The multi-channel intent playbook: how Airbyte cracked the ABM strategy

Airbyte, a fast-growing data movement platform, invests roughly $250K per month in paid media across Google, LinkedIn, Reddit, Meta, YouTube, and more. 

With over 100K website visitors each month, the team needed to know which real people were in-market on and off their site, and how to surround them with the right message on every channel.

Vector gave Airbyte contact-level visibility into on-site visitors, off-site researchers, and people actively comparing them to competitors.

“When someone evaluates data integration tools, we want Airbyte to be the first tool they think of. Vector helps us do that by giving us on-site and off-site contact-based audiences we can target across every channel.”

- Tanmay Sarkar, Sr. Manager - Demand Generation, Airbyte

The Vector way

Most teams build audiences at the account level and hope the ad platforms hit the right people.

Airbyte flips that with Vector.

Instead of just uploading account lists and relying on platform filters, they build contact-based audiences from live behavior, research intent, competitor interest, and high-intent site activity, then sync those audiences every single paid channel.

Airbyte uses Vector to:

• Capture off-site research intent: build segments of contacts researching “data integration” and related topics before they ever hit a demo form.
• Target competitor searchers: create competitive intent segments of people searching for alternative tools and compare-keywords, then reach them with differentiated messaging.
• Retarget high-intent visitors: use visitor retargeting to reach people who hit key pages (pricing, docs, comparison content) across channels.
• Run true multi-channel plays: sync contact-based audiences into LinkedIn, Google, Reddit, and Meta for consistent coverage wherever buyers spend time.
• Keep segments tight (not tiny): layer in job titles, seniority, company size, and “medium” intent level to avoid audiences that are either too broad or so narrow they can’t spend.

Result: sharper competitive campaigns, more enterprise inbound pipeline influenced by paid, and LinkedIn performance with between $0.5 - $2.00 CPC in key campaigns.

When to use this play

Use this play when:

• You’re running meaningful multi-channel campaigns with a decent budget and want contact-level precision instead of broad account sprays.
• You want to steal share in competitive cycles by reaching people who are actively searching for alternatives.
• Your attribution shows strong paid influence on inbound, and you want to double down on the channels driving pipeline.
• You’re tired of ad platforms picking random people from great accounts and want control over who actually sees your ads.

How it works:

Step 1: Build research and competitive intent segments in Vector

Start by capturing off-site behavior that signals real intent before visitors ever land on your site.

• Choose research intent topics related to your category.
• Create a competitive intent segment for people searching for your top competitors by name.
• Make both segments contact-based, not just account-based, so you know who is researching, not just which company.

Step 2: Tighten segments with job title, seniority, and company size

Intent alone can get noisy. Airbyte keeps quality high by tightening segments with role and firmographic filters without shrinking them to the point they can’t spend.

Tanmay’s guidance:

• Don’t rely only on intent topics and hope the platform figures it out.
• Add 15–20 specific job titles that map to your ideal buyers and let Vector sync the audience as per your criteria.
• Layer seniority (e.g., Manager+, Director+, VP) and company size.
• Set intent level to “medium” to avoid ultra-tiny audiences that can’t scale.

Step 3: Add visitor retargeting to create multi-touch coverage

Next, connect off-site and on-site behavior.

• Build visitor segments in Vector based on key pages (pricing, documentation, product pages, competitive content).
• Use these segments for retargeting across channels.
• Combine off-site researchers, competitor searchers, and high-intent visitors into a multi-touch strategy.
  

Step 4: Sync audiences into ad platforms and align competitive messaging

Once segments are defined, Airbyte pushes them directly into each ad platform and pairs them with smart positioning.

• Sync Research Intent, Competitive Intent, and visitor segments into LinkedIn, Google, Reddit, Meta, and YouTube through Vector.
• For competitive campaigns, highlight where your product has a clear advantage instead of just running generic “we’re better” creative.
• Keep message match tight: people searching for alternatives should see ads tailored to their evaluation stage.

For one key LinkedIn campaign using Vector audiences, they saw:

• ~82,475 impressions
• ~7,500 clicks
• Average CPC below $0.69: strong performance for a traditionally expensive channel like LinkedIn.
• Airbyte gets 75-80% audience match rate with Vector audience.

They’re now planning to layer Vector’s Bid Agent into a mid-funnel LinkedIn campaign (focused on thought leadership) as a next step, starting with a single test campaign before rolling it out more broadly.

Step 5: Measure impact and refine segments based on real pipeline

Finally, Airbyte uses attribution and analytics to keep what’s working and refine what’s not.

• Use your attribution platform to trace inbound pipeline back to Vector audiences and paid touchpoints.
• Watch which segments disproportionately show up in enterprise opportunities and closed-won deals.
• Iterate segmentation logic (titles, intent level, company size) to keep performance strong.

When Tanmay sees a spike in enterprise inbound deals, he can go back into HockeyStack, look at touchpoints, and see that many originated from:

• Research Intent campaigns,
• Competitive campaigns, and
• Visitor retargeting powered by Vector.

This closes the loop between who they target, how those people engage, and which segments actually drive the pipeline, not just clicks.

Case study snapshot:
competitive precision & LinkedIn efficiency

With Vector powering their multi-channel intent strategy, Airbyte has:

• Contact-level visibility into on-site and off-site behavior: instead of just anonymized traffic, they see real contacts researching their category and competitors and can act on it.
  
  
• More enterprise inbound influenced by paid: over recent months, many new enterprise leads show paid touchpoints across multiple channels in HockeyStack, tied back to Vector audiences.
  
  
• Competitive campaigns that actually convert: by pairing precise competitor search audiences with sharp differentiation, they turn skeptical competitive clicks into meaningful engagement.
  
  
• Stronger performance on LinkedIn: in one campaign using Vector audiences, Airbyte generated around 82,475 impressions and 5K clicks at $0.69 CPC. A big win on a premium channel..

What this unlocked

By shifting from broad, account-only targeting to contact-level, multi-channel intent, Airbyte now:

• Reaches the right people within the right accounts, instead of hoping platforms pick them.
• Stays visible across channels during the most critical evaluation moments.
• Uses data-backed segments to drive better CPC and more enterprise pipelines.

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