What Are “Confirmed Buying Group Members”?
Confirmed Buying Group Members are contacts that Sales has verified and marked in Demandbase One for Sales (DBS) as active participants in a specific buying decision at an account.
Why Confirmation Exists
Buying Group definitions identify the personas typically involved in a deal. Based on these definitions, Demandbase can:
- Match first-party CRM and/or MAS contacts.
- Recommend third-party contacts.
- Identify likely Buying Group participants.
However, a persona match does not mean the contact is involved in a specific buying decision.
Multiple people may share the same title at an account, but only some may participate in the actual buying decision. Only Sales, through active conversations, can confirm true deal stakeholders.
Why Confirmation Matters
Confirmed members are valuable because:
- Marketing can engage confirmed members with more personalized campaigns.
- Over time, confirmation data may help improve future machine learning recommendations.
- Sales gains clarity on true deal stakeholders.
Who Manages Confirmed Buying Group Members?
Confirmed Buying Group Members are managed in Demandbase One for Sales (DBS) because only Sales can reliably confirm who is part of a buying decision.
Marketing typically does not have deal-level visibility into stakeholder roles at every account.
Why Are Buying Group Members Not Automatically Confirmed?
Confirmation requires real deal insight.
For example, two Senior Directors of Product may exist at an account, but only one may be involved in evaluating your solution; persona matching alone cannot determine that.
Automatically confirming members can create inaccurate data and dilute the signal from Sales identifying real Buying Group members. Sales confirmation ensures the data reflects actual buying activity.
Why Are Confirmed Buying Group Members Not Used for Ad Targeting?
Confirmed status does not impact ad targeting because ads currently optimize for reaching personas within Buying Groups, not individuals.
What is “Persona Completeness”?
Persona Completeness measures how many of the required Buying Group personas are represented by contacts at a target account. A contact can match a persona without being confirmed as part of an active buying decision.
Persona Completeness:
- Is based on persona definitions.
- Uses first-party CRM and/or MAS data.
- Does not require confirmation.
- Is not connected to Confirmed Buying Group Members.
It answers: Do we have coverage across the necessary personas for this Buying Group at this account?
It does not answer: Do we know who is actually involved in the buying decision?
Example
If a Buying Group includes 10 defined personas, and a client has contacts in their CRM and/or MAS that match 3 of those personas for a specific account, Persona Completeness is 30%.
Why Do I See High Persona Completeness but 0% Confirmed Buying Group Members?
This is expected behavior because these metrics measure different things. You may have contacts matching most required personas, indicating strong coverage, but sales has not yet confirmed which contacts are actual deal stakeholders.
What Is the Expected Workflow for Buying Group Members?
Marketing (in DBM)
- Define Buying Group personas.
- Monitor Persona Completeness.
- Identify gaps in persona coverage.
- Acquire third-party contacts to fill gaps.
- Launch persona based advertising and marketing campaigns.
Sales (in DBS)
- Review recommended Buying Group contacts.
- Confirm actual stakeholders during sales conversations.
- Use confirmed members to support multi-threading and deal strategy.
Why Is the Experience Split Between DBM and DBS?
This separation is intentional and designed to support coordinated Marketing and Sales workflows.
- Buying Group definitions and persona coverage are marketing led.
- Stakeholder confirmation is led by Sales.
- Sales owns deal level truth.
- Marketing owns persona strategy and targeting at scale.