Drift has launched a feature in its marketing software called Drift Intel that it says will allow companies to develop profiles from anonymous web site visitors that can turn into leads which are routed in real time to sales teams.
The company said Drift Intel would help firms trying to build more effective account-based marketing (ABM) programs by removing the need to have prospects fill out online forms. Available in the firm’s Company and Enterprise plans, Drift Intel is based in part on an integration from data Clearbit, which provides data APIs on company names, employee count, industry sector and even funding. This data will help Drift Intel users create profiles that they can instantly use for personalized outreach.
According to Drift product marketing manager Cody Bernard, Drift Intel reduces “friction” in the purchase process because filing out forms “doesn’t feel human” compared with how they work in the consumer realm.
“You can go to Amazon right now, add four to five items to your cart, and checkout all within 60 seconds – and it will be at your doorstep in two days with no effort on your part,” he told B2B News Network. “B2B buyers want those types of frictionless experiences when they are buying from other businesses.”
Besides the Clearbit data, the quality of a firm’s CRM data is a factor to a limited extent, Bernard said. When a company connects their Salesforce account to Drift, for example, the application requires a handful of fields during import including, company name and domain. If company name or domain does not exist in that import, Drift goes out to Clearbit to further enrich these company fields, leveraging their data pool, to ensure that they are filled in and accurate, he added.
Other use cases for Drift Intel beyond ABM include better outbound prospecting efforts, Bernard said. For example, Drift has a feature called Live View.
“(It’s) a real-time view of all of your website visitors – identified or anonymous,” he said. Salespeople can use Drift Intel to gain insight into which companies are live on their site to engage them in real-time for better prospecting. Marketers can also look at the profile details to see if they’re driving the right kind of web site traffic.
Even without Drift Intel, Bernard said the firm’s customers have reported 50 per cent more qualified leads and 80 demos booked in a month. Once more of them use Drift Intel, he said they’ll be able to offer personalized messaging at scale via live chats, bots and e-mail.
“Forms were the only way for businesses to capture the relevant information about about a person or company visiting their website. That’s not the case anymore,” he said.
Shane Schick
