Buying Groups identify the full set of stakeholders who make purchase decisions within an account. Instead of tracking individual leads or treating an account as a single unit, Buying Groups organize contacts by persona and buying role so you can target, engage, and measure the people who influence a deal.
What is a Buying Group?
A Buying Group is a set of individuals within an account, grouped by their persona and their role in the buying process. Together, these individuals represent the decision makers for a purchase.
How Buying Groups are Configured
Buying Groups use first-party data, third-party data, and engagement signals to determine interest. Each Buying Group is configured with the following:
Component |
Description |
|---|---|
| Persona | Title, job function, job level, and custom criteria. |
| Buying Role | A predefined role in the decision-making process. |
| Buying Group Activities | Marketing and Sales activities associated with the group. |
See Define and Manage Buying Groups.
Why use Buying Groups?
Lead-based approaches often miss stakeholders, and account-based approaches can be too broad. Buying Groups focus on the specific people involved in a purchase decision, which helps you:
- Shorten deal cycles. Engaging stakeholders early moves accounts through the funnel faster.
- Improve conversion rates. Persona- and role-based targeting keeps messaging relevant to each stakeholder.
- Support Sales. Sellers get visibility into who the stakeholders are and how they’ve engaged.
Buying Groups Example Workflow
The following example shows how you can use Buying Groups in your ABM strategy.
| Step | Objective | Strategy |
| 1 | Identify Buying Groups | Configure Buying Groups based on personas, roles, and engagement criteria. |
| 2 | Target the right people from the right accounts |
Create account and people lists to identify accounts with Buying Groups and individuals matched to their respective persona or buying role. |
| 3 | Track engagement | Track engagement patterns based on the Buying Group persona or role. |
| 4 | Personalize outreach | Develop multi-threaded engagement strategies tailored to specific Buying Group persona or role. |
| 5 | Optimize campaign performance | Refine your ad campaigns and messaging to reach relevant Buying Group members. |
| 6 | See impact across the funnel | Align Buying Group insights with account journey progression to measure impact on pipeline and expansion opportunities. |
| 7 | Enable Sales with deeper insights |
Use Demandbase recommended buying group members to grow the Sales team target lists. Sellers can see the full Buying Group profile: Who’s involved, how they’ve engaged, what roles they Play, and suggested actions. |
Buying Group Setup Agent
The Buying Group Setup Agent automatically creates personas and uses them to define Buying Groups, so each group reflects the people involved in your sales opportunities.
See Understanding Buying Group Setup Agent.
Buying Groups Insights
Buying Group Insights shows how complete and engaged your Buying Groups are across target accounts. Use the visual interface and AI-driven insights to see which accounts have strong coverage and which are missing key personas.