Companies in the B2B sector use B2B data to improve their sales, marketing and recruiting. But what is B2B data? How can this data be used, and which companies are offering it?
What Is B2B data?
Data is data, right? Not necessarily. There are many types of data. Some are relevant to B2B businesses, while others aren’t. So, what is B2B data, exactly?
In the business-to-business sector, B2B data refers to relevant information about other businesses. This information can include:
- Company identifiers
- Revenue
- Funding
- Contact Information like emails and phone numbers
- Technographic
- Firmographic
B2B data can help marketers improve their marketing strategies using audience-centric information. And it can salespeople target the right accounts for prospecting.
B2B data can be collected from a number of public and private sources, including:
- Other B2B data providers
- Articles
- Social media posts and profiles
- Paywalled websites
- Company websites
- Email signatures
- Manual human sourced data
With the right data, marketers and salespeople can improve:
- Lead generation
- Personalization
- Targeting
- Audience identification
What is B2B data used for?
Data is only helpful if it’s put to good use. So, what is B2B data used for?
B2B data can be used by marketers to enhance sales prospecting, recruitment activities and marketing activities.
Sales Prospecting
B2B data can be used to make sales prospecting more efficient and effective. Sales teams now have access to a wealth of information about their prospects, which means that they can better target the right people at the right time. Leveraging quality B2B data for prospecting strategies is key.
In sales prospecting, B2B data can be used for:
- ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) development: An ICP is the profile of your ideal buyer. You can use this information to find others who match the profile.
- Outbound sales: Armed with B2B data, sales teams can reach out to prospects via cold email, phone (cold call lists), networking or social selling.
Essentially, B2B data can help sales teams find and reach out to the right people, making it much easier to convert prospects into customers.
Marketing Activities
B2B data can also be used in marketing activities to improve targeting and learn more about your market and audience.
Specifically, B2B data is used in:
- Lead generation: Marketing teams can use their ideal customer data and contact details to improve lead generation.
- Defining your TAM (Total Addressable Market): Your TAM is the total number of potential prospects in your target market.
- Demand generation: In marketing, demand generation can include a number of activities, including email marketing, content marketing, PPC and more. B2B data can be used to make these activities more effective and efficient.
- Analytics: Marketing teams use B2B data to track marketing and sales metrics to measure performance. Analytics helps teams improve their strategies to drive more sales.
Recruitment Activities
Most people associate B2B data with marketing and sales activities, but it can also be used for recruitment purposes.
In fact, B2B data can provide you with some valuable insight into team members at other companies who may have the experience and knowledge you’re lacking.
B2B data can provide you with a potential candidate’s:
- Role
- Job Titles
- Contact information
- Company data
- Technologies they use
Having accurate B2B data on hand can help improve your recruiting efforts.
Who uses B2B data?
B2B data can be used by a number of people in your organization across several departments, including sales, marketing and HR.
Sales
Sales teams use B2B data to target the right people, identify their ideal customers and ensure they’re contacting prospects through the right channels.
Marketing
Marketing teams can put B2B data to good use by improving strategies for lead generation and building customer personas and profiles.
Recruiting
The recruiting department can also use B2B data to find suitable candidates for open positions and identify their ideal candidates.
What is considered quality B2B data?
B2B data can be used for a variety of purposes and by a number of different teams within an organization. However, B2B data will only be useful if it is accurate and fits the parameters for quality data.
What exactly does that mean? What qualifies as quality B2B data?
Accurate
Quality B2B data is accurate, meaning that your bounce rate is near zero. In other words, your messages are getting through to your contacts.
If your data has a high bounce rate, it’s likely outdated and inaccurate, which means it’s of little use to your team.
The data needs to be on point. If it is not accurate, then it useless.
High Number of Contacts for Your ICP
Quality data goes beyond accuracy. You can have a long list of prospects with accurate contact information, but they may not be a good fit for your product or service.
When you have quality data, you have a high number of contacts for your ICP. What this means is that you have a large number of contacts who fit your ideal customer profile and will likely want and need your product/service.
Mobile Numbers
Mobile numbers are another indication of quality B2B data. Prospects may be more likely to answer their mobile phones with the shift to remote work. Making contact with a prospect is the first step and often one of the most difficult.
Types of B2B Data
Now that you understand what B2B data is and what it’s used for, you may be wondering about the types of data available.
There are many types of B2B data, from firmographic to technographic and more.
Contact
Contact data is related to the prospect’s personal contact information and location. This can include:
- Name
- Company
- Job Title
- Location
- Email address
- Phone number (direct and mobile)
Contact data arms teams with vital information about the prospect.
Intent Data
Intent data is a newer type of data in the B2B dataset, and it refers to the prospect’s online behavior.
Intent data can tell you:
- What prospects are looking for
- What type of content they find most engaging
- Whether they’re in the buying mindset
This type of data can be collected from private and public sources, primarily through the use of cookies.
Marketing and sales teams can use intent data to target prospects when they’re in the right stage of the buying cycle.
Firmographic/Company
Firmographic data is company-related data, such as:
- Company name
- Company location
- Number of employees
- Industry
- Revenue
Technographic
Technographic data includes information about a company’s or employee’s technology, such as:
- A company’s tech stack
- Adoption rates
- Implementation details
- When these technologies were acquired
Trigger Data
This B2B data refers to changes or events that occur over time, and they’re often called sales triggers. They can include:
- Contacts joining, leaving or moving up in a company (e.g., a department manager is promoted to the head of the department role)
- Companies moving their locations
- Company funding, IPO or acquisition
- Company hiring
This data can be especially valuable to B2B companies because these events may open opportunities for sales. For example, if a prospect has just moved from one company to another, it may be the perfect time to pitch your product or service.
