Today we are announcing that LeadSift has agreed to be acquired by IDG Communications, the leader in tech media, data and marketing services. We are beyond excited to join this family.
We started LeadSift in 2012 with the hypothesis that there is a massive amount of buying intent generated across billions of public web documents every day. We quickly realized that this data, if delivered in a timely manner, could be a game changer for businesses trying to connect with their customers. (P.S. we were talking about buying intent way before it was cool.) And over the last 9 years – across multiple product pivots and 100s of customers – we have always focused (almost obsessed) over the mission of “mining information from public web sources to help businesses identify and engage their customers in the buying journey.”
Being one of the leading B2B intent data providers and working with some of the savviest marketers, we got to see how big a role intent data was playing across the entire B2B demand generation process. From identifying buyers across the buying journey to engaging with the right message across multiple channels.
Since the inception of LeadSift and our pivot to a B2B intent data platform, we have had many champions and supporters of our mission who understood the power of intent data for B2B marketers, but few have understood as quickly and succinctly as Andre Yee, Chief Product Officer of IDG Communications. (N.B. When you start discussing a product roadmap in the middle of a corp-dev call with half a dozen executives, you know you have found your kindred spirit!) Right after our first meeting, we realized the incredibly powerful future for B2B marketers we could be building together with the IDG’s proprietary first-party and the marketing tech stack they were building (acquiring Triblio and KickFire is not a coincidence).
If you’re a LeadSift customer, partner or one of our prospective customers (P.S. we should chat now seriously!) here are 3 reasons why we are super excited about the future:
1. Data is King: It is obvious the company that has the most depth and breadth of data wins the B2B demand generation space. IDG.com being the #1 Tech Media company with troves of proprietary first-party intent-data across event attendance, engagement with editorial articles, branded conversations and human verified insights has a massive head start. Imagine how scalable and actionable our intent signals will be once we integrate our 3rd-party realtime web based intent signals with this proprietary first-party intent data stream.
2. Incredible Reach: Let’s be honest, being a small startup from Halifax, N.S. we’ve always had challenges in scaling demand generation programs for really large enterprises. By merging with IDG, a company with offices across the globe, we will have a lot more resources to be able to provide global reach and support at a level that we could not previously imagine.
3. Full Cycle Demand Generation: 3rd-party intent data is one piece (albeit a very important one) of the overall B2B marketing and demand generation puzzle. But what if you could know all the information about your first-party web visitors (IDG | Kickfire), cross-reference and prioritize them with 3rd-party intent signals (LeadSift + IDG proprietary first-party data), activate them seamlessly across digital channels (IDG | Triblio) and run highly targeted lead generation programs, all from one single dashboard! This is what Kumaran Ramanathan, president of IDG Communications says: “IDG’s goal of moving to the intersection of media and MarTech is to help B2B marketers navigate the customer journey across a dynamic ecosystem by leveraging unmatched data sets. . LeadSift’s technology is further enhancing our unique intent data that drives ROI for our customers.”
What does this mean for you as a current customer and partner?
As a current customer and partner nothing changes in terms of your subscription, but you can look forward to more and better intent data that includes information from first-party websites and offline sources such as event attendance and telemarketing! Stay tuned for all the exciting product developments we have planned.
What does this mean for the LeadSift team?
We’re closer to building out the most comprehensive and actionable intent data as a service to serve the savviest B2B marketers – and we could not be happier (video/picture). Our entire team is excited to embark on this next chapter of the journey to continue to focus on our mission of “mining information from public web + proprietary data sources to help businesses identify and engage their customers in the buying journey.”
Thank you,
Tukan and Sreejata