Account-Based Enrichment: Build Deep Profiles for Target Accounts

Gartner research found that reaching 70% or more of the decision-makers in a target account increases win rates by 38%. That's not a small edge but the difference between a program that works and one that doesn't.

The problem is that most ABM teams can't reach 70% of decision-makers because they don't know who they are. They have a company name, maybe some basic firmographic data, and a list of contacts that's incomplete at best. Account-based enrichment is how you close that gap, turning sparse account records into the kind of deep profiles that actually support precision selling.

This isn't about adding a few extra fields to your CRM. It's about building complete account intelligence: who works there, what they care about, what technology they use, what signals indicate they're ready to buy, and who you actually need to convince to close the deal.

What Account-Based Enrichment Is About 

Account-based enrichment is the process of systematically adding data to your target account records to create complete profiles that support ABM execution. But unlike generic data enrichment, which might add a phone number here or a job title there, account-based enrichment is strategic. It's designed to answer specific questions about each account that determine how (and whether) you should pursue them.

The core questions enrichment should answer:

Who is this company, really? Beyond the basics of industry and employee count, what's their actual business model? Where are they in their growth trajectory? Are they expanding or contracting? What do they prioritize?

What technology do they use? If you sell software, knowing their existing stack changes everything about your positioning. Are they already using a competitor? Do they have the infrastructure your solution requires?

Who makes buying decisions there? This is where most enrichment efforts fail. A list of names and titles isn't a buying committee map. You need to understand who influences decisions, who controls budget, who can say no and kill the deal.

Are they ready to buy? All the profile data in the world doesn't matter if the account isn't in-market. Intent signals tell you whether now is the right time to invest resources.

Good account profiling answers all of these questions for every account in your target list. Without it, ABM becomes expensive guessing.

The Layers of Account Intelligence

Building a deep account profile requires multiple types of data, each serving a different purpose in your ABM strategy.

Firmographic Foundation

This is where most teams start and where many teams stop. Firmographics give you the basic company attributes: industry, employee count, revenue range, headquarters location, company structure.

These data points determine baseline fit. A company in the wrong industry or wrong size range probably isn't worth pursuing regardless of other signals. Firmographics are the first filter.

But firmographics alone are thin. They tell you the company could theoretically buy your product. They don't tell you they should, or that they're ready to.

Technographic Context

Technographic data reveals what technology an account already uses. This matters enormously for positioning and prioritization.

If a target account uses a competitor's product, you're running a displacement play. That requires different messaging, longer timelines, and specific objection handling. If they have no solution in your category, you're educating them about the problem—also a different conversation. If they use complementary technology that integrates with yours, that's an accelerator.

Technographics also reveal technical sophistication. A company using modern tools and staying current with their stack is a different buyer than one running legacy systems they're afraid to touch.

The Buying Committee

This is where target account research gets serious. The average B2B purchase involves 6-10 decision-makers. That's not a stat to acknowledge and ignore, it's the central challenge of ABM.

Mapping the buying committee means identifying:

• The economic buyer who controls budget
• Technical evaluators who assess fit and capability
• End users whose buy-in determines adoption
• Champions who advocate internally for your solution
• Potential blockers who might derail the deal

A name and title aren't enough. You need verified contact information - email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles. You need to understand their role in the decision process. And you need this for multiple people, not just the one contact who filled out a form.

Research shows that ABM campaigns engaging buying committees perform 35% better than those targeting individuals. The whole point of ABM is treating accounts as markets of one. That means reaching the whole market, not just whoever happened to respond first.

Intent and Timing Signals

The best account profile doesn't help if the account isn't ready to buy. Intent data tells you which accounts are actively researching solutions like yours right now.

Intent signals come from multiple sources: what topics they're researching online, what content they're engaging with, hiring patterns that suggest they're building out a function your product supports, funding events that create budget for new initiatives.

Layering intent on top of fit data lets you tier your accounts dynamically. A high-fit account showing no intent might be worth nurturing over time. A high-fit account with strong intent signals should get immediate, high-touch attention.

How to Actually Build Deep Account Profiles

Understanding what data you need is one thing. Getting it at scale is another. Here's how the process actually works.

Start With Your Target Account List

Before enrichment, you need a list worth enriching. This comes from your ICP criteria - the firmographic, technographic, and behavioral attributes that define your best customers.

Most teams build target account lists using a combination of CRM data (existing customers and prospects), sales input (accounts reps have identified), and market research (companies matching ICP criteria). The initial list might be rough, company names and domains, maybe basic firmographics.

That's fine. The list is a starting point, not a finished product.

Layer in Firmographic and Technographic Data

The first enrichment pass fills in company-level attributes. For each account on your list, you want complete firmographic profiles and technographic intelligence.

This is where multi-provider enrichment becomes important. No single data source covers every company comprehensively. A waterfall approach, trying multiple providers sequentially until you get a match, maximizes coverage.

Platforms like Databar aggregate 90+ data providers through a single interface, letting you run enrichment across multiple sources without managing separate subscriptions. You configure your enrichment workflow once and the platform handles provider orchestration and data normalization.

