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Predictive Analytics Is the Future of B2B Marketing

Enterprises want to use data science and machine learning to increase their marketing ROI. One new player is a predictive account-based marketing company called Prophyts.

• By Lindsay Stares
• June 20, 2017

The use of predictive models is increasing across many sectors. We've seen it in finance with new ways to detect credit risk and fraud. Online marketing has been embracing predictive models, hoping to target individual customers by analyzing customer behavior. It's not surprising that business-to-business (B2B) marketing is embracing predictive technologies as well.

In fact, market watcher Gartner has predicted that services that facilitate B2B predictive analytics will experience significant double digit growth over the next few years. Companies want to use data science and machine learning to identify their markets and leads more easily and increase their marketing ROI, but it's often not feasible to do that advanced analytics in-house.

One service seeking to take advantage of this growing market is a new predictive account-based marketing (ABM) company called Prophyts from 1105 Media, Inc. (full disclosure: 1105 Media is the parent of TDWI and Upside). The subscription-based service enables enterprises to reach potential buyers early in their purchasing journey, even before "they raise their hand as a traditional lead," the company said in a statement.

Prophyts' predictive ABM platform is powered by a machine learning algorithm that sifts through billions of monthly Web page views and the reading activity of millions of potential buyers. The algorithm uses this data to predict which companies are likely to make a purchase soon in a particular sector. Prophyts then provides clients who offer products in that target sector with the contact information of company representatives who are likely to be involved in a purchasing decision.

The information Prophyts provides "is the foundation of an ABM strategy; it brings predictability to marketing programs and enables marketers to make strategic content and ad placement decisions," the company noted.

Rajeev Kapur, CEO of 1105 Media, explained that after listening to customers, it became clear "that our customers wanted an easier and more effective way to identify in-market buyers early in the process. That is what Prophyts is all about; we evolved traditional ABM from one that is manual to one that is predictive."

This aligns with the trend across industries -- more processes are moving from manual to predictive as models and algorithms improve. Whether it's modeling corporate purchases, healthcare outcomes, or industrial machine failure rates, predictive analytics is continuing to change the trajectory of today's enterprises.