What are the top B2B data companies?
B2B data can come from multiple companies, but the top data companies include:
ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a data and software company offering modern, go-to-market solutions that can help businesses uncover opportunities with B2B databases, sales intelligence and more.
Cognism
Cognism is a global data expert company with multiple solutions to help businesses make more meaningful connections. Over 1,800 revenue teams rely on the B2B data from Cognism.
UpLead
UpLead is a lead generation company offering a sales intelligence tool that has a high accuracy guarantee. The 100% distributed team has 95% data accuracy and an ever-growing database.
Lead411
Lead411 has a 96% email accuracy, direct dial and email leads. The company offers four focus lead data sources to help sales teams improve their targeted conversion rates.
SalesIntel
SalesIntel prides itself on being the best B2B data provider. The company is a B2B content data provider and sales intelligence platform for revenue teams of all sizes.
Lusha
Lusha is a crowdsourced data community designed for B2B salespeople. The community has data on 670,000 sales professionals in 223,000 sales organizations worldwide.
Seamless.ai
Seamless.ai is a company that promotes itself as a software developer who helps the world create new relationships, opportunities and revenue channels. The platform has 1.9+ billion verified records in its database.
Snov.io
Snov.io is trusted by over 130,000 companies worldwide and has built numerous tools to generate more leads, including an email finder, drip campaign platform, verifier, sales CRM and more.
Clearbit
Clearbit uses 250+ data sources to gather fresh, reliable B2B data. High email deliverability of 94%. The platform has 389 million contact records and 48 million company records.
RocketReach
RocketReach is a company that prides itself on offering quality, accurate data on 35+ million companies and has a precise list of 700 million contacts. The platform is used by 95% of the S&P 500 companies and has 14.2 million users worldwide.
B2B Data Pricing
What is B2B data pricing like? Multiple companies offer pricing pages online, but they end with you needing to fill out a custom quote page. Pricing for the following companies is:
Clearbit Pricing
Clearbit has pricing for businesses of all sizes. Pricing for Clearbit’s data is unclear and the company requires you to contact them for a custom quote but we have Clearbit pricing. Pricing is based on:
- Volume
- Packages
- Add-ons
Cognism Pricing
Cognism requires you to request a custom quote for pricing, and they have four main products that you can choose from:
- Chrome extension
- Enhance
- Intent data
- Prospector
Annual and user fees are charged for the service, we have Cognism pricing.
Lead411 Pricing
Lead411 has month-to-month and annual pricing options for you to choose from. The monthly prices are listed below:
- Basic – $99/mo for 200 contacts
- Pro – $199/mo for 450 contacts
Enterprise options are available, with limited and unlimited contact options available. Businesses must contact the company for enterprise pricing information.
SalesIntel Pricing
SalesIntel has multiple plan options, but teams will need to contact the company for a custom quote. The plans that are available include:
- Individual – $99/m with 100 credits per month
- Individual Pro – $225/m with 300 credits per month
The prices above are based on pre-paying for the service annually. You’ll pay more if you plan on signing up for a month-to-month plan.
Team licenses are kept to quotes online, but former data shows that the Start-up plan includes 3 users and credits for research on demand and enrichment. We have more detailed SalesIntel pricing.
UpLead Pricing
UpLead offers a pricing page with a wealth of options, including:
- Free trial – $0
- Essentials – $74/m with 2,040 credits per year
- Plus – $149/m with 4,800 credits per year
- Professional – $299/m with 12,000 credits per year
The prices above are for annual contracts and are slightly more if you choose the month-to-month option. Enterprise options are available, but you’ll need to request a custom quote.
Credits cost $0.40 – $0.60 using the plans above.
For more info on Uplead pricing we’ve got you’ve covered.
Lusha Pricing
Lusha has clear pricing options on their site, with a free trial of five credits to try out the platform. Pricing starts around:
- $39/m per user with 40 credits
- $69/m per user with 80 credits
You can also request a custom option, which will go through the standard quote process to see more info but we’ve got more info on Lusha pricing.
Snov Pricing
Snov.io offers monthly and annual plans to choose from. Annual upfront payments receive a 25% discount. Non-discount prices are below:
- Trial – $0/m for 150 credits
- Starter – $39/m for 1,000 credits
- Pro – $99m with 5,000 credits
- Custom – $999+ per month
For more info check out this writeup on Snov Pricing.
ZoomInfo Pricing
ZoomInfo’s confusing pricing has many people questioning how much they’ll pay for B2B data. They often run promotions at the end of the year and end of quarter. It is a category leader and one of the more expensive options.
- ZoomInfo pricing details.
Seamless Pricing
Seamless has a 50-credit free trial, and its AI-powered platform lists prices when paying for the year upfront. Current pricing includes:
- Basic – $147/m for 200 credits
- Pro – $500/m for up to 5 licenses and 1,000 searches per seat
- For more info on Seamless pricing.
RocketReach Pricing
RocketReach users can save up to 51% with annual plans, but they have three monthly plans to consider:
- Essentials – $80/m for 80 lookups for email only
- Pro – $150/m for 200 lookups for email and phone
- Ultimate – $300/m for 500 lookups for email and phone
RocketReach does have an enterprise option for its B2B data, which you can find out more here about RocketReach pricing.
It is highly accurate and sourced data about potential leads and contacts that businesses can use to reach out to and make sales and use for marketing purposes. This can include company and contact data.
