Demandbase vs. Bombora: Which should you choose?

About Demandbase

Demandbase delivers a comprehensive ABM platform—combining first-party data with third-party intelligence to identify your target accounts, launch personalized ads, and track engagement throughout the entire sales funnel. The platform integrates with existing CRMs and marketing tools to provide account intelligence, intent signals, and web personalization in one unified system. However, it demands significant investment and comes with a steep learning curve that can challenge even experienced marketing teams.

About Bombora

Bombora tracks company-level intent by monitoring content consumption across an extensive network of B2B websites—using Company Surge scores to identify spikes in research interest on specific topics. It feeds intent signals directly into your existing CRM and marketing systems, seamlessly integrating with your current workflow. The catch? Bombora provides zero contact information. You'll know which companies are showing interest in particular subjects, but you won't know WHO within those companies is doing the research.

What do users say?

Users praise Demandbase as a powerful ABM platform with excellent account intelligence features. They highlight accurate website visitor identification, superior ad targeting capabilities, and valuable sales insights that help teams tailor messaging and prioritize accounts effectively. Many users love the platform's strong customer support team and useful integrations with tools like Slack and Outreach—improving workflow adoption across sales and marketing teams.

The skepticism? Users question the platform's high cost (often $150k+ annually) and whether the intent data and attribution features deliver measurably better results compared to traditional marketing approaches. Concerns include accuracy of IP identification and display advertising effectiveness.

Users praise Bombora for providing valuable intent data that helps B2B sales and marketing teams identify which companies are actively researching products—making it easier to prioritize outreach efforts. The platform earns appreciation for robust data coverage across multiple industries, seamless integrations with popular tools like HubSpot and Salesforce, and user-friendly dashboards that simplify targeting specific audiences.

The limitations? Users consistently cite lack of historical data storage, a dashboard that needs improvement, and better coverage needed for European markets. Plus, lengthy wait times (3-4 months) for adding new keywords to their taxonomy.

Comparison

Demandbase

• Demandbase offers a comprehensive end-to-end ABM platform—combining account intelligence, intent data, contact information, advertising capabilities, and web personalization in one unified solution. The trade-off? Enterprise-level pricing that can be cost-prohibitive for smaller teams, plus complexity that requires significant learning and setup time.

Bombora

• Bombora provides industry-leading company-level intent data through its unique data co-op model—offering granular insights into which accounts are researching specific topics with strong privacy compliance. The gap? It lacks contact information and requires integration with other tools to execute outreach, while its opaque pricing model makes budgeting difficult.

Demandbase works best for enterprise B2B organizations with substantial budgets and dedicated ABM teams who need a complete, integrated solution for account-based marketing and sales. Its comprehensive feature set makes it ideal for companies targeting large accounts across multiple channels with coordinated campaigns.

Bombora serves organizations of various sizes who want to enhance their existing martech stack with premium intent data—particularly those already using other platforms for contact management and campaign execution.

Neither tool alone provides a complete contact-based marketing solution. Demandbase includes contact data while Bombora focuses purely on company-level signals. This limitation is significant because effective B2B marketing ultimately requires reaching specific individuals within target accounts. Most organizations need to combine these platforms with dedicated contact intelligence tools like ZoomInfo or Apollo to execute personalized outreach campaigns—adding complexity and cost to their martech infrastructure.

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

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

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

How does this solve the traditional tension of intent-based marketing? It clears up the ambiguity.

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