I keep seeing negative LinkedIn posts about 6sense. They have some good points. It's expensive, complex, black box, and has been oversold. Shelling out $100K for an "ABM platform" does not mean you get to skip having an ABM strategy. Plus there's the whole Adam Robinson cease and desist thing. But have you heard their numbers? 6sense is doing >$225M ARR, growing at ~40%. Their management team is smart. They've built a CMO community, they understand GTM, and they've been in the game a long time. Many customers will go to bat for them. So how can the LinkedIn feed be so negative, but the numbers be so positive? I see 3 things happening. 1.) Unbundling ABM. The "ABM platform" promise is too broad. Early adopters use 6sense as an intent provider, but don't value the 27 other modules. They're moving to a modern ABM stack. Keyplay for ICP modeling. Common Room, Pocus for intent signal aggregation. RB2B, Koala for visitor ID. Metadata for ads. Clay for outbound orchestration. 6sense is still a piece, but not the whole answer. This is especially true in mid-market. 2.) The shine is off “Intent” data. Works great for some, but it's not a panacea. Topic-based searches are a smart way to generalize the concept, but are not always a true signal of buyer intent. Sometimes the topic searches are nonsense. Sometimes you need something more specific. And it's never a shortcut for having an ICP program. 3.) Sales people are skeptical ABM platforms are usually sold into marketing, but at some point you need sales to adopt. 6sense has mixed reviews from sellers. There are fans. You don't get to $200M+ without many successes. But a lot of sales teams are questioning the utility. And if the reps don't use it, can the business case hold up? I'm impressed by how 6sense survived and thrived while many others consolidated away in the last decade of mar-tech. I expect their success in the enterprise to continue. But for the mid-market and early adopters, I think there's a new wave coming to ABM. I'm betting Keyplay on that trend. And I think more and more CMOs are starting to see that ABM Platform ≠ ICP Marketing. Where do you see this going? #b2b #marketing #ABM #ICP
Jeff Reekers
3mo
I've seen some of those posts you are referencing, and I generally don't connect with the marketing approach of tearing down someone else to build up one's brand (genuine commentary on pros / cons is fine, but at least what I've seen has seemed to be more of a marketing tactic than anything) From what I know of 6Sense, their leadership team is world-class, their growth is iconic, and every single person I've met there over the years has been just incredible from a human and talent standpoint. To the points you list. Certainly as you build a category and grow a company to the scale they have, you have to make choices and zone in on pockets of the market more than others. New entrants can capitalize on that without the whole teardown thing in my opinion, which isn't a great brand look for long. Better use of time is probably learning from their journey and successes over anything else 🤷♂️
Steve Patti
3mo
Adam Schoenfeld I think you are onto something here as we saw a clear specialization of MarTech back in 2016 when ABM began to take off. With the exception of Demandbase, there seemed to be clearly established swim lanes regarding tools in the ABM stack: > IP-targeted ad platforms (DemandBase, Terminus, Vendemore, etc.) > IP-triggered website personalization (DemandBase, Triblio, Evergage, Get Smart Content, etc.) > Reporting/Mgmt (Lean Data, Engagio, Integrate, etc.) > Predictive Analytics (Lattice Engines, Mintigo, Leadspace, Bright Funnel, etc.) > Intent data / augmentation (6sense, etc.) But then, they all began rushing toward the middle by trying to become the "all-in-one" ABM stack and it all became very confusing, expensive, and complex. I'm sure VC pressure to grow faster was driving a lot of it -- rather than what ICPs actually wanted. Then there was the operationalization challenges of trying to personalize content to multiple personas and vertical industries -- which no Marketing team could ever do efficiently. Here's an even bigger problem with ABM -- Marketing departments were adopting it from 2016-2020 due to FOMO without their Sales organization first adopting an account-based selling strategy. 😂
Steve Gershik
3mo
I was just at a conference in Japan, Adam, and heard Randi Barshack, formerly of Rollworks, put it as succinctly as I have heard: "ABM is not something you buy. It is something you do." We marketers rush to buy technology because many vendors are great at telling stories that we want to believe. It's tempting to open our wallets before we open our minds to do the hard work of strategy and alignment that needs to come first.
Christopher Rack
3mo
Two big issues. Outside of the pixel they place on the customer website, there isn’t much more “Intent” coming to table for the 6 figure platform price tag. The features are nice for sellers to be able to identify “intent” accounts, the display platform is sufficient - but the reason it’s so black box is because the bulk of any quality comes from the client website. Remove that and your targeting vague bidtream website signals, and some technographic data they picked up via acquisition awhile back.
6sense is growing simply because: - Buyers are uneducated. And the category/concept is extremely intriguing. Sounds like a quick fix - and that’s what buyers want. They don’t want to have to nurture, generate demand, create a brand, etc. all too hard - and 6sense owns the Intent category - well done on mktg. Unfortunately: - 6sense did NOT do well in product. They never worried about success or ROI. Leave that to the sales and mktg team ;( and worse, data is just simply inaccurate!!! It sends resources and activities goose chasing. Solution: There are so many other less expensive options for reverse IP on web visitors! And outbound motions on surged companies does NOT work (because we don’t know who at the company, they don’t know YOUR brand, or worse the data is just wrong) 😑 Definitely never reco 6sense to our clients
I like the term ICP marketing. I think many marketers confuse ABM with ICP marketing. Doing ABM to a cold audience is something very few companies actually need.
Scott Martinis
3mo
The new category is basically going to be signal based prospecting that puts signals + AI enablement around those signals in the hands of the rep ZoomInfo , Common Room , Pocus , UserGems 💎 are all in this seat right now
Jesus Requena
3mo
Well said. ABM tools are very impactful if you have a “strategy”. Defined ICP, right playbooks and a well oiled account-to-cash orchestration alignment between Mkt and sales (where everyone fails). If you don’t have that the tool will do little, under-deliver. Problem is you need some maturity for that to work, that’s why other sales tools are getting the spotlight, they are more tactical, deliver immediate shorter term effects.
Adam Silverman
3mo
Sellers are very skeptical. Signals, especially for large enterprise accounts, are not as accurate as smaller orgs...meaning large orgs might always look like they in market. This erodes trust with the revenue team, and is the biggest challenge IMO to moving upmarket.
CEO at Keyplay.io | Analyst at PeerSignal.org
3moSome of the posts I've seen. Comment if any I'm missing? Scott Martinis says "6Sense is sinking" https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7225298378677501952/ Adam Robinson's ongoing "shitposting" campaign, complete with cease and desist: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/retentionadam_cease-and-desist-activity-7188637237247459331-KOse?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop Joey Gilkey calls it the "biggest smoke and mirrors in GTM" : https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joeygilkey_the-biggest-smoke-and-mirrors-in-gtm-is-intent-activity-7224821217571057666-g1h3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop