HubSpot acquires Clearbit

ABM is an area of weakness for HubSpot, due to gaps in their account based targeting capabilities. For a platform focused on inbound marketing, that's becoming a problem. Now they're buying a data vendor to fill the void.

Hubspot has long pitched itself as an all in one solution, covering the different marketing technology capabilities necessary for small businesses. In recent years, this has included improved integration and reporting tools for marketing ops. Last week, they supercharged their data enrichment capabilities by acquiring a dedicated data vendor, Clearbit, for an undisclosed fee. The deal has not yet closed but is expected to be finalised early next year.

Built-in data enrichment is not a new concept for HubSpot customers. The platform already has a basic account enrichment capability called HubSpot Insights, which is used to append firmographic and technographic information onto account records. There have been plenty of complaints about the accuracy and completeness of this service, which means that many HubSpot customers choose to use alternative data providers. 

Improved Insights

Clearbit is intended to enhance the existing HubSpot Insight enrichment capability, and not just through better quality data. Strong integrations have always been central to the Clearbit value proposition. For this reason, they are widely used as an account data source by martech vendors such as Drift. Accompanying this focus has been a strong emphasis on using AI to enhance data quality, such as through automated industry classification. Clearbit are far from unique in using AI in this way. It's been standard practice within the data business for years. However, HubSpot do not have any such capabilities within their current platform. This is a critical oversight, given the importance of ABM to modern B2B marketing.

By embedding Clearbit into their platform, HubSpot are looking to expand the range of account data available to their customers. Just enriching existing account records is no longer good enough, both sales and marketing want visibility of the entire addressable market. That is what Clearbit brings to HubSpot: the ability to expand the marketing database of their customers by adding a list of lookalike accounts that can be targeted through ABM techniques. Many enterprise businesses do this manually already, including in HubSpot, but smaller marketing teams often lack the budget or data expertise to create a comprehensive database of every company that meets their ideal customer profile.

New Intent

On top of this, Clearbit brings another vital ABM capability to HubSpot: intent data. HubSpot does a good job of tracking engagement across first-party channels, and does have a predictive scoring capability at enterprise tiers. However, it currently has no way of summarising buyer interests nor visibility of third-party activity. Like many data providers, Clearbit has made a significant effort to aggregate account activity into meaningful intent topics describing areas of engagement for active accounts. This will significantly improve HubSpot's target account list capabilities by allowing data-driven account selection.

Acquiring Clearbit resolves a crucial weakness within HubSpot's segmentation capabilities. Like many marketing automation platforms, HubSpot's account targeting capabilities are poor. This is a curious oversight for a platform that has long been optimised for inbound marketing. B2B media spends are increasingly optimised towards account based audiences. However, HubSpot has limited tools for building a target account list for ad campaigns. Integrating Clearbit into their platform is a significant step into closing this capability for HubSpot customers of all sizes.