Choosing the Right Tools for CROs:
What Drives Success and What Holds You Back

As a CRO, your job isn’t just about having a good product or sales team—it’s about timing. Success often depends on knowing when a potential buyer is ready to make a decision. But how do you figure that out? How do you spot the signs that someone is ready to buy? And even if you do recognize those signals, are your tools helping you take advantage of them?

It’s a common challenge for CROs. You know the importance of acting early, before your competitors. But even with all the data and tools available, are you getting clear answers? Can you really pinpoint the right moment to step in? Are you reaching the right people within a company who are doing the research? And are your tools actually helping you take action when it matters most, or are they just adding more steps to the process?

These are the questions you need to consider. Because if your tools aren’t helping you act quickly and effectively, you could be missing out on key opportunities to grow your business.

The Promise of ABM Tools

Tools like 6Sense and Demandbase have revolutionized account-based marketing (ABM) by incorporating intent data systems. These tools allow marketers to push ads to companies likely to be entering a buying window, based on specific intent signals. On paper, it sounds perfect. By serving up ads like a “surround sound,” they help you hit the right companies without breaking the bank on out-of-control ad spend. But as many CROs have discovered, there's still a crucial missing piece to this puzzle: the ability to identify the actual individuals in the company who are actively researching.

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Take, for example, the experience of a Head of Business Development at a prominent enterprise law firm: “Bombora lists were fine, but they weren’t great for us, necessarily. You start to dig through quite a bit. We’d need to buy 20 different signals and then pair them together and create a kind of ‘super signal’ which sometimes worked but still had a lot of noise.”

Despite the advances of these ABM tools, it often feels like the process still leaves CROs in the dark, requiring them to wade through countless signals and hope they strike the right chord.

The Passive Nature of Intent Signals

While ABM systems are effective at delivering ads to your target audience, they’re still passive. You’re essentially waiting for your potential buyer to raise their hand, hoping the ad catches them at the right time and place. But as one experienced marketer noted, even sophisticated tools like 6Sense have their limitations:

“6Sense is fabulous in certain ways, and their ideas are great. It’s just that the tech doesn’t work. When I started up their programmatic advertising, it did go well. It was all the other stuff of me having to dig through the signals to parse things out, that just didn’t work well for us.”

So even when CROs use cutting-edge tools, they’re often stuck doing the heavy lifting, manually sifting through signals in the hope of finding the right match. It’s a frustrating process that can leave your sales team in a holding pattern, waiting for the magic moment when the buyer decides to take action.

What Holds You Back

The main challenge often comes down to the limitations of the tools themselves. Many account-based marketing (ABM) platforms, while helpful in some ways, still fall short when it comes to delivering the most crucial information. They may give you a general idea of which companies are showing interest, but that’s not enough to drive results. Here’s why these tools might be holding you back:
  1. Broad focus instead of targeted insights. Most ABM solutions deliver intent data at the company level, meaning you know which companies might be interested in your product. But what you really need to know is who within those companies is doing the research and considering a purchase. Without that key piece of information, your sales team is left chasing vague leads.
  2. Lack of precision. Even when the data points to a company in a buying window, it doesn’t tell you who the decision-makers are. Are you targeting the right people, or are you wasting time on individuals who have little influence over purchasing decisions?
  3. Incomplete information. The data provided is often fragmented, leaving your team to fill in the gaps. You may know that a company has shown interest, but the specifics—like what exactly they’re looking for and who is involved in the decision—remain unclear. This can cause your sales approach to be off-target.
  4. Missed opportunities. Because you don’t know exactly who within a company is driving the decision, you might miss your chance to engage the right people at the right time. By the time you identify them, your competition could already be ahead.
  5. Increased complexity. Instead of simplifying your process, these tools can often add more layers of complexity. Sales teams are left piecing together multiple signals and insights, trying to create a clear picture from incomplete data.
Knowing that a company is interested is useful, but without clear insights into who’s driving the purchase, your efforts may fall flat. To truly capitalize on opportunities, you need more than just broad signals—you need precise information about the key players who are making the decisions.

Conclusion: Time to Rethink Your Approach?

As a CRO, the tools you use are essential to your success. But even the most advanced ones, like 6Sense and Demandbase, have limits. They may tell you which companies might be interested in your product, but is that really enough? Are these tools helping you succeed, or are they holding you back?

Success in sales isn’t just about getting your ads in front of companies. It’s about finding the right people at the right time. Knowing that a company might be in a buying window is helpful, but what really matters is knowing who in the company is making the decision. Without that information, you’re guessing.

To get ahead, you need to do more than wait for interest to appear. You need to find the decision-makers, connect with them directly, and act before your competition does. When you focus on the right people, you can take control of the sales process and improve your chances of success. It’s time to rethink how you use these tools. Instead of just looking for companies, look for tools that help you identify and reach the key people behind the decisions. This way, you can stay ahead of the competition and increase your chances of closing deals.

‍Interested in more?  Download our e-book now to explore more ways to elevate your CRO strategies and choose the right tools for your business.  
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