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HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

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Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#41
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, nobody is interested in de-anonymising, it’s not useful. To target, say a car ad all that is needed is to know that cookie 1234 is interested in buying a sports car, and when that cookie is encountered, serve it a sports car ad.

It's very useful for b2b people to know who is looking at your website and who might be good targets to reach out to. Knowing that Steve the SVP at Databricks is looking at your website vs cookie 1234 is a pretty key differentiator

There are a lot of companies selling exactly this service. In some cases, they're able to do it pretty easily, because most people don't actually make any effort whatsoever to remain anonymous. And in a B2B setting, there's a good chance your own company is feeding their data into the same pool.

Some companies are trying to sell you on "AI based" solutions that take deanonymization a step further, but as far as I can tell, it's mostly horseshit and wishful thinking.

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, nobody is interested in de-anonymising, it’s not useful. To target, say a car ad all that is needed is to know that cookie 1234 is interested in buying a sports car, and when that cookie is encountered, serve it a sports car ad.

It's very useful for b2b people to know who is looking at your website and who might be good targets to reach out to. Knowing that Steve the SVP at Databricks is looking at your website vs cookie 1234 is a pretty key differentiator

From first-hand experience, B2B sellers do not get this information today. They typically get "signals" like "Company X is searching for product category Y" or "Company X is visiting your web site". And "Company X's CIO is John Smith - here's his phone number". But nobody that I've seen claims to offer individual names of web site visitors.

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#43
post #41
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very useful for b2b people to know who is looking at your website and who might be good targets to reach out to. Knowing that Steve the SVP at Databricks is looking at your website vs cookie 1234 is a pretty key differentiator

There are a lot of companies selling exactly this service. In some cases, they're able to do it pretty easily, because most people don't actually make any effort whatsoever to remain anonymous. And in a B2B setting, there's a good chance your own company is feeding their data into the same pool. Some companies are trying to sell you on "AI based" solutions that take deanonymization a step further, but as far as I can…

I'm curious who these "companies selling exactly this service" are.

I get solicited by dozens of companies daily. And I've seen nobody who can provide this de-annonymization of website visitors.

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#45

Curious what % of Clearbit revenue was from the Salesforce integration (which I imagine will be shut down). I remember years ago when I was looking to use Clearbit it was significantly more expensive to use directly from Salesforce.

[deleted]

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#46
post #2

Is it approximately correct that most sites (beside Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc.) that get your email address are selling it to data-brokers and sharing cookie/browser-signature information so you can be de-anonymized across the web?

I don't think this is correct. Meta and Google don't sell direct access to your data. They sell advertising targeting you, based on your personal data. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to sell users email address to a data broker under GDPR.

In the context of a business email address GDPR is far less restrictive. See GDPR Recital 47 (7): https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-47/

Direct marketing is not explicitly banned. If you have a reason to believe that the data subject in question (a B2B person operating in the context of their work) is interested in buying your stuff then you could claim "legitimate interest" and process their contact details/market to them.

That's what people are relying on at the moment. Whether all the data protection authorities in all the member states will agree with the market's assessment of this remains to be seen...

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#48

Congrats to Alex MacCaw et al.

He's a great guy and deserves the success. I reached out to him in 2013ish about US immigration and he was extremely nice and helpful. Check out his new startup, Reflect Notes, seems to be getting some traction.

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#49
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of companies selling exactly this service. In some cases, they're able to do it pretty easily, because most people don't actually make any effort whatsoever to remain anonymous. And in a B2B setting, there's a good chance your own company is feeding their data into the same pool. Some companies are trying to sell you on "AI based" solutions that take deanonymization a step further, but as far as I can…

I'm curious who these "companies selling exactly this service" are. I get solicited by dozens of companies daily. And I've seen nobody who can provide this de-annonymization of website visitors.

You're right, I phrased that too generically.

What I mean is that they provide enough information to pair your first-party data with "anonymous" web traffic matched to the account level with enough granularity to line up the two.

That said, most of the companies in this space massively over promise and under deliver. The one thing they all have in common is that they're good at ABM, so they can sell to your CMO/CRO faster than you can call them out on their bullshit.

Re: HubSpot Acquires Clearbit

#50
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of companies selling exactly this service. In some cases, they're able to do it pretty easily, because most people don't actually make any effort whatsoever to remain anonymous. And in a B2B setting, there's a good chance your own company is feeding their data into the same pool. Some companies are trying to sell you on "AI based" solutions that take deanonymization a step further, but as far as I can…

I'm curious who these "companies selling exactly this service" are. I get solicited by dozens of companies daily. And I've seen nobody who can provide this de-annonymization of website visitors.

[deleted]
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