Identifying prospects who are a perfect fit for your business is a fundamental part of a successful sales strategy. If you talk to the right leads, you’ll close more deals and move potential customers through your sales pipeline. If you’re targeting the wrong ones, even the most persuasive sales pitch will fall flat.
Luckily, B2B data providers can help you build a qualified list of potential leads without too much effort. This guide will show you some of the ones on the market to help you in your sales prospecting efforts.
We’ll cover:
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What Is a B2B Data Provider?
B2B data providers, sometimes referred to as B2B contact databases, are what they sound like — huge databases that you can access and find qualified prospects for your sales team.
A good B2B contact database will make it easy to source ideal prospects that are a perfect fit for your business based on criteria like:
Firmographic data: Company revenue, company size, or funding amount
Demographic data: Job titles, years of experience, or location
Technographic data: Software used by a company
Once you've chosen your search criteria, the B2B contact database will give you a list of matching prospects from its extensive database and, in most cases, contact information, including an email address and direct dial.
You’ll have all of the information you need to run a final round of research on your B2B prospects and then reach out with a personalized sales campaign via a personalized cold email or cold call.
Best B2B Data Providers to Power Your Sales Efforts
Are you looking for ways that your marketing team can scale your sales and marketing efforts? We explore the 9 best B2B data providers that can help you power up your efforts in detail below.
1. ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a powerful but expensive B2B contact database and intent data provider made for fast-growing outreach teams.
ZoomInfo is arguably the most well-known contact database on the market. It lets you identify prospects and companies using over 300 advanced search filters and attributes to ensure the prospects you surface are a perfect fit, then export them into your CRM or into a spreadsheet.
On top of the database features, you can also set up notifications and track company activity. For example, if a company raises a round of funding or goes through a period of employee growth, you can be notified about it.
The company has also added various extra products to its offering, including buyer intent data, conversation intelligence tools, and even a website live chat designed to help you close more inbound leads and outreach efforts.
The main downside to ZoomInfo is that it comes with a price tag. Expect to sign onto a five-figure annual contract. It also could be overkill if you’re still in the early stages of your company or agency growth, but if you’re confident that your outbound sales processes work and will drive new business, then you’ll still likely see a return on investment in the long run.
Pricing: Custom based on your needs
Key features:
Find ideal customers using over 300 attributes
Track company activity and get updates when a significant update happens
Integrates with all major CRMs, including HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive
Chrome extension to enrich prospect profiles on LinkedIn
2. UpLead
UpLead is a B2B database with built-in email verification tools to improve your contact data accuracy.
UpLead is a more affordable B2B data platform alternative to enterprise-focused contact databases like ZoomInfo. It includes contacts from over 200 countries and lets you search for prospects with 50+ filters.
It’s easy to use, and once you’ve found relevant leads, you can export them directly into your CRM or send them into another tool using Zapier or the API.
One of the available filtering options is technographic, which means you can identify potential prospects based on the software they use, whether it’s Salesforce, Webflow, Shopify, or any other popular tool. You can then reach out with a cold email that you know will resonate and be relevant to their situation.
Like with all B2B sales leads databases, the accuracy won’t be perfect. Databases always decay at approximately 25% per year as people change jobs or switch companies. To help avoid this causing you problems, there’s an email verification tool built-in, although we’d still recommend using an external tool for this as well.
Pricing: $99 per month
Key Features:
Verified emails and direct phone numbers for millions of decision-makers
Advanced filters by demographic, firmographic, and technographic data
Built-in email verification system to reduce bounces
Integrates with most CRMs and easy data exporting
3. DemandScience Intelligence
DemandScience is a B2B data provider combining contact details with intent data to find in-market leads.
DemandScience is a B2B data platform similar to UpLead and ZoomInfo.But, as well as access to your database of contacts, you also get access to buyer intent topics.
For example, if you know your best target prospects are people who are already trying to solve a particular problem, you can use buyer intent data to see people who are researching around that topic and theme each out with a well-timed cold email.
DemandScience Intelligence also focuses on the fact that all of the data in their contact database is sourced in a GDPR-compliant way, which is a nice plus.
Just like with the other B2B data providers we’ve looked at, make sure to verify contact details before using them.
Pricing: Custom based on your needs
Key Features:
Combines B2B data with intent data to find interested prospects
Integrates with CRMs and sales tools directly or via an API
Upload existing lead lists and enrich them
4. Lead411
Lead411 is a reliable and affordable B2B contact database for building prospect lists and staying on top of prospect company updates.
Lead411 is one of the original B2B data providers on the market. It claims a 96% data accuracy and includes millions of target contacts.
The platform aggregates company updates, such as funding events, new hires, new office openings, employees being promoted, and more, which is perfect if you want to ensure you’re reaching out to customers at the perfect time.
There’s a Chrome extension that shows you accurate contact details for B2B leads when you’re prospecting on LinkedIn and company websites, which can be saved and put to use immediately.
The pricing for this B2B database provider is transparent, and you can start using it immediately without requesting a quote as you need to with lots of these sales intelligence platforms.
Pricing: Starts at $99 per month
Key Features:
Over 25 integrations with CRMs and other SaaS tools
Includes 30,000 technologies that you can use to find ideal customer profiles
Generous free trial
5. BuiltWith
BuiltWith find prospects based on the web technologies they use.
BuiltWith is the leading technographic data provider. It was built with one purpose: to help you identify comprehensive lists of prospects based on the software a company uses on its website.
It’s perfect for anyone whose business or agency runs on helping customers using a specific piece of software, such as a Salesforce consultancy or eCommerce marketing agency helping Shopify store owners. It tracks the usage of almost 60,000 different technologies and regularly adds new ones.
Some companies set up their websites to block tools like BuiltWith from crawling them, so not every good-fit prospect will surface, and the data isn’t perfect. But in most cases, it’s accurate enough to give you a starting point for further research.
It is relatively expensive but you can build large lead lists without much effort and have good confidence that your potential buyers will be well qualified and position yourself as a trusted advisor.
As well as searching by technology, you can also use the classic filters you would expect, such as company size, revenue, and more. You can then export your prospects into a spreadsheet that you can use as an email list in your next email marketing campaign.
Pricing: Starts at $295 per month
Key Features:
Find companies using one or multiple technologies on their websites
See how much prospects are spending on technology per month
CRM integrations with Zoho, Salesforce, and more
6. Lusha
Lusha is a 100M+ strong contact database and Chrome extension for prospecting across LinkedIn and company websites
Lusha is another good option. It has monthly rolling plans, which makes it ideal for anyone running lower-volume email campaigns, as you’re not locked into an expensive contract in exchange for the ability to export thousands of prospects every week.
There are powerful search filters to help you find the best leads for your business, and you’ll get verified email and phone numbers available to export into a CSV or add to your CRM.
One nice extra feature is their browser extension. As you browse LinkedIn, use Gmail, or visit prospect websites, Lusha will show you verified contact information and company records for profiles you’re reviewing with or reaching out to. It’ll reduce the chances of you engaging with the wrong persona at an organization or having outreach emails bounce.
Pricing: Starts at $29 per month, limited free plan available
Key Features:
Browser extension to view contact data on any B2B website
Build lead lists based on any criteria you choose
GDPR and CCPA-compliantly sourced data
7. DiscoverOrg
DiscoverOrg is a B2B intelligence and contact data platform made for teams running advanced outreach strategies
DiscoverOrg is a platform owned by the same parent company that runs ZoomInfo but acts as a standalone platform. It’s designed specifically for sales professionals running account-based marketing campaigns who need to see detailed org charts, showing you who reports to who in a company and what their expected roles are.
With that data, you can create a cohesive outreach plan and ensure your sales pitch has the best chance of landing in the right person’s inbox.
You’ll also get access to DiscoverOrg’s intent data which can help you determine how likely a promising prospect is to buy from you and improve the timing of your cold outreach.
The main downside to this B2B contact data platform is the pricing. You’ll need to request custom pricing from their team, but expect it to cost more than alternatives with publicly visible pricing plans like Lusha, Lead411, or UpLead.
Pricing: Custom upon request
Key features:
Detailed organizational charts to help you identify key decision-makers
Behavioral activity tracking to ensure you reach out at the best time
Set up automatic alerts to notify you of changes within target companies and accounts
8. Demandbase
Demandbase is a powerful prospecting and data platform for teams running ABM campaigns.
Demandbase (formerly InsideView) is a B2B data platform made for teams looking to source qualified leads at scale. Like most other tools in this article, you can easily filter through the lead database to find companies fitting your criteria.
The database includes 19 million companies and 100+ million people, which is one of the biggest available databases for sales purposes.
You can also track companies you’re interested in, and Demandbase offers extra services such as Total Addressable Market analysis and predictive modeling to identify companies that are likely to be a good fit based on your existing customer base.
It’s best for companies with a large sales budget running high-volume outreach programs or ABM campaigns.
Pricing: Custom based on needs
Key features:
One of the largest B2B contact database providers on the market
Track company updates, news feeds, and social insights
9. Clearbit
Clearbit is a customer intelligence platform that provides detailed information on companies.
While not specifically a ‘B2B sales lead database' like the others, Clearbit uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to provide detailed information on companies and their customer base, including demographics, online behavior, and more.
If you’re looking for companies to target, you can use this information to help you understand more about the prospect’s target audience and what stage of growth a company is in. You can then use this data and other valuable insights to determine whether it’s a good time to reach out or not.
Pricing: Custom based on needs
Key Features:
Integrates seamlessly with most applications
Up-to-date company information on 50 million company profiles and a 94% email deliverability rate
How Do I Choose a B2B Data Provider?
Most B2B data providers today rely on similar technologies to power their databases. They crawl websites, press releases, LinkedIn pages, and other public social media profiles and feeds to find and identify contact data they verify and add to their database.
In the past, some companies would request access to your email address and scrape signatures of people you’re already talking to, but most have moved away from that practice as it’s not compliant with most privacy regulations.
The main things that will influence your decision when choosing a B2B data provider will be:
Budget available for it
Amount and type of high-quality data available
Size of team using the tool
If you have a team with several sales reps who will need access daily and you’re building a sales org, then an option like ZoomInfo will be worth the investment.
On the other hand, if you’re a small team and are only testing the waters with cold outreach, then a more budget-friendly tool like Lusha or UpLead will be perfect for your needs.
Most of these tools do have a free trial available, so make sure to try them out before committing to a lengthy and potentially expensive contract.
Wrapping Up
Once you’ve created your prospect list, it’s time to reach out and have conversations with prospects.
The best way to do that? Cold email.
A personalized cold email is a direct line to a high-level decision maker’s email inbox, and if your email copy resonates with them, they’ll be happy to continue the conversation.
When you have a large list of leads and you know your prospects will be interested in your offer, you can use QuickMail to automate your outreach process and start more conversations.
All you need to do is upload your prospect list, write and personalize your outreach emails (which can be done at scale using attributes), and start your campaigns.
Your cold emails will be automatically sent to your prospects, and if they don’t reply, QuickMail can automatically send a friendly follow-up email to remind them and boost your chances of a response.
QuickMail is made for sales teams, and you can easily scale your campaigns by adding extra inboxes and teammates.
QuickMail also has native integration with MailFlow, which is a free email warm-up tool that provides deliverability reports to help you make sure your emails get delivered.
Try QuickMail with a free trial and start sending cold emails that get replies.