Best B2B Tech Tools for a Buying Groups Motion

What is a B2B Buying Groups Motion?

A B2B Buying Groups motion, also known as an Opportunity motion, is an evolution of traditional lead-centric and ABM models. It squarely addresses the fact that complex B2B purchase decisions are not made by a single decision-maker, but rather by many stakeholders within a buying committee. 

This is a Buying Group: all key players involved in an organization’s decision-making process, each influenced by the information they’ve gathered independently.

The B2B Buying Groups go-to-market motion was, therefore, developed to tie lead gen efforts to Opportunities—engaging with all contacts on an organization’s buying committee—versus simply engaging individual leads in a silo.

While there are many benefits of a Buying Groups motion, there are very few tools that have been able to operationalize it with a high degree of success. That is, until now. 

This article will provide a thorough overview of today’s top tools and solutions for operationalizing a Buying Groups motion. 

The primary function of a B2B Buying Groups tech tool is to:

• Identify Buying Group members and assign roles within a buying committee
• Orchestrate end-to-end management of the Buying Groups’ buying journey
• Establish the level of engagement and influence of all Buying Group members
• Determine what tactics or stakeholders have influenced past purchases
• Engage with Buying Group members to move the deal forward
• Define and measure the ROI of the Buying Groups motion

So, if you’re ready to bring the efficiency and effectiveness of an opportunity-centric motion into your sales process, here are some tools you should consider:

#1 LeanData

LeanData was one of the first organizations to operationalize a Buying Groups motion. Several of our customers, including Palo Alto Networks and TechTarget have shared their Buying Groups journeys, each using LeanData to orchestrate this go-to-market motion.

LeanData offers two products, Buying Groups Blueprint and Buying Groups Orchestrator, to unify and orchestrate Buying Group GTM strategies.

Buying Groups Blueprint

LeanData’s Buying Groups Blueprint helps teams analyze and leverage historical sales patterns to identify key Buying Group members and roles, and assess influential touch points. This creates a strong, data-enabled foundation for activating a Buying Groups motion.

Buying Groups Blueprint key features: 

• Business Case Development: Blueprint uncovers historical data in your deals to establish the business impact, ROI, and metrics of success of an Opportunity-centric sales process.
• Buying Group Intelligence: Next, Blueprint analyzes CRM data to uncover trends within the Opportunity, evaluate critical marketing signals, map specific actions to each Buying Group member persona, and measure key moments along the entire buyer journey. 
• Strategy Development: Last, Blueprint identifies buyers involved in past purchase decisions, build persona-based sales influence models, and uncover buying committee patterns across Opportunities. 
  
  
  

Buying Groups Orchestrator

LeanData’s Buying Groups Orchestrator automates the Opportunity-centric motion at scale from within your CRM.

Buying Groups Orchestrator key features: 

• Member Targeting: Orchestrator will identify Buying Group members by role and influence in the sales process. And, with the help of AI-powered automation, update groups across a variety of attributes and facilitate hand-offs from Marketing to Sales. 
• Signal Tracking: Orchestrator accelerates deal velocity by visualizing the buying journey and evaluating intent signals for every Buying Group member in order to identify “missing” members. This helps teams use targeted marketing tactics to re-engage Buying Group members in the buying cycle. 
• Conversion Optimization: Orchestrator provides sales reps with a real-time, bird’s eye view into all marketing and sales interactions across each buyer persona, facilitating deeper relationships with key stakeholders to win deals faster. 
  
  
  

LeanData Pricing

LeanData offers three purchase tiers: Standard ($39/month), Advanced ($49/month), and Premium ($59/month). Visit the LeanData pricing page for a full feature list and useful plan comparisons. 

#2 Demandbase

Demandbase’s Buying Groups AI solution—part of its Demandbase One™ account-based marketing platform—couples AI with data to help teams pinpoint and engage buying group decision-makers, influencers, and champions.

Key Features

• Define Buying Groups based on product line, business unit, geography, or personas.
• Uncover Buying Group members with a business’s first-party data, along with Demandbase’s third-party user intent and engagement data.
• Get contact recommendations from Demandbase’s data set of 150 million B2B contacts to uncover and engage Buying Group members not already in your CRM. 
• Target, engage, and track key personas involved in buying decisions.
• Build segmentation strategies based on ideal Buying Groups.
• Hone marketing efforts to key decision makers.
• Personalize messages based on persona and role within an opportunity. 

Pricing

Demandbase offers Professional, Enterprise, and Elite tiers for its Demandbase One™ platform. Individual modules of the platform can also be purchased à la carte. All pricing is on demand. 

Pros

Demandbase One™ platform users—not specifically for its Buying Groups AI solution—speak to the platform’s ease of use, quick implementation, speed to ROI, and access to intent data.  

Cons

While many users consider it a sophisticated marketing and sales tool overall, the most commonly mentioned downsides to the platform include a steep learning curve, missing reporting features, data accuracy, and manual editing processes. 

#3 Adobe Journey Optimizer (B2B Edition)

An extension of the Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition (AJO), helps marketing and sales teams engage and qualify Buying Groups across the customer lifecycle.

Key Features

• Buying Groups: AJO uses generative AI and first-party B2B data to create Buying Groups that align demand generation with sales plays and go-to-market motions.
• Journey Orchestration: Users can build and execute AI-assisted journeys tailored to Buying Groups using automated, multichannel engagement to simplify demand generation and help qualify buying groups more efficiently.
• Personalized Content: AJO creates, manages, and modifies content to deliver more personalized experiences.
• Sales intelligence: AJO delivers qualified Buying Groups to sales reps via alerts and dashboards, which include AI-generated insights, engagement summaries, and recommended actions.
• Journey insights: AJO analyzes account and Buying Group journeys to evaluate marketing’s impact on the pipeline.

