Bombora
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Overall Rating: 4.2/5 (Mid-Tier)
Bombora dominates the B2B intent data space but represents just one piece of a complete programmatic strategy. It’s the difference between fishing with a net versus fishing with sonar. You’ll catch more of the right fish, but you still need to know how to fish.
For B2B-focused agencies, Bombora belongs in every campaign where budget allows. For mixed portfolios, it’s most valuable on higher-value accounts where improved lead quality justifies the data costs. Don’t expect it to fix fundamental targeting or creative issues, but it will amplify what’s already working.
Pricing ($$$$)
Data costs typically add 25-50% to your base CPM, depending on activation method and volume commitments. A $6 CPM buy becomes $8-9 CPM with Bombora layered in. That premium hurts performance campaigns with tight CPA targets.
The economics work for high-value B2B sales where a single qualified lead might be worth $500-5,000. A marketing automation client paying $50K annually for Bombora data that generates five additional enterprise deals has made a smart investment. An SMB-focused agency with $2K monthly budget might struggle to justify the expense.
Volume discounts kick in around $10K monthly spend, and annual commitments can reduce costs 15-25%. But you’re still paying premium pricing for premium data.
Data Quality (4.5/5)
Bombora’s intent signals have consistently outperformed traditional firmographic targeting in our campaigns. Last quarter, we ran parallel tests across eight B2B clients, and Bombora-targeted segments delivered 34% higher engagement rates and 52% more qualified leads. The data accuracy comes from their cooperative network of over 4,000 B2B websites tracking content consumption patterns.
What sets them apart is the weekly refresh cycle. Most intent providers update monthly or quarterly, which might as well be ancient history in today’s buying cycles. When Bombora flags a surge at a Fortune 500 account, that intelligence is usually 3-5 days old, not 3-5 weeks. We’ve traced numerous wins back to catching prospects in their early research phase, sometimes weeks before competitors even knew these accounts were in-market.
The false positive rate sits around 8-12% in our experience, mostly from individual research that doesn’t reflect genuine buying committee activity. But their multi-source validation has improved significantly over the past year. The algorithm now requires multiple signals across different content types before triggering a surge alert.
Integration (4.6/5)
Integration complexity ranges from plug-and-play to moderately technical, depending on your stack. DSP activations through LiveRamp or The Trade Desk take minutes. CRM integrations require more coordination, but Bombora’s technical team handles most of the heavy lifting.
We’ve connected Bombora data to everything from Salesforce to HubSpot to custom-built client dashboards. The API documentation is thorough, response times are solid (usually under 200ms), and they support both real-time and batch data transfers. Their partnership with Adobe Experience Platform has been particularly valuable for enterprise clients running sophisticated attribution models.
The standout feature is cross-platform consistency. Whether you’re pulling intent scores via API or activating pre-built segments in DV360, the data stays synchronized. No version control nightmares or conflicting audience definitions between platforms.
Scalability (4.2/5)
Coverage spans 15 million+ companies globally across 5,000 intent topics, but depth varies significantly by vertical and geography. Enterprise software, financial services, and healthcare show a strong signal volume. Manufacturing and niche B2B sectors can be hit-or-miss, especially outside North America and Western Europe.
We’ve scaled Bombora across simultaneous campaigns for 40+ clients without data degradation, though surge volume fluctuates seasonally. Q4 intent activity typically doubles compared to summer months. The platform handles large-scale activations well. We’ve pushed 500K+ monthly impressions through single intent segments without performance issues.
Campaign performance metrics tell the real story: 2.3x higher CTR, 1.8x better conversion rates, and 28% shorter sales cycles on average. But these numbers assume you’re targeting mid-market to enterprise accounts. SMB-focused campaigns see more modest improvements because smaller companies generate fewer detectable intent signals.
Compliance (4.7/5)
Bombora’s privacy model is built around company-level aggregation, which sidesteps most individual tracking concerns. They collect anonymous behavioral signals and cluster them by organization rather than person. When someone at Microsoft researches “customer data platforms,” the intent signal attaches to Microsoft, not to the individual researcher.
Their data processing agreements cover GDPR, CCPA, and most international privacy frameworks. The co-op model includes explicit consent from participating websites, and they maintain detailed data lineage documentation for compliance audits. We’ve never encountered issues during client privacy reviews, even with highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services.
The transparency around data sources is refreshing in an industry full of black boxes. Bombora publishes their publisher network, explains their surge detection methodology, and provides opt-out mechanisms for companies that don’t want to appear in intent data.
ROI & (3.7/5)
Bombora’s value becomes obvious in sales pipeline metrics, less obvious in short-term campaign performance. We tracked one client’s results over 18 months: accounts targeted with intent data were 3.2x more likely to progress from MQL to SQL, and closed deals were 40% larger on average.
The attribution challenge is real. Intent-influenced deals often involve 8-12 touchpoints across 4-6 months. Bombora might identify the account in month one, but the deal closes in month six after multiple nurture campaigns, sales calls, and content interactions. First-touch attribution gives Bombora full credit; last-touch gives it none. Neither tells the complete story.
Pricing transparency is solid: $1.50-$4.00 CPM for programmatic activation, or $2K-$15K monthly for direct data access, depending on company count and feature set. No hidden usage fees or surprise overage charges. They’ll run lift studies to measure incrementality, though results vary based on your existing targeting sophistication.
Customer Support (4.0/5)
Support quality varies by account size, as expected. Enterprise clients get dedicated customer success managers who understand programmatic nuances. Mid-market accounts receive solid technical support but less strategic guidance.
Response times average 4-6 hours for technical issues, same-day for account management questions. The support team can actually explain intent data methodology instead of deflecting to documentation. They’ve helped us troubleshoot integration issues, interpret unusual surge patterns, and design custom reporting dashboards.
The self-service resources are comprehensive: detailed knowledge base, video tutorials, and regular webinars covering advanced use cases. For agencies managing multiple clients, the support model scales well without requiring constant hand-holding.
Innovation (4.0/5)
Bombora pioneered the B2B intent category but hasn’t dramatically reinvented it recently. Their core surge detection algorithm has evolved from basic keyword tracking to sophisticated natural language processing that identifies topical relevance even when specific terms aren’t mentioned.
Recent enhancements include Audience Verification (confirming your ads reached the intended surge accounts) and Intent Insights (showing which specific content pieces triggered surge activity). These are useful incremental improvements rather than breakthrough innovations.
The AI development seems focused on data quality improvements: better noise filtering, more accurate topic classification, and predictive scoring that estimates surge likelihood before it peaks. Not groundbreaking, but steady progress that makes campaigns more effective quarter over quarter.
Reviews
“The most fantastic thing about using this software is that you can integrate and collaborate all your data with all your company’s systems and servers to take quicker actions and follow-ups on every inquiry.”
“One of the most innovative lead generation tools for B2B.”
“Bombora Company Surge is straightforward and easy to use. I came in with no prior experience and was quickly able to master the tool. It provides us a ton of benefits.”
“ If you are trying to focus on specific industries and company sizes the Bombora database is really bad. I have to spend significant time cleaning up the data before being able to use it.”
“What I would love to see is for the reports more user-friendly. Currently, they come in an Excel format which is fine, but it’d be amazing if there was a very seamless interface so that the sheets became redundant.”
“Comprehensive Intent has increased our SQL to MQL conversions significantly for Q2!”
“Attempting to get the history of surge activity is still a bit clunky.”
“Bombora has a lot of keyword coverage in our rather niche industry which has been a challenge using other intent data providers.”