Podcast Summary

B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success

Episode #76: Targeting B2B Buyers like B2C Consumers
Guest: Mark Connon, CEO of Bombora
Date: January 13, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores why B2B marketing — particularly audience targeting — has long lagged behind B2C marketing, and how innovations in data partnerships and intent data are closing that gap. Host Greg Kihlström and guest Mark Connon, CEO of Bombora, discuss the complexity of B2B audience activation, the rise of data cooperatives, the launch of Bombora’s Curated Ecosystem Audiences, measurement advances, and the implications for strategy, privacy, and agility in today’s B2B landscape.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. B2B vs. B2C Audience Targeting: The Core Challenges

[00:33–06:05]

• B2C’s Simplicity vs. B2B’s Complexity

  • In B2C, there’s typically a clear one-to-one relationship between brand and consumer; buyers are easily identified and followed across channels. In B2B, the target isn’t just a single person, but buying groups within companies, adding significant complexity.
  • "With B2B, the focus is on not so much the person, but the company. Not just the company, but the buying group within the company." — Mark Connon [02:39]

• Data & Identity Barriers

  • Properly identifying not just companies "in market," but also specific people and roles within those companies, requires advanced identity solutions.
  • B2B marketers must also be able to measure campaign effectiveness across longer sales cycles and multiple stakeholders.

• Greater Stakes for Mistargeting

  • The risk in B2B is less about wasted ad dollars and more about "missing opportunity," like being late to an active buying cycle or missing out on RFP processes.
  • “Not doing it right means you’re missing opportunity... it means you’re getting involved late in a sales cycle, missing that RFP process.” — Mark Connon [04:59]

2. The Power of Data Cooperatives & Partnerships

[06:05–09:37]

• Bombora’s Data Co-op Model

  • Bombora’s data is sourced from thousands of publisher partners, creating a rich, consent-driven dataset on company behaviors.
  • Their new offering, Curated Ecosystem Audiences, leverages partnerships with data leaders like Crunchbase, G2, and Definitive Healthcare to combine B2B intent, funding rounds, and sector-specific insights.

• Flexible, Scalable Audience Recipes

  • Marketers can build hyper-targeted audiences by combining intent (e.g., from G2) with signals like recent funding (e.g., from Crunchbase), enabling previously impossible specificity.
  • “We have the ability to curate that audience within our platform... to create these very rich and importantly scalable [audiences].” — Mark Connon [08:39]

3. Simplifying Activation Across Platforms

[09:37–11:26]

• Seamless Programmatic Integration

  • Bombora’s strong integrations with DSPs, CDPs, and platforms like Trade Desk and Reddit mean marketers can easily transfer custom audiences into their preferred channels.
  • “We can very simply take a very specific audience... and get that to wherever you want it and do it really fast.” — Mark Connon [10:58]

• Silo-Busting as a Superpower

  • Breaking down platform silos ensures high-value data is activated, not trapped in inaccessible sources.

4. Advanced Measurement and ROI

[11:26–13:40]

• Richer Analytics Fuel Smarter Tactics
  • With Bombora’s B2B Measurement Solution (B2 Beacon), marketers get granular engagement data (frequency, reactions, clicks), not just presence.
  • This data supports full-funnel strategies, giving insight into which companies are truly engaging and fueling better targeting over extended B2B cycles.
  • “It's the ability to take that data, not just say, ‘I, we did what we were supposed to,’... and measure engagement over time.” — Mark Connon [12:50]

5. Strategic Implications for B2B Marketers

[13:40–15:08]

• Enabling Omnichannel & ABM at Scale
  • The new audience capabilities allow B2B CMOs to adopt B2C-like omnichannel and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) tactics at greater scale, with improved justification for higher budgets.
  • “It fundamentally changes the kind of targeting strategies within ABM.” — Mark Connon [14:31]

6. Privacy, Data Ethics & the Future

[15:08–17:17]

• Positioned for a Privacy-First World
  • Bombora’s decade-long focus on publisher partnerships and company-level targeting (instead of individuals) gives it a unique advantage amid increasing privacy regulation and third-party cookie deprecation.
  • “Our co-op, our philosophy around how we collect data, consent driven... would be hard to replicate today. It gives us a consent relationship with the consumer.” — Mark Connon [16:06]

7. Agility in a Complex Ecosystem

[17:42–18:37]

• Advice for Staying Agile
  • Mark stresses the importance of being informed and adaptable: understanding diverse stakeholder needs and being prepared for constant change is critical in complex B2B environments.
  • “Really being sort of well informed to try to put you in the best position to see around corners... and being able to move and react to the needs of those customers.” — Mark Connon [17:54]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “With B2B, the focus is not so much the person, but the company... the buying group within the company.” — Mark Connon [02:39]
• “Not doing it right means you’re missing opportunity.” — Mark Connon [04:59]
• “It's a natural... opportunity to enter and a significant upside... just having the brand and the know-how to execute in this space is a benefit to all involved.” — Mark Connon [07:12]
• “...as soon as you start to say ‘I want these five different targeting criteria,’ the audience just gets smaller... so being a scaled solution [really matters].” — Mark Connon [09:01]
• “We can very simply take a very specific audience... and get that to wherever you want it and do it really fast.” — Mark Connon [10:58]
• “It fundamentally changes the kind of targeting strategies within ABM.” — Mark Connon [14:31]
• “Our co-op, our philosophy around how we collect data, consent driven... gives us a consent relationship with the consumer.” — Mark Connon [16:06]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:33 – Framing B2B vs. B2C targeting complexity
• 02:39 – Why it’s harder to target in B2B
• 04:59 – The real risks of missing B2B opportunities
• 06:43 – Bombora’s curated ecosystem model
• 08:23 – Combining data sources for rich, scalable audiences
• 10:08 – Simplifying activation in ad platforms
• 11:49 – Evolving measurement and B2 Beacon solution
• 13:40 – How strategy and ROI are changing
• 15:56 – Privacy, data ethics and co-op data advantages
• 17:42 – Staying agile in B2B marketing

Conclusion

This episode illuminates how B2B marketers can finally approach the precision and effectiveness of B2C targeting, thanks to advances in data cooperation, consent-driven sourcing, and seamless technological integration. Mark Connon emphasizes that success now depends on activating the right data at scale while staying flexible and ethical in an ever-evolving landscape.