Clearbit launches X platform, marrying CRM to its firmographic data

San Francisco-based Clearbit provides firmographic data for B2B sales on about 22 million companies, primarily in the U.S.

Those B2B records are made available to firms looking to pitch sales, such as an office furniture seller trying to find which businesses have recently opened new branches. Its data is used to enhance business account profiles, find prospects and discover which companies are represented by website visitors.

As of Tuesday, Clearbit is adding to its repertoire with the release of Clearbit X, a platform that lets businesses layer their own customer relationship management (CRM) data on top of Clearbit’s data in order create enhanced and customized account profiles.

The X platform is integrated with a firm’s Salesforce CRM, allowing the firm’s customer and lead data to flow into Clearbit and thus create enhanced profiles. Audience segments can then be exported for Google ad targeting, Facebook ad targeting and other uses.

Additionally, a firm’s site can add a Clearbit JavaScript tag to help reveal the companies represented by its visitors, via a reverse IP lookup. A firm that sold office furniture might discover, for instance, that a company recently opened several new offices, has visited its site – and, now, that it is not currently a customer.

Through Clearbit’s integration with several marketing tools – including Slack, Salesforce, Facebook Custom Audiences, email platforms and Google – the resulting segments can help target prospects or existing customers. Updates to the CRM are made in realtime to Clearbit’s records, and a company’s CRM data is used only by that company.

Previously, CMO Matt Sornson told ClickZ, Business A might target businesses in the Clearbit records, but it wouldn’t be able to easily exclude those businesses who were already customers.

In its announcement, Clearbit cited collaborative workflow platform Frame.io, which says that the X platform helped its Facebook ad match rates go from 15 percent to 50 percent.