B2B teams are building smarter “data recipes” in 2026: learn how

April 2, 2026

A recap of Bombora’s webinar featuring G2’s Christine Li, Reddit’s Kevin Mallon, and Just Global’s Kristy Derby-Strauss. Watch the full session here.

B2B marketers have access to more data than ever before.

But more signals do not automatically create better strategies. While teams can now be incredibly precise about who they want to reach, it is often less clear which signals matter most, how to combine them effectively, and where to activate them for the most impact.

To explore how leading teams are solving that challenge, Bombora co-founder Mike Burton sat down with Christine Li, Vice President of Global Partnerships and Data Solutions at G2, Kevin Mallon, Head of Third-Party Partnerships at Reddit, and Kristy Derby-Strauss, Vice President of Omnichannel at Just Global.

Here are three practical takeaways for marketers looking to build smarter data recipes.

1. Start with your outcome, then select and combine the right signals

Different types of signals

As Kristy Derby-Strauss from Just Global put it, “Access to data is not the problem. It’s understanding how to make the most of the signals that we have.”

To do that, it starts with understanding what different signals actually represent.

Christine Li from G2 noted that different signals represent different stages of how buyers research and evaluate solutions. For example, Intent data like Bombora’s Company Surge^® shows which companies are actively researching relevant topics across the open web, providing a scalable, account-level view of demand.

Other signals, such as activity on platforms like G2, reflect different stages of buyer research. Someone browsing a category may be early in their exploration, while actions like comparing vendors, reading reviews, or evaluating alternatives can indicate competitive consideration or potential displacement of an existing solution.

Taken together, these signals provide a more complete view of buyer behavior across the research process.

Select signals based on your objective

With that foundation in place, the focus shifts to selecting the signals that align to your objective. Being explicit about your objectives ensures your strategy ties to measurable outcomes.

For example:

Expanding your addressable market and driving pipeline:
Use Intent data like Bombora’s Company Surge^® to identify net-new accounts actively researching relevant topics.
Increasing engagement with priority accounts:
Use signals that indicate active research behavior, such as research on specific Company Surge® Intent topics that represent a company’s products or solutions, or category or specific product review activity on sites like G2.
Capturing demand from competitors:
Look for signals that indicate vendor comparison or alternative evaluation, such as competitor research or review activity.
Improving conversion performance:
Prioritize signals that indicate deeper, decision-stage activity, such as higher Company Surge^® scores that indicate