B2B Opps: Demandbase taps new CMO among slew of hires (Score 71)

Sales Lead: Effective September 2023, Kelly Hopping became the CMO at Demandbase.

• Hopping hopped over from HYCU, where she was the first CMO and helped guide pipeline growth of +40% YOY, marketing contribution to pipeline +25% YOY, a 4x hot lead conversion rate increase, a reduction of 36% in cost per opportunity, and much more.
• At Demandbase, Hopping succeeds Jon Miller, who will continue providing the company with industry expertise and thought leadership as its chief evangelist.
  • Miller joined Demandbase in June 2020 and became its CMO in January 2021.
• The company will likely:
  • Implement strategy shifts
  • Return to higher spend
  • Pursue new acquisitions and strategic partnerships
  • Launch new products and potentially campaigns for them
  • Seek new agency partners, especially considering other recent appointments (more below)
• Target demographic: 
  • Business DMs

​​​​​​​Additional recent leadership shifts:

• Demandbase named Michael Wilczak as its chief strategy and development officer to handle strategy, acquisitions, new product development, and strategic partnerships.
  • ​​​​​​​He was most recently the head of iCIMS's partners and alliances.
• ​​​​​​​Demandbase also recently hired integrated marketing director (May 2023) and senior advertising and agencies director Jenifer Metz (June 2023).​​​​​​​​

Additional spending insights:

• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, Demandbase has spent approximately $36.1k on digital ads, down 32% from the approximately $53.2k spent by this point in 2022.
  • YTD data: The company has earned ~7.1m digital impressions YTD via desktop display ads placed largely site direct onto destinations such as yahoo.com (26%), nola.com, myfitnesspal.com, espn.com, and zillow.com.
  • Last year: In 2022, Demandbase spent roughly $69.7k on this channel, less than half of the roughly $174.6k spent in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • The company utilizes Google Ads along with digital and online video (via Youtube.com) ads.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Get in touch soon to see if Hopping's appointment leads to agency reviews, especially considering the additional hire of aforementioned senior director Metz.
• Current agency roster:
  • April Six​​​​​​​: Creative and digital agency partner

Insight Sources: Digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix.