If you’re thinking about Demandbase, you’re probably serious about account-based marketing (ABM) and want your sales and marketing teams working from the same playbook. But with dozens of features and bold claims flying around, it’s hard to tell what’s actually useful, what’s just there for the demo, and what you’ll never touch.
This is for B2B sales and marketing leaders who want to get past the buzzwords and pick tools that make a real difference. Here’s what to look for—and what to ignore—when you’re sizing up Demandbase.
1. Account Identification: Can It Find the Right Companies?
A lot of tools promise to “surface your next best customer.” Demandbase tries to do this with its account identification and intent data. Here’s what’s worth checking:
- Data coverage. Who’s actually in their database? Ask for a sample list that matches your ideal customer profile. If you’re in a niche market, don’t assume they’ll cover it.
- Intent signals. Demandbase claims to know when companies are “in-market” for your product. This can be gold if real, but it depends on the sources. Is the data coming from web visits, content consumption, or just vague third-party sources? Push for specifics.
- Accuracy. Even the best platforms get things wrong. See if you can review recent “hot” accounts and check: do they match what your sales team is seeing on the ground?
What to ignore: Fancy-looking dashboards with “surging intent” graphs mean nothing if you can’t validate the data in your own pipeline.
Pro tip: Get a free trial or pilot and see if their “high intent” accounts actually match your sales reality. If the data’s off, the rest of the tool doesn’t matter.
2. Segmentation and Targeting: How Granular Can You Get?
Once you’ve found companies, you need to slice and dice them. Demandbase’s segmentation tools let you build account lists by factors like industry, company size, tech stack, and intent.
What matters:
- Custom attributes. Can you upload your own fields and use them in segments? For example, segmenting by your internal sales tiers or product fit scores.
- Boolean logic. Can you combine filters (“companies in healthcare AND using Salesforce AND showing intent”)? Or are you stuck with basic filters?
- Dynamic updating. Do segments refresh automatically as new data comes in, or do you have to rebuild lists every week?
What to ignore: Overly complex segment builders with dozens of drop-downs. If it takes more than a few clicks to build a list, your team won’t use it.
3. Integration: Will This Actually Fit Into Your Workflow?
Here’s where most martech dreams die: you buy a shiny tool, and it never talks to the rest of your stack. Demandbase claims to integrate with CRMs, marketing automation, email, ad platforms, and more.
When you’re evaluating, check:
- CRM integration. Does it natively connect to Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics? Can you push and pull account data, or is it a one-way sync?
- Marketing automation. Can you share audiences with Marketo, HubSpot, or Pardot—and do it without manual exports?
- Ad platforms. Can you actually launch campaigns to your segments in LinkedIn, Google, or Facebook from within Demandbase, or is it just a CSV export?
- APIs and webhooks. For more technical teams: is there a well-documented API so you can pull Demandbase data into your own dashboards?
What to ignore: Integration logos on the website. Always ask for a demo—ideally, with your own data—and see the end-to-end flow.
Pro tip: Talk to someone in your network who’s actually integrated Demandbase. Most pain points are hidden until you’re deep in setup.
4. Personalization: Does It Help You Cut Through the Noise?
Personalization is one of Demandbase’s big selling points. The idea: show different website content, ads, or emails to different accounts, based on who they are and what they care about.
What’s worth looking at:
- Web personalization. How easy is it to create different experiences for different segments? Is it point-and-click, or will you need IT help every time?
- Email and ad personalization. Can you personalize campaigns beyond “Hi, [First Name]”? Look for real use cases—changing offers, product features, or CTAs by industry or account tier.
- Testing and reporting. Can you A/B test personalizations? Can you see what actually moves the needle, or is it all guesswork?
What to ignore: Over-the-top personalization promises (think: “every visitor gets a different site!”). Too much personalization is a maintenance nightmare and usually isn’t worth it.
5. Analytics and Attribution: Can You Prove It’s Working?
If you can’t show results, you’ll never get budget for next year. Demandbase offers reporting on everything from account engagement to sourced revenue.
Here’s what to check:
- Account-based analytics. Can you see which accounts are actively engaging, and tie that back to pipeline or revenue? Or does it just show vanity metrics?
- Multi-touch attribution. Does it help you understand which marketing and sales activities influenced deals, or is it just last-touch?
- Custom dashboards. Can you build reports that actually matter to your team, or are you stuck with canned charts?
- Exporting and sharing. Can you easily push data to your BI tool, or share dashboards with execs without making them log in?
What to ignore: Attribution models that are a black box. If you can’t explain to your CFO how a deal was “attributed” to an ad, skip it.
6. Usability: Will Your Team Actually Use It?
Even the fanciest platform is useless if your team avoids it. Demandbase’s UI is decent, but it’s not always intuitive.
Focus on:
- Onboarding. Is there a clear onboarding process? Are there real humans to help, or just a “knowledge base”?
- Day-to-day flow. Can reps and marketers do 90% of what they need in a few clicks, or are there lots of hidden menus?
- Mobile access. Can anyone check insights from their phone, or is it desktop-only?
- Support and training. Is support quick and helpful, or do you wait days for a ticket to get picked up?
What to ignore: A slick demo environment. Always try to get hands-on, ideally with your own data.
7. Pricing and Contract Flexibility: Know What You’re Signing Up For
Let’s be blunt: tools like Demandbase aren’t cheap, and pricing is rarely transparent. Here’s what matters:
- Contract length. Can you do a short-term contract, or is it annual only? Are there big price jumps at renewal?
- User limits and data caps. Is pricing based on seats, data volume, number of accounts, or something else? Watch out for hidden overage fees.
- Modules and add-ons. Many “core” features may cost extra. Make a list of what you actually need.
- Proof-of-value period. Can you do a real-world pilot before committing? If not, be wary.
What to ignore: “Custom pricing” pitches with lots of hand-waving. Get everything in writing.
What’s Overhyped (And What You Can Ignore)
Every ABM platform loves to talk about “AI” and “machine learning.” Here’s the reality:
- AI scoring: Usually, this is just weighted intent signals. It can help, but don’t expect magic.
- Predictive analytics: These are only as good as your input data. If your CRM is a mess, predictive models won’t help.
- “360-degree view of the customer”: Sounds nice, but you’ll never get truly complete data. Focus on actionable insights, not perfection.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Don’t get dazzled by feature lists or fall for the “all-in-one” pitch. The best way to get value from Demandbase—or any ABM tool—is to start with a clear goal, test the core features with your real data, and ignore the stuff your team won’t use.
Get your sales and marketing folks together, pick one or two use cases, and see if Demandbase actually helps. If it does, great—lean in. If not, don’t be afraid to walk away.
Keep it simple, stay skeptical, and build from there.