Data Cloud Categories

Overview

The D&B data cloud contains several categories of company data. Many of these categories are freely available for use in modeling, segmentation and export. Other categories are premium and available for purchase.

You can see the categories in the My Data page in the CDP and you can configure your settings in the Attribute Admin. 

Category Basics

The D&B data cloud includes offerings from various other vendors:

• Firmographics contains basic location, size, industry and other company defining information. It can help refine target lists for basic business fit. This data is provided by D&B.

• Online Presence contains web traffic and ad spend information for a company. It can help target online and active businesses.

• Website Keywords contains information about the terms used directly on a company's website. It can help target specific types of businesses that are not well captured by industry codes. This data is collected by examining the text of a company's website and is very accurate.

• Intent contains signals about surging interest in certain topics by a company. Signals can be used to discover warm, early stage sales opportunities that may not be in your funnel. ⭐

• Website Profile contains information about the technologies used directly on a company's website. This data is collected by examining the code base of a company's website and is very accurate.

• Technology Profile contains signals about the behind the firewall technologies used by a company on laptops, desktops and servers. This data is culled from job postings and is directionally accurate. This is because companies often list more technologies than they actually use in job postings (so they can cast a wider net for talent). To better explain this, consider a company looking to hire a Microsoft Dynamics admin. The job posting might request work experience with either Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce. Our data would show a strong signal for Has CRM, but would be less clear on whether they use Microsoft or Salesforce. ⭐

• COVID-19 provides insight into how the Coronavirus pandemic is currently impacting your accounts and prospects. Use this information to monitor changing conditions and refine targeting strategies to increase sales and marketing ROI. Insights assess the impact of company location information, Dun & Bradstreet’s proprietary credit and risk data, industry unemployment data and the level of disruption to the company’s network due to impacts to site suppliers and customers. ⭐

⭐ denotes a premium category.

Recommended Usage

Firmographics. We recommend this category for both sales and marketing use-cases. It is useful for targeting companies based on basic company descriptors, such as location, size and industry. Examples include:

• Select manufacturing company in the Midwest.
• Knockout an company with less than 500 employees or $50 million in sales.

Online Presence. We recommend this category for both sales and marketing use-cases focused on online companies. It is useful for targeting companies that are highly active online. Examples include:

• Select top web traffic companies in Australia.
• Knockout companies with low ad spend.

Website Keywords. We recommend this category for both sales and marketing use-cases. It is useful for targeting businesses in very niche industries that are not well captured in typical industry codes. Examples include:

• Select research labs needed specialized lab equipment.
• Knockout machine shops without ISO certifications.

Intent. We recommend this category for early stage sales and marketing use-cases. It is useful for targeting companies that are in the beginning stages of researching an industry and evaluating vendors. With intent, you can be the first vendor to talk to a surging company. Examples include:

• Select companies beginning to research CRM.
• Knockout companies researching bankruptcies.

Website Profile. We recommend this category for both sales and marketing use-cases. It is useful for targeting companies using particular technologies on their website. Examples include:

• Select companies using a competitors CRM product for a competitive takeout play.
• Knockout companies using a competitors CRM product and additional products from the competitors product suite from your competitive takeout play.

Technology Profile. We recommend this category for some sales and most marketing use-cases. It is useful for targeting companies based on technology categories they use. A more detailed drill down in particular technologies may also be useful, but the signals are less accurate and needs to be used in campaigns with an appropriate tolerance for precision. The high-level category based targeting can work for sales campaigns and the more granular signals are best for marketing campaigns with reasonable tolerance. Examples include:

• Select companies using database software.
• Knockout companies using Microsoft SQL Server.

COVID-19. We recommend this category for both sales and marketing use-cases. It is useful to either reduce targeting of negatively impacted companies or to purposefully target impacted companies in need of COVID solutions. Examples include:

• Reprioritize targets by identifying companies with 'highest impact'. (Expect significantly lower response rates to sales and marketing campaigns. Consider re-prioritizing targets and engaging with a tailored strategy based on severity of impact.)
• Allocate low cost channels by identifying companies with 'high impact'. (Expect lower response rates to sales and marketing campaigns. Engage with low-cost channels to control acquisition cost.)
• Proceed with caution by identifying companies with 'medium impact'. (Expect slightly lower response rates to sales and marketing campaigns.)
• Target with confidence by identifying companies with 'low impact'. (Expect higher response rates to sales and marketing campaigns. Prioritize engaging with high-cost marketing channels and seller activity.)

Premium Categories

For any premium attribute category that you purchase, you will receive a fixed number of attributes you can activate in that category. Every premium attribute activated counts against your allotment within that category.

But be careful! Once premium attributes are activated, they generally cannot be swapped for other attributes within the same category. The CDP will allow premium attribute changes once per year for cases in which customers need to make business changes. You can contact your Customer Success Manager for more information.