2020 state of marketing report highlighted that this trend is driven by businesses demanding a greater degree of personalization in B2B interactions, similar to B2C interactions. This creates a need for ABM platforms to bring deeper insights by connecting to a CDP platform. In line with these trends, Demandbase transitioned its platform to an account-based experience (ABX) (in March 2021) platform, which reflects this trend of convergence in B2B and B2C marketing strategies.</ul>