Design By Intent: New Bombora CMO On How To Use First-Party Data

• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, June 3, 2024

Putney Cloos, a veteran of Cision and American Express, joined Bombora as chief marketing officer late last month. She now helps clients use Bombora's data and activation solutions to achieve better results. 

Bombora helps B2B brands build their first party data, ”which they should have been doing regardless of third-party data or privacy trends,” Cloos says.  

But she doesn’t see this as a sudden turning away from third-party data – there are practical considerations. “First-party data  is not inherently valuable in and of itself,” Cloos argues. “You have to be able to segment and activate that data.”

Bombora provides “descriptive characteristics valuable to first party data,” Cloos continues. It also helps firms evolve from third-party data to first-party – “it’s not either or.”

Indeed, Bombora offers third-party data--like intent data--to help brands get the most out of their first- party data. 

Intent data shows “what companies are interested at that time” and is valuable when applied to overall messaging, particularly email. B2B brands can use first-party data to “ensure the content within email is what the audience is seeking at that time.”  

But Bombora is more than a data provider – it offers a comprehensive go-to-market solution for partners in B2B space, including measurement and planning and analytical solutions and measurement, Cloos points out.  

Most recently, Cloos was CMO of Cision, the PR service, and earlier was VP of commercial demand generation at American Express, “always in B2B.” She is a strategic advisor to Octane 11.

What did she learn in those earlier roles?

“I’ve learned to keep the humanity in B2B marketing – if you don’t, you’re going to learn it again and again. You have to understand accounts as humans and the context of accounts. You can’t think of them as faceless accounts. They have a network of relationships in their own professional world. If you forget that, your marketing strategies will not be as resonant.”

Bombora can help marketers understand what their audience segments are thinking, Cloos points out.   

Speaking of keeping the humanity in marketing, how does Cloos feel about AI?

“There hasn’t been a significant impact except that companies are experimenting and going on how genAI can be used effectively.” These tend to be Fortune 100 enterprises, not rank-and-file companies. 

Ultimately, genAI will “change the way we work, change the rules and probably remove lower-value work being done….but we won’t see a massive reduction in headcount."

In general, B2B firms have moved to a period of leaner resourcing. The issue is “how can organizations make the most of the investment they can have at this time?” Cloos says.  

Her job is to help them. “What I seek to do is accelerate growth both for our customers as well as for the company and most effectively communicate the value proposition of any solution,” Cloos states.