LinkedIn’s discontinuation of Bizo’s business data service is an opportunity for data-management platform (DMP) and data services company eXelate. The company revealed plans Thursday for B2BX, a data-as-a-service offering for B2B advertisers.
The company appointed Frannie Danzinger, Bizo’s former director of marketplace development, to spearhead the new development as VP of strategic solutions and plans to hire more employees for the division, said company CEO Mark Zagorski.
“DSPs (demand-side platforms) have always been great partners of ours, so we wanted to make sure they had a continuous stream of B2B data flowing to them, considering LinkedIn made the announcement they’ll pull out of the data business shortly,” he explained.
When Linkedin revealed plans to shut down Bizo’s data business, Erik Matlick, CEO of behavioral marketing database and lead-gen company Madison Logic, said DSPs, SSPs and agencies could get the short end of the stick in scaling their business audience reach.
Although LinkedIn could presumably roll Bizo’s data insights into its broader but burgeoning media offering, it could hinder B2B marketers who wanted the flexibility to apply that audience data on external platforms. This factor seemingly inspired eXelate’s move into the space.
EXelate claims it has access to information on more than 100 million business professionals (it partnered closely with Bizo on targeted segments last year) across 100 demand segments that range from professional status or level in an organization to past purchase and intent. It then combines that profile data from its vertical B2B publisher relationships with offline data compiled by Compass Marketing Solutions to construct the B2BX service.
Demand for high-quality B2B data has historically come from advertisers in travel and high-tech verticals. Other industries are jumping in. For instance, automakers might wish to target small-business owners who may be in-market for a particular vehicle that historically qualifies for a tax break.
“B2B advertisers are very much following the path of other traditional marketers, which is they started off with contextual-based advertising and are moving more into behavioral and audience-based targeting,” Zagorski added. “It’s a hard audience to reach and an expensive audience to reach, but it’s one that’s very lucrative at any level because these are enterprise sales.”
So how will eXelate package B2BX? Zagorski said the two main points of sale will include a bundling data with eXelate’s DMP – maX – and making it available through its 125-partner network, which includes MediaMath, AppNexus and Turn. Although B2BX will initially be sold through a data-as-a-service model, eXelate wants to add additional analytics and measurement functionality drawing from the DMP integration in the months to come.
Here’s where eXelate claims it has an advantage: The C-suite, a very premium audience and market that one could argue LinkedIn has cornered, “is not just a B2B entity,” Zagorski said. “We may know they’re an executive in the high-tech space, but from their other behaviors we can gather that they’re married, travel frequently or they’re interested in getting a mortgage. It’s other data we’re able to bring to bear through maX DMP,” such as an advertiser’s CRM file and impression data.
