MeritB2B and True Influence Join Forces

Every contact with a B2B prospect impacts their ultimate purchase decision. To win their business, you need to gather, understand, and precisely act on enormous amounts of data that tells you who your prospects are and what they need. That’s the vision behind MerittB2B’s decision to join forces with True Influence to create a new, comprehensive customer data and campaign execution platform.

“We’re going to be the unique set of complementary assets that creates a unique value proposition to the marketplace, and let people chase us,” said Rob Sanchez, CEO of MeritB2B, about his company's recently announced decision to acquire True Influence.

Sanchez and RK Maniyani, True Influences’ CTO, say the combination of MerittB2B’s advanced data management and analytics capabilities and True Influence’s demand generation services and intent data technology will create a platform that encompasses the digital journey.

Near-term plans for 2022 include pumping new data feeds from MeritB2B into the True Influence Marketing Cloud™ and scaling up demand generation services for MerittB2B’s existing customer base. The ultimate vision is to create an effective Customer Data Platform that empowers revenue marketers to execute on a complete view of their prospects and accounts.

• Insight #1: The more you understand the data, the more powerful it becomes. Providing deep audience insights is the key to building a “sticky, deep retention-based service” that marketers find indispensable, Sanchez says. “You almost become part of their internal marketing team, where you are actually showing them what works, what doesn’t, where they should spend money,” he says. Analytics and modeling have always been a differentiator for MeritB2B, and Sanchez says he sees opportunities to apply this expertise to the B2B and tech verticals that make up the bulk of True Infleunce’s business. Maniyani said he’s eager to see how the “pieces fit together” with identity graph and other machine learning and Big Data technologies developed by both MeritB2B and True Influence. Maniyani is also excited about the potential of the deep audience analysis tools provided by 18ObyTwo, which MeritB2B acquired in late 2020.

• Insight #2. Evolving from an integrated marketing solution to a true Customer Data Platform. Data has been a major focus for True Influence over the last five years, Maniyani says, so working with a data and analytics leader like MeritB2B creates exciting new possibilities. The True Influence Marketing Cloud™ launched this year as an integrated platform for demand generation, programmatic display and audience acquisition. With an infusion of new data streams, as well as cloud data management and analytics technology, Maniyani’s team can focus on a vision of a Customer Data Platform that encompasses all transactional and behavioral data – a true 360-degree view of the customer.

• Insight #3: The challenges of joining forces are also the greatest opportunities. With every acquisition, there’s a learning curve. There are always issues with operational tools, scheduling and just getting to know each other. Sanchez says the comprehensive diligence that goes into a major deal results in a solid plan for the near term – in the case of True Influence Powered by MeritB2B, that means pumping a lot of high-quality data into True Influence audience segments and leveraging TI’s industry-leading demand generation capabilities to scale for MeritB2B’s existing clients. Beyond that, Sanchez says the vision is to listen, learn, and execute on a strategy that creates a unique value proposition for B2B marketers. “The more we get to know everyone, the more we’ll be able to take this incredible talent and go to the next level,” he says.

What you will learn from this episode?

• How MeritB2B’s data and analytics expertise will combine with True Influence’s campaign execution and measurement services to create a comprehensive digital platform.

• Why combining campaign, demographic and transactional data creates a new level of customer intelligence.

• How differences in corporate culture and process can actually be an asset in innovation and cross-learning.