One question we used to receive often from clients was: "What data vendor should we use for account and contact acquisition and enrichment?"

Until recently, this was a very tough question, and our answers—along with how we supported the decision—have changed over the last 10 years. This got me thinking about the evolution of data acquisition over the years.

"The Old Days": When Everything Was Manual

Fifteen years ago, when I first started at Marketo, obtaining account and contact information was significantly more challenging than it is today. The tools were different, and everything felt manual.

Building Target Account Programs Was a Grind

I remember building our target account program (what we now call ABM), and finding companies and accounts was incredibly manual. Here's what the process looked like:

Finding the Right Accounts to Target

We couldn't just look at companies by size or industry—that would yield too many results. Intent vendors didn't exist yet (though we did use lists of accounts engaging with content syndication as a proxy for "intent").
We prioritized companies already using competitors, especially Eloqua, because we knew we could win those deals. I would purchase lists of company domains that had competitor tracking scripts on their sites using BuiltWith.

Creating Account Records in CRM
I would extract domains and tie them to specific accounts, then check if we had them in our CRM. If not, sales ops would upload the account records from a list I manually created. This data typically came from free searches on Hoovers or through InsideView (which sales ops had limited licenses for account data only).

For all existing and newly created accounts, we'd mark them as target accounts and update a custom field with their marketing automation platform via data upload as well.

Acquiring Contacts for Each Account
This was another painfully manual process. I had to:

• Search for existing leads matching our target accounts by domain matching in Marketo (no lead-to-account matching tools existed—I built my own)
• Identify accounts missing contacts and source them from Jigsaw, Rainking, and later Avention/OneSource for UK prospects
• Import these as leads into Marketo and flag them as target accounts leads
• Then I would provide sales ops with existing account IDs to convert leads to contacts (since auto-conversion didn't exist)

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Verifying Data Quality
This was the toughest part. Contact data from these tools wasn't great, but direct mail was a big part of our program (pre-Sendoso days!).

My team, interns, and I would manually verify addresses using a US Postal Service tool I can't even remember now, plus Hoovers and D&B for additional verification.

The Integration Era: Better, But Not Perfect

We've come a long way since then. Throughout that time, companies like ZoomInfo (later acquired by DiscoverOrg but kept the name ZoomInfo), Clearbit (later acquired by Hubspot), and InsideView (later acquired by Demandbase) built integrations that automated account, contact, and lead creation and enrichment in CRM.

But like everything in ops, it wasn't perfect. Data accuracy varied, leading GTM teams to stack multiple tools hoping to get the most accurate data possible—including coverage for different regions.

We once worked with a client whose stack included EverString, ZenIQ, ZoomInfo, Lusha, and Clearbit. Think about the cost and complexity of deciding which data to use and act upon.

For companies without enough budget for multiple tools, choosing just one was their biggest challenge. Most chose ZoomInfo after conducting data "bake-offs" (yes, we did these!), or selected whoever provided the "best data" on their target accounts. But they sacrificed coverage in certain industries or regions.

Today: Access to multiple sources and types of data

Fast forward to today, and GTM teams are in a much different place. The new question for us is: "Do I actually NEED one specific account/contact data acquisition and enrichment tool?"

Honestly, the answer is nuanced, but in short—no.

With tools like Clay, you can now access data from multiple sources and enrich data points that we never had access to before.

My Recommendations

Option 1: Sales-Led Data Acquisition

If you want your sales team to acquire account and contact info themselves (which is somewhat risky), then platforms like Apollo, ZoomInfo, or Cognism might be more useful due to it's UI and ease of use for sellers. However, I'd still recommend using tools like Clay, Waterfall.io, or Freckle.io, or even just Breeze in HubSpot, for enrichment, led by GTM Ops.

Option 2: GTM Ops-Led Data Management (Recommended)

If GTM Ops can own account and contact data fully and provide it to sales, I highly recommend not tying yourself to one platform. Go straight to leveraging the modern platforms mentioned above for all acquisition and enrichment.

Why this approach works better:

• These tools handle verification very well, ensuring data quality
• Preventing sales from inserting loads of accounts and contacts keeps your database cleaner
• Better targeting capabilities
• Lower costs for marketing automation and CRM (fewer not-target contacts)

The Opportunity for GTM Ops

This is where GTM Ops can really step up and create an amazing program for the entire GTM team. Data is everything and sits at the center of what we do—from persona segmentation to account targeting to reporting. It's all about having the right, clean data.

What about you? Are you doing anything innovative with your data acquisition and enrichment program? I'd love to hear about it! And if you have any questions, let me know!