After this pass, you should have complete company profiles for your target accounts. This is the foundation everything else builds on.

Map Buying Committees

Contact enrichment for ABM isn't about getting one contact per account. It's about building out the buying committee - identifying multiple stakeholders across different functions and levels.

Start with title-based searches. For each account, you're looking for: executive sponsors (VP and C-level), technical decision-makers (IT, engineering, ops), departmental leaders (whoever manages the function your product supports), and potential end users.

Then enrich those contacts with verified email addresses, direct phone numbers, and LinkedIn URLs. Verification matters here, bad data means wasted outreach.

This is labor-intensive work at scale. Automation helps. Platforms that combine contact discovery with verification can build out buying committees systematically rather than requiring manual research for each account.

Add Intent Signals

Intent data usually comes from specialized providers, companies like Bombora, 6sense, or G2 that track research behavior across the web. These signals get layered onto your enriched accounts to indicate current buying interest.

Intent enrichment isn't a one-time activity. Signals change constantly. An account that showed no intent last month might be surging with research activity today. Regular refresh of intent data keeps your prioritization current.

Synthesize Into Actionable Profiles

Raw data isn't useful until it's organized into something actionable. The end state of account-based enrichment should be complete account profiles that sales and marketing can actually use.

This means the data needs to flow into your CRM, organized in a way that supports your processes. Account-level fields for firmographics and technographics. Contact records linked to accounts with role designations. Custom fields for intent scores and signals.

The goal is that when a rep opens an account record, they see everything they need: who the company is, what they use, who to talk to, and why now might be the right time.

Common Mistakes in Account Profiling

Stopping at firmographics. Basic company data is table stakes. It's not a profile. If all you know about an account is their industry and size, you're not doing ABM, you're doing targeted demand gen with a smaller list.

Single-contact focus. One contact per account isn't a buying committee. B2B purchases involve multiple stakeholders. Enriching only the person who filled out a form leaves you vulnerable to single-threaded deals that stall when your champion goes dark.

Static enrichment. Data decays. People change jobs. Companies evolve. Intent signals shift. Enriching accounts once and never refreshing means working with increasingly stale intelligence. Build refresh workflows that keep profiles current.

Ignoring intent timing. Perfect-fit accounts that aren't in-market are nurture candidates, not immediate targets. Pursuing them with high-intensity outreach wastes resources and irritates prospects. Use intent to tier and time your engagement.

Fragmenting data across tools. Enriched data only creates value when it's accessible where people work. If firmographics live in one system, contacts in another, and intent signals in a third, the synthesis never happens. Integrate everything into your CRM.

Measuring Account-Based Enrichment Success

The value of enrichment shows up in ABM execution metrics, not enrichment metrics. A high "percentage of records enriched" doesn't matter if campaigns aren't performing better.

Track buying committee coverage. What percentage of your target accounts have multiple contacts identified and enriched? The benchmark should be 5-10 contacts per account, covering different roles.

Track account engagement. Are enriched accounts engaging more deeply across more stakeholders? Better data should translate to better targeting, which should translate to broader engagement.

Track deal velocity. Enriched accounts with complete buying committee maps should move through pipeline faster because you're engaging the right people from the start instead of discovering stakeholders mid-deal.

Track win rates. The ultimate test: are you winning more deals with accounts where you have deep profiles? If enrichment is working, the answer should be yes.

FAQ

What is account-based enrichment?

Account-based enrichment is the systematic process of adding data to target account records to build complete profiles that support ABM execution. It goes beyond basic contact enrichment to include firmographic data, technographic intelligence, buying committee mapping, and intent signals. The goal is creating account profiles comprehensive enough to treat each account as its own market.

How is account-based enrichment different from regular data enrichment?

Regular data enrichment typically adds individual fields to records - filling in a missing phone number or updating a job title. Account-based enrichment is strategic and comprehensive, designed to answer specific questions about target accounts: What's their business context? What technology do they use? Who's involved in buying decisions? Are they ready to buy? It's building complete account intelligence, not just patching data gaps.

What data should I prioritize for target account profiles?

Start with firmographics to confirm basic fit, then add technographics to understand their technology context. The highest-value enrichment is buying committee mapping - identifying multiple stakeholders per account with verified contact information. Layer intent signals to understand timing and readiness. Most programs under-invest in buying committee enrichment, which is exactly the data that drives ABM success.

How many contacts should I have per target account?

For effective ABM, aim for 5-10 contacts per account spanning different roles in the buying process: executive sponsors, technical evaluators, departmental leaders, and potential end users. Research shows that engaging 70%+ of decision-makers increases win rates by 38%. Single-contact accounts leave you vulnerable to deals that stall when that one person becomes unavailable.

How does Databar help with account-based enrichment?

Databar aggregates 90+ data providers through a single platform, enabling waterfall enrichment that maximizes coverage across firmographics, technographics, and contact data. Instead of managing multiple subscriptions and integrations, you configure enrichment workflows once and the platform handles provider orchestration, data normalization, and CRM synchronization. This approach typically achieves higher match rates than any single provider while reducing the operational complexity of multi-source enrichment.