Stop Segmenting Like It’s 2015: Why B2B Marketers Are Still Struggling to Reach the Right Buyers

By Sonia David ANA InSites Archives

Every B2B marketer wants the same thing: to get in front of the right people with the right message at the right time. That’s the promise of segmentation: focus, relevance, and impact. But ask someone how they segment, and you’ll hear about firmographics, sales-supplied account lists, and industry filters. This gap came through loud and clear at a recent ANA B2B Data Committee meeting; many teams are still operating at the business level. There’s plenty of effort going into targeting accounts, but little clarity around whom the decision-makers, influencers, blockers, and users are or what they’re doing.

To be clear, this isn’t about broad audience segmentation for brand campaigns. It’s about what B2B marketers want: knowing and targeting buyers, i.e., who’s in the deal, what role they play, and what signals they are sending.

This challenge wouldn’t matter if buyers were predictable. But today’s B2B buyer is anything but. Thanks to technology, they are increasingly fluid and anonymous with more than 90 percent expected to use generative AI in purchasing decisions over the next 12 months.¹ “A lot of [buying] activity is happening outside of the vendor’s view,” says John Buten, principal analyst at Forrester. Compounding this, the number of stakeholders involved in B2B purchases has grown dramatically, from three to five a decade ago to an average of 13 today, and with 89 percent of purchases involving multiple departments.² These shifts make segmentation far more complex than it was ten years ago. That’s why marketers are rethinking their approach, recognizing that smarter segmentation is now essential.

Effective segmentation now requires behavioral signals, engagement patterns, and a clear view into where each contact is in the buying process. It also requires stronger execution. But getting there is tough. Some of the challenges include the following:

Sales holds valuable contact-level insights, but they rarely make their way upstream. Sometimes they live in private offline notes or disconnected in a CRM.
Data is inconsistent, and marketing tools don’t talk to each other or rely on outdated or incomplete records.
Personalization is expected, but the inputs that fuel it are scattered or missing across platforms.

Even when the data is available, it’s often not connected in a way that lets you act on it. Campaigns go out, but they reach generic audiences instead of high-priority buyer groups. The intent is there but the infrastructure isn’t.

How to Go Deeper Without Boiling the Ocean

If you want segmentation that supports growth, ask yourself this question: Are we segmenting for action or for optics? Then, consider these moves:

Build dynamic segments. Base your segmentation on what people are doing now, not just whom they are on paper. Prioritize recency (who’s active?), engagement (who’s moving with urgency?), and content interaction (what are they clicking on?).
Understand the full buying group. Go beyond the one title that matches your persona deck. Think about users, influencers, IT, procurement, and others who shape the decision throughout the long-cycle sales process.
Get your definitions aligned across teams. If sales, marketing, and ops don’t agree on what qualifies as a lead or a priority segment, nothing else will work cleanly downstream. Period.
Segment to measure performance. Segmentation should also help you learn what’s working. Which segments are converting? Which are stalling out?

One Step You Can Take Today

Misaligned segmentation is a go-to-market problem that starts with data as the first step. Start with the firmographic and client segmentation and buyer groups guidance in the ANA B2B Data and Analytics Playbook. Then set up a working session with your sales or ops counterpart and ask: “Can we define a segment based on what people actually do and not just on who they are?”

That single shift can expose cracks in your approach and give you a path to fix them.

To learn more, download Using Data to Supercharge B2B Marketing: An ANA B2B Data and Analytics Playbook.

For a deeper dive, join us at the ANA Masters of Data Conference and attend the in-person B2B Data Excellence Lab focused on applying segmentation insights to real marketing strategies.

Sources:

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.

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Sonia David

Sonia David is Vice President of the B2B Marketing Practice at the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), where she oversees key initiatives such as the annual Masters of B2B Marketing Conference and drives content strategy and community engagement for B…