If you’re picking a platform for your B2B go-to-market team, you’ve probably heard of Affinity. It promises to “redefine relationship intelligence” and help teams win more deals. Sure, sounds great. But what actually matters when you’re in the trenches—building lists, tracking deals, and keeping your team sane? Let’s ditch the buzzwords and get real about which Affinity features are worth your time (and which you can skip).
This guide is for sales, partnerships, and business development folks who want results, not just another tool to manage.
Why Affinity Gets Picked in B2B
Before we dive into features, let’s get clear on why teams look at Affinity in the first place. At its core, it’s a CRM. But its big pitch is “relationship intelligence”—using your team’s email and calendar data to map who-knows-who, surface warm introductions, and keep tabs on every touchpoint.
If your deals are long, complicated, and depend on who you know, Affinity can help. If you just need a simple CRM for transactional sales, honestly, you might be paying for more than you’ll use.
1. Relationship Intelligence: The Hype vs. The Help
What it is: Affinity automatically scans your team's email and calendar to build a living network map—who knows whom, how well, and when you last spoke.
Why it matters: In B2B, deals often come down to who can get you in the door. Affinity’s relationship scoring can save time chasing cold leads or figuring out who on your team has the best connection.
What works: - Automated contact capture: No more manual entry for every intro. Affinity pulls contacts from your inbox and calendar. - Connection strength: It scores relationships based on real conversations—not just who you’ve emailed once. - Warm intro suggestions: Surface colleagues who can help with introductions.
What doesn’t: - Signal-to-noise: It’ll pull in a lot of contacts you don’t care about (newsletters, one-off calls, etc.). You’ll need to clean up your network. - Privacy: Some team members may not love the idea of their emails being parsed, even if it’s just metadata.
What to ignore: The “relationship intelligence” brand is catchy, but don’t expect Affinity to magically close deals for you. It’s a map, not a GPS.
Pro tip: Set up clear rules about what data gets shared and train your team on privacy settings. Otherwise, you risk some grumpy colleagues.
2. Pipeline Management and Customization
What it is: Like any CRM, Affinity lets you build pipelines—custom stages, deal tracking, reporting, and so on.
Why it matters: If your sales or partnership process has odd steps or you run multiple deal types (say, direct sales and channel partnerships), you need flexibility.
What works: - Custom fields and pipelines: Build whatever workflow you want. You’re not stuck with a generic sales funnel. - Automated reminders and follow-ups: Helps avoid deals slipping through the cracks. - Bulk editing: Move or update multiple deals at once—critical when your pipeline’s busy.
What doesn’t: - Learning curve: Customization can get overwhelming. If you go wild with custom fields, your CRM quickly turns into a swamp. - Reporting: While solid, reports aren’t as deep as some enterprise CRMs. If your execs want 50 custom dashboards, Affinity might hit its limits.
What to ignore: Fancy dashboard widgets. Focus on the pipeline views your team will actually use.
Pro tip: Start simple. Add fields and stages only when your team can’t live without them.
3. Data Enrichment and Integrations
What it is: Affinity pulls in company and contact data from sources like Crunchbase and Clearbit. It also integrates (to some degree) with tools like Slack, Zapier, Salesforce, and Gmail.
Why it matters: Less manual data entry means more time selling. Integrations let Affinity fit into your stack instead of fighting it.
What works: - Automatic company info: Basic firmographics (industry, size, funding) get filled in. - Calendar and email sync: Meetings and emails flow in automatically. - Zapier integrations: Useful for automating repetitive tasks (e.g., pushing new deals to a spreadsheet).
What doesn’t: - Depth of integrations: Don’t expect deep two-way sync with everything. Some integrations feel like a checkbox exercise. - Data accuracy: Enrichment data is only as good as the sources. Expect the usual noise—outdated job titles, missing fields.
What to ignore: The promise that “everything is automated.” You’ll still need to check and clean your data.
Pro tip: Pick one or two integrations that actually save time based on your workflow. Ignore the rest—more isn’t better.
4. Collaboration and Permissions
What it is: Affinity is built for teams, not just lone wolves. You can share pipelines, notes, and contacts, and control who sees what.
Why it matters: B2B deals are rarely solo efforts. You want to avoid duplicate outreach, missed handoffs, and “who owns this?” drama.
What works: - Shared notes and activity: Everyone can see who’s talked to whom and what was said. - Permission controls: Limit access by team or role, so not everyone sees everything (critical in competitive teams). - Email privacy options: You can hide sensitive conversations (like HR or legal).
What doesn’t: - Complex orgs: If you have a huge team with lots of roles, permissions can get messy to manage. - Notification overload: With lots of users, your inbox can fill up with updates you don’t care about.
What to ignore: The idea that collaboration will “just happen.” You still need process and discipline.
Pro tip: Set up a simple playbook for how your team should use notes, tags, and permissions—otherwise, it’s chaos.
5. Search and Network Mapping
What it is: Affinity lets you search across your team’s relationships and visualize networks between people, companies, and deals.
Why it matters: Need to quickly find someone who knows a specific prospect? Or see who’s connected to a target account? This is Affinity’s bread and butter.
What works: - Fast, global search: Find any contact or company, even if you’ve never emailed them directly. - Network visualization: Sometimes helpful to spot “hidden” connections. - Tagging and filtering: Cut through the noise with tags (e.g., “VC,” “Partner,” “Customer”).
What doesn’t: - Usability: The network graph looks cool, but gets cluttered fast. Don’t expect Minority Report-level insights. - False positives: Just because someone’s in your network doesn’t mean they’re a strong connection.
What to ignore: Overly complex network graphs. Focus on search and tags—they’re faster.
Pro tip: Use tags religiously. They’re your best friend for segmenting lists and tracking context.
6. Usability and Support
What it is: Day-to-day, your team will live in this tool. Speed, support, and interface matter more than you think.
Why it matters: If your CRM is clunky, nobody will use it. If support is slow, you’ll be stuck.
What works: - Clean interface: Mostly intuitive, especially for Gmail or G Suite users. - Onboarding help: Affinity offers good training resources and guides. - Responsive support: Generally solid, but check reviews for recent feedback.
What doesn’t: - Mobile experience: Usable, but not as polished as desktop. - Complex automations: Advanced setups can get tricky—expect to lean on support.
What to ignore: The idea that any CRM is “set and forget.” You’ll always need to tune things as your team grows.
Pro tip: Run a pilot with a small team before rolling out to everyone. Fix what’s broken, then scale.
What About Price?
Let’s be honest: Affinity isn’t cheap, especially for larger teams. The pricing reflects its relationship-mapping features and integrations. If those aren’t mission-critical for you, look hard at whether a simpler (and cheaper) CRM will do the job.
Features That Sound Great But Rarely Matter
Here’s what you can safely ignore in your buying process (unless you have a very specific use case):
- AI-based scoring: It’s just a fancy way of flagging “engaged” contacts.
- Endless reporting options: If you export data to Excel anyway, don’t overpay for dashboards.
- Mobile app “innovation”: Most reps use desktop for real work.
Wrapping Up: Don’t Overthink It
Choosing a B2B go-to-market platform can feel overwhelming, but most teams only use a handful of features day-to-day. With Affinity, focus on relationship mapping, pipeline management, and integrations that actually save you time. Skip the bells and whistles.
Keep your process simple, get your team bought in early, and tweak as you go. The right tool is the one your team will actually use—not the one with the fanciest demo.