Bombora vs. 6sense: Which should you choose?

About Bombora

Bombora tracks content consumption across B2B websites — delivering company-level intent data through Company Surge scores that identify research spikes on specific topics. The platform integrates seamlessly with your existing CRM and marketing platforms, feeding intent signals directly into your workflow. But here's the catch: Bombora tells you which companies are interested without giving you the contact information to actually reach them.

About 6sense

6sense combines third-party intent data with predictive analytics to identify target accounts researching your products — and where they sit in the buying process. Their "Revenue AI" scores account fit and predicts timing, orchestrating multi-channel outreach campaigns through CRM and marketing integrations. The trade-off? Significant setup requirements and enterprise-level pricing that can strain budgets.

What do users say?

Users praise Bombora as a reliable B2B sales and marketing tool that identifies companies showing buying intent through robust data enrichment. The platform delivers strong filtering options, seamless integrations (especially with HubSpot), and comprehensive reporting that targets audiences by location, job title, and company characteristics. The downsides? Insufficient European market coverage, no historical data storage, a dashboard that needs work, and lengthy 3-4 month waits for new keyword additions.

Users appreciate 6sense's ability to identify accounts showing buying intent — transforming anonymous website visitors into actionable sales opportunities. The platform excels at providing intent data that helps prioritize outreach more effectively than traditional methods.

However, data accuracy remains a consistent concern. Prospects often deny the activities 6sense attributes to them, with some users describing "flimsy & vague data" that arrives too late or too general to be useful. Multiple users emphasize using intent data only for internal prioritization — never mentioning it directly to prospects during outreach.

While 6sense helps with account targeting, many question whether it delivers sufficient value relative to cost. Some organizations have replaced it due to unreliable data quality, viewing intent platforms as overhyped solutions that don't significantly improve traditional prospecting methods.

Comparison

Bombora

Bombora excels as a specialized intent data provider with industry-leading Company Surge® scores and broad topic coverage across hundreds of categories. The limitation? No contact information — requiring additional tools for actual outreach, while opaque pricing complicates budgeting decisions.

6sense

6sense offers comprehensive ABM capabilities with advanced predictive analytics and Revenue AI that identifies buying journey stages and orchestrates multi-channel campaigns. The complexity and high cost challenge smaller teams, while contact data coverage remains limited compared to dedicated databases.

Bombora works best for mid-market to enterprise companies needing high-quality intent data to layer into existing martech stacks — particularly those practicing ABM who want to identify target accounts actively researching relevant topics. Its strength lies in being a best-of-breed data source integrating seamlessly with CRM and marketing automation platforms.

6sense serves enterprise and high-growth mid-market companies wanting an all-in-one ABM platform combining intent data, predictive analytics, and campaign execution. Neither tool suffices for contact-based marketing campaigns — Bombora provides no contact information while 6sense offers limited contact coverage. You'll need to integrate with dedicated contact databases like ZoomInfo to execute personalized outreach at scale and convert intent signals into actual pipeline.

Do you need account-based marketing, or something else?

Here's what's flipping ABM on its head: your funnel isn't about anonymous accounts. It's about the exact decision-makers and influencers within those accounts.

Contact-based marketing (CBM) delivers this breakthrough. Instead of focusing on broad account intent signals, CBM pinpoints the EXACT people engaging with your content in real-time — even when they don't convert.

This approach clears up intent-based marketing's inherent ambiguity.

With contact-level data, you can reveal high-priority leads by identifying individuals behind key touchpoints. Deliver hyper-targeted ads based on specific contact behaviors. Bridge the gap between marketing and sales with actionable, lead-level insights that drive real pipeline growth.