Technographic Data
What is Technographic Data?
Technographic data is information collected and analyzed about the technology and digital behavior of individuals or organizations. It includes details such as the devices used, software preferences, online activities, and technology adoption patterns. Technographic data helps businesses understand their target audience’s technological needs and preferences, enabling them to tailor their products, services, and marketing strategies accordingly.
Technographic Data Explained
Technographic data examples
Here are the core data attributes for technographic data:
- The technologies being used (such as accounting software, web design software, hardware like monitors and laptops)
- How the organization is using these technologies
- When the organization acquired these technologies
A company’s technology stack offers a unique look into the organization. It can reveal exactly what the organization is willing to spend money on, their level of technical know-how, and when they might be looking to invest in new technological help and martech solutions.
Technographic details provide you with this information, which you can then leverage for purposes like ABM and market segmentation.
What are the sources of technographic data?
Different collection methods are used depending on the source, and the quality of technographic data tends to be linked to how it was collected. In general, you’ll want to ensure you’re working with technographic companies and B2B database providers which use a range of sources and collection methods.
How is technographic data collected?
Each collection method has its pros and cons, but the overarching issue faced by companies is that technographic information is often not readily available, making it difficult to collect in the first place. Thus, collecting the data can be very time-consuming and resource-demanding for a company. For this reason, company managers are turning instead to data providers for their technographic software
Besides the saved time and effort, there are further benefits to buying technographic data from a data provider.
Firstly, you can rely on a technographics company to have a high level of experience and knowledge of the market. This way, you know that you’ll be using high-quality data that’s been carefully collected from a wide range of sources.
The second extra benefit is that third-party vendors often provide access to analytical software that you can integrate directly with your current business technologies. This enables you to feed real-time data into your decision-making processes and perhaps enrich other existing data sets you might have for optimum technographic analysis.
How can I assess the quality of technographic data?
When it comes to purchasing technographics, the quality aspects you need to ensure are accuracy, recency, and scale. Accurate data means that the listed technologies and uses are correct. Recency helps with context. Information on when the technology was acquired ensures that you know the company’s most up-to-date technological stack. Scale is important to make sure that the list of available companies offered by the data provider is suitable for your target market and to keep your leads pipeline full.
Assessing the quality of technographic data can be tricky, but it’s a data provider’s job to assure you of the quality of their information.
To help you through the process of finding the right technographics provider for you, here are some questions you should ask data vendors you’re interested in:
- What are your technical data collection methods?
- What are your sources of raw data?
- How frequently do you update your data sets?
- Can you verify whether the company still uses the software?
- Can your dataset integrate seamlessly with my existing business technologies?
- Can I have a technographic data sample set to test the data?
When you’re confident that you can recognize high quality technographic data and that your provider offers exactly this, it’s time to make sure you know what you’ll be using it for and how this will benefit your business.