Maximizing the potential of your go-to-market (GTM) strategy hinges on using the right tools to target high-value leads effectively. Demandbase and 6sense both offer powerful AI-driven platforms designed to refine your approach by providing actionable data insights. Whether it’s predictive analytics or intent data, these tools promise to enhance your ability to engage the right prospects at the right time.

Having worked extensively with both platforms, I’ve seen how Demandbase excels with its highly customizable account-based marketing features while 6sense delivers rich buyer journey insights.

In this Demandbase vs. 6sense comparison, I’ll break down their core features, data accuracy, and overall user experience to help you decide which solution best aligns with your GTM strategy. I’ll also introduce a powerful complementary tool that can further bolster your lead intelligence efforts.

Core Features

Both Demandbase and 6sense provide comprehensive tools to enhance sales and marketing functions, leveraging AI and data-driven insights to help teams engage with the right prospects at the right time. Below, I’ve broken down the core offerings of each platform in terms of how they cater to both sales and marketing teams.

Bonus read: If you’re interested to see 6sense’s features compared to ZoomInfo’s, check out my detailed comparison of the two platforms.

Demandbase Solutions

Demandbase offers several sales solutions, including:

• Account intelligence: Demandbase excels at providing detailed data on target accounts, which allowed me to identify and prioritize accounts that were most likely to convert. Having this data at my fingertips streamlined my outreach efforts, allowing me to craft more relevant messaging for prospects.
• Intent data: By tracking real-time signals indicating which accounts were in-market, my team was able to direct sales efforts toward the accounts that were actively looking for solutions like ours.
• Predictive analytics: The ability to predict where an account was in the buyer journey helped me ensure that my outreach was perfectly timed, giving me an edge in closing deals.

With Demandbase, you also get the following marketing solutions:

• Account-based advertising: Demandbase’s ability to target specific accounts with personalized ads allowed us to create campaigns that resonated deeply with key prospects, ensuring that our marketing spend was used effectively.
• Website personalization: This feature enabled my team to provide custom web experiences for high-priority accounts based on their behavior and engagement. The increased personalization resulted in higher conversion rates and more meaningful engagements.
• Segmentation: I was able to segment accounts based on firmographics and engagement data, ensuring that each campaign was tailored to the right audience for maximum impact.

6sense Solutions

Like Demandbase, 6sense offers various sales solutions, the ones I used the most being:

• Buyer intent data: The service offered real-time insights into which accounts were researching solutions relevant to my business. This allowed me to focus on accounts that were showing active interest, ensuring engagement with prospects at the right time.
• Predictive analytics: The platform’s AI-driven analytics gave us clear visibility into the buying journey of each account, helping my team time my outreach for maximum effectiveness.
• Prioritization dashboards: These dashboards provided me with an at-a-glance view of which accounts were ready for engagement, making my daily workflow more efficient by removing the guesswork from prospecting.

Some of the marketing solutions 6sense offers include:

• Audience building: 6sense allowed me to create detailed audience segments based on buyer behavior and intent data. This made it easier to deliver personalized messaging to prospects and resulted in significantly improved campaign performance.
• Orchestration & workflows: I found 6sense’s multi-channel orchestration particularly useful for aligning marketing and sales efforts. The platform automated the process of reaching out to accounts across different channels, ensuring that every touchpoint was relevant to the buyer’s stage.
• Data enrichment: The service helped boost the quality of the data in our CRM by enriching it with updated firmographic information. This capability enabled us to maintain accurate records for our marketing campaigns and ensured we were reaching the right decision-makers with the correct information.

Data Accuracy

Demandbase and 6sense claim to deliver detailed, actionable data, but like many users, I encountered occasional fluctuations in accuracy with both solutions. These variations revealed distinct approaches to managing data, where both platforms excelled in some areas while showing room for improvement in others.

With Demandbase, the overall quality of account data was impressive, especially when focusing on larger accounts with substantial revenue potential. The platform made it easier to streamline outreach, allowing me to engage with high-priority prospects efficiently. 

Still, there were times when the data on smaller companies or industries experiencing rapid change didn’t fully reflect current conditions. Contact details or organizational changes occasionally lagged behind, prompting the need for manual updates. While the platform’s data enrichment tools aimed to resolve these inconsistencies, there were instances where additional verification was necessary to ensure the accuracy of the data.

6sense excelled with its use of intent signals and predictive capabilities, which provided valuable insight into which accounts were actively seeking solutions. This gave me a strong edge in terms of timing and prioritization. Yet, one challenge I ran into involved the contact data for key decision-makers, particularly in niche markets. 

There were moments where crucial details were either incomplete or outdated, requiring me to cross-check the information manually to ensure outreach was on target. That said, the predictive insights from 6sense often compensated for these issues, helping maintain smooth coordination between marketing and sales efforts.

User Experience

When evaluating the user experience and support of Demandbase and 6sense, I considered two factors:

1. Interface and usability
2. Training and onboarding

Interface and Usability

Demandbase offered a well-organized, customizable interface that allowed me to tailor dashboards according to my preferences. Navigating through the various tools felt intuitive once I became familiar with the layout. 

However, setting up account-based ad campaigns required a bit more time and effort, which added complexity, especially for new users. The platform’s depth of features, while robust, may take some getting used to, particularly if you require advanced customization.

6sense featured a powerful, data-rich interface, but I found the dashboards overwhelming at first, especially for new users. While the platform provided clear insights into which accounts required attention, the sheer volume of data available required some getting used to. 

Building audience segments and tracking engagement was relatively straightforward once I became familiar with the layout, but issues like poor data refresh rates occasionally slowed down the workflow. Despite the initial learning curve, the platform offered a wealth of insights that proved highly valuable once I adapted to its more complex interface.

Training and Onboarding

Demandbase offered a smooth and structured onboarding process. My team appreciated the support from dedicated customer success managers (CSMs), who were responsive and ensured that we quickly got up to speed. 

The platform also provided training resources that covered the basics well, although some more complex features took extra time to master. While onboarding was thorough, navigating the advanced features required some ongoing effort.

With 6sense, the onboarding experience was equally well-supported, with detailed resources and tailored onboarding sessions that helped my team understand the full scope of the platform. The documentation provided was extensive, and CSMs were consistently available to guide us through specific features. 

However, I noticed that it took a bit more time to become fully proficient in using all of 6sense’s capabilities as its advanced features required deeper exploration.

Pricing and Plans

One major concern I had with both Demandbase and 6sense is the lack of transparency around pricing. Neither platform publicly discloses its costs, making it difficult to compare options or assess affordability upfront. 

Instead, you need to reach out to their sales teams for tailored quotes, which can slow down your decision-making process, especially if you’re under tight timelines to evaluate multiple platforms.

Customer Reviews

After exploring customer feedback for Demandbase and 6sense, it’s clear that both platforms have their loyal clients—and those with a few gripes with their features. Both tools are packed with powerful features to enhance sales and marketing strategies, but how they perform can vary among different users.

Here’s a summary of how these platforms are rated across several popular review platforms (accurate as of September 2024):

Demandbase vs. 6sense: Final Thoughts

Having worked extensively with both platforms, it’s clear that Demandbase and 6sense bring distinct strengths to the table. Demandbase excels in offering customizable account-based marketing features, ideal for teams seeking to engage high-value accounts with precision. Meanwhile, 6sense shines with its predictive analytics and ability to uncover key buyer insights, helping businesses time their outreach for maximum impact.

The choice between the two really comes down to your specific needs. Demandbase is perfect if you prioritize deep customization and account targeting, while 6sense would be better suited if you're looking to harness data-driven insights to optimize your sales and marketing efforts. Yet, both tools have their limitations—whether it’s the learning curve in Demandbase or the occasional delays in 6sense’s data updates.

A recurring issue I encountered with both tools, however, is the time spent combing through data and contacts. Sorting through spreadsheets to find actionable lead intelligence can slow down your workflow. That’s where a tool like RB2B comes in, offering a seamless solution by delivering real-time, person-level visitor insights DIRECTLY into your Slack channel, cutting through the noise and allowing you to act on leads faster and more efficiently.

Unlock Unmatched Lead Insights With RB2B

RB2B’s Person-Level Website Visitor ID tool can transform your lead generation efforts by ensuring you’re engaging the RIGHT prospects at the right moment. Instead of sifting through spreadsheets or sorting through random contacts, RB2B gives you real-time access to visitor data, including names, job titles, emails, LinkedIn profiles, and more—all sent directly to your Slack.

With RB2B, it’s easy to capture highly actionable insights about visitors and tailor your outreach in real time, cutting down the time spent on lead qualification and allowing you to focus on high-value prospects.

The integration with Slack also makes collaboration with your team seamless, helping you act on hot leads FASTER than ever before.

Here’s what RB2B’s tool delivers:

• Names, job titles, and company information
• LinkedIn profiles and email addresses
• The specific page visitors viewed on your website

Get Started With RB2B 

To start using RB2B's tool, follow these four steps:

1. Register
2. Validate your email and provide basic details
3. Integrate RB2B’s script on your website
4. Set up Slack notifications

The tool is 100% FREE and comes with full access to premium features for 30 days. After that, you can continue using it with a free plan or upgrade to the Pro plan for even more advanced features like detailed filtering and extended data access.

Compliance note: RB2B handles U.S.-based traffic only and is fully compliant with CCPA and CPRA regulations. GDPR does not apply here since the tool doesn’t deal with European visitors.

If you’re ready to boost your lead generation and outreach efforts, add RB2B’s Person-Level Website Visitor ID to your toolkit!

Still exploring your options? Discover some top alternatives to Apollo.io, BuiltWith, Lusha, Crunchbase, Leadfeeder, and Clearbit, or check the following comparisons:

• Lusha vs. ZoomInfo
• Apollo.io vs. ZoomInfo
• ZoomInfo vs. UpLead 
• Cognism vs. ZoomInfo
• ZoomInfo vs. Salesgenie

Featured image source: PhotoMIX-Company