VECTOR VS. DEMANDBASE
Demandbase targets accounts through its own ad network and charges separately for reporting. Vector reaches the actual buying committee on the ad platforms they scroll most, and shows you which ads buyers actually engaged with on the road to closed-won.
THE FULL LOOP
To run a modern ABM program, you need: accounts to target, the contacts inside them, signals that say when, activation that reaches them, and proof of what moved. Demandbase handles accounts and signals, and runs display ads at the account level. The people inside the account, and evidence that any of it worked, are where Demandbase falls short.
Demandbase
Your own CRM data
Account-level on their DSP
Only through a paid upgrade
Vector
Built from your signal stack and closed-won reality
The named buying committee
30+ signals at the flip of a switch, plus custom signals
Ad audiences that refresh themselves
Timeline of key marketing moments for every opp
WHERE THE LOOP BREAKS
Demandbase is strong at finding accounts and reading intent, and offers its own display network. The chain breaks at the step where “Acme is in market” has to turn into “Sarah at Acme is the one to reach.”
Contacts: None
Demandbase identifies the company, not the person doing the research. Nothing in it surfaces the four people on the buying committee who are actually running the evaluation, so you're still guessing who they are.
Activation: Account-level
Ads can be pointed at an account, or at a job title inside it. If you want to reach a named person, Demandbase needs you to upload that person from your CRM first. So the ads reach the people already in your CRM, and never the buyers who aren’t.
Proof: Sold separately
Attribution is a separate module you buy, not something that comes with the campaign. At renewal, someone on your team is still rebuilding the story by hand from the ad platform, the CRM, and Demandbase.
THE DSP
Fair. Demandbase runs ads across the open web through its own network, and Vector doesn't. If display is where your pipeline comes from, that matters. But, for most demand gen teams, that's not the case.
Your pipeline comes from LinkedIn, Google, and Meta
Open-web display is reach around the edges. Check your last quarter's sourced pipeline by channel and see how much of it a banner ad started.
Reaching the account doesn’t cut it anymore
Reaching the four people deciding is what moves the deal, and no amount of ad inventory does that if the targeting can’t name anyone.
Their ad delivery doesn’t align with your goals
Their DSP optimizes for media delivered against an account list, and that isn’t the number you’re asked to defend at renewal.
You don't have to choose today
Run Vector on the platforms you already own and leave display where it is.
SIDE BY SIDE
| Demandbase | Vector | |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts | ||
| Target list | Account identification across your TAM | Scored by your signals, updated with closed-won patterns, refreshed daily |
| Why it's prioritized | Account and buying-group intent | Based on signals and buyer activity you can see |
| Contacts | ||
| Who gets identified | Just the account | The named contacts on the buying committee |
| Where any contact data comes from | Your CRM (Demandbase doesn’t find anything on its own) | Your CRM, list uploads, and Vector's database of nearly 300 million contacts |
| Signals | ||
| Source | Primarily their own stack | 30+ native in platform, plus the ability to create custom signals |
| Activation | ||
| Who the ads reach | The account, or a job title inside of it | The actual buying committee |
| Where the spend lives | Their own ad network | Your LinkedIn, Google and Meta accounts |
| When the committee changes | Nothing happens, because you can't target contacts | Your audiences change with it |
| Proof | ||
| What you can show | Program-level pipeline tracking | Which named contacts your marketing touched along the entire buyer journey |
| Where it lives | A separate module you pay for | Built into every plan |
Yes. For programs running mainly on LinkedIn, Google and Meta, Vector replaces Demandbase outright. If open-web display is a large part of your paid strategy, the two coexist well — Vector owns the contact layer and the proof, and the DSP keeps doing what it does best.
No, and that’s largely the point. Vector layers onto the LinkedIn, Meta and Google accounts you already run, so spend, history and optimization stay where they are.
More than you’d think. Starting while Demandbase is live means you compare on your own accounts rather than a vendor’s case study.
No. Vector works on the audience and the proof — who should see the campaign, and what it did to pipeline. Creative and on-site personalization stay wherever you run them now. What changes with Vector is that the campaign reaches named people on the buying committee rather than an account or a job title, so the work you put into the creative lands on someone specific.
Yes. Vector starts at a $3,000/mo platform fee and scales with credits, so you can prove the contact layer on part of your target list before committing budget. That's a different shape from an annual enterprise contract with media spend bundled in.
Vector publishes its pricing, and you can price yourself before you ever talk to us. A flat platform fee from $3,000/mo, which includes 50,000 credits; credits meter tracked accounts, site traffic, premium signals and actions on top of that. A team running a real ABM program — a few thousand tracked accounts, a couple of bid agents — lands inside what the fee already includes. The comparison worth making is what the line item covers: enterprise ABM contracts tend to price the platform and the media together, then price the attribution separately.