Pricing

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition can be purchased as a single product on a subscription-basis or as part of a broader Adobe Experience Cloud subscription. Both subscription options can be purchased at the Select, Prime, and Ultimate tiers. All pricing is on demand.

Pros

Users often say that Adobe Journey Optimizer’s built-in AI integrations, content personalization features, and intuitive (“drag and drop”) UX make it easy to use, even for tech novices.

Cons

Features and functionality vary based on the subscription tier purchased. Adobe Journey Optimizer is a complex tool with many levels of customization, which users report can be  overwhelming and also cause the solution to run slowly—especially for visualizations. Finally, some say the accuracy of the AI is variable and often requires human verification. 

#4 Intentsify

Intentsify is an intent data marketing platform that collects data from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-party intent sources to provide account and Buying Group intelligence for signal-based marketing.

Key Features

• Signal Sources: Intentsify’s intent data includes signals from content sites, contact data, firmographic  and technographic data, social media, review sites, content-syndication, digital ads, and others. 
• Buying Group Intelligence: Intensify will collect signals from members of Buying Groups within an account and provide topic-interest scores, research-stage identification, solution interest, as well as uncover new personas. 
• Buying Group Engagement:  Intensify offers content syndication and digital ad solutions to engage further with Buying Group members.

Pricing

Intentsify does not offer any pricing on its website or the G2 review site. Pricing is only available with a demo request.

Pros

Customer reviews on G2 indicate that Intentsify contact data is high-quality as well as valuable context around product interest. Customers also report responsive customer services and a short ramp time. 

Cons

Critical reviews report high pricing minimums and poor lead quality. 

#5 6sense

6sense is an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and predictive analytics platform. Unlike other tools mentioned above, 6sense does not offer a specific Buying Groups-related product. However, its platform can help sales and marketing teams identify, target, and engage key stakeholders within a buying committee.

Key Features

• Buying Group Identification: 6sense uses intent data to identify and target Buying Group members based on their engagement with marketing and sales content.
• Data Insights: 6sense analyzes intent data across multiple channels to identify relevant content and communications for Buying Group members throughout the purchase cycle.
• Personalized Engagement: The platform will personalize content for Buying Group members based on their role, interests, and stage in the buying journey. 
• Opportunity Scoring: The platform’s scoring tools will prioritize accounts and opportunities based on intent and engagement levels.
• Coordinated Outreach: 6sense integrates with various marketing automation and CRM tools to help coordinate efforts between sales and marketing. 
• Account-Based Advertising: 6sense offers a feature for targeting Buying Group members with personalized, branded ads.

Pricing

6sense offers a free starter plan for their Revenue AI for Sales tools—along with Team, Growth, and Enterprise plans that come with additional features and functionality. Unfortunately, there is no pricing specified for its Revenue AI for Marketing tools. Therefore, to get more specific details on pricing packages, users must book a product demo first. 

Pros

Users like 6sense’s predictive analytics features, along with its prospecting functionality, and multi-platform integration capabilities.

Cons

Most complaints about 6sense revolve around data accuracy, lead quality, and issues related to outdated information. Some users say there’s a steep learning curve for the platform’s more advanced capabilities. Further, some negative reviews report that the desktop app UX is clunky and not user-friendly.

#6 Terminus

Similar to 6sense, Terminus does not name a specific Buying Groups product either. As an ABM Platform, however, it supports Opportunity-centric motions by leveraging intent data to identify,  target, and engage multiple stakeholders with personalized, multichannel campaigns. 

Key Features

• Active Account Targeting: Terminus uses intent and engagement data to identify accounts with active Buying Groups.
• Multi-Stakeholder Engagement: The platform offers multichannel engagement features to reach Buying Group members with ads, emails, LinkedIn outreach, etc.
• Campaign Orchestration: Terminus integrates with CRM and marketing automation tools to coordinate campaigns across multiple channels.
• Influence Measurement: Terminus tracks engagement metrics at the account and individual levels to show how Buying Group members respond to marketing content.
• Opportunity Prioritization: Terminus uses insights to identify which accounts and Buying Group members are moving the fastest through the buying process.

Pricing

Pricing (including any mention of subscription tiers) is not provided on the Terminus’s website. You must book a demo to get a personalized quote. 

Pros

Most users applaud the platform for its comprehensive suite of ABM features, ease of use, strong integrations, and responsive customer support team. 

Cons

Users report that the platform’s main drawbacks include a complex setup process, limited customization, and occasional performance issues (i.e., certain features don’t always load correctly). Some critical reviews mentioned limited or slow reporting features. 

A Buying Groups Motion Requires the Right Tools

Operationalizing a Buying Groups motion requires implementing the right tools. 

Tools that specifically fuel Opportunity-centric motions help organizations track engagement across Buying Groups more effectively. They often blend together AI-driven insights, greater pipeline visibility, and intent data signals. This combination of features aims to align sales and marketing efforts and ensure that outreach is consistently targeted to the right Buying Group members at the right time. 

Additionally, they can help identify gaps in engagement and optimize resources, so that teams can stay focused on deals that are most likely to close. 

Long story short: If you’re ready to operationalize the Buying Groups motion, you need to invest in the right tools from the very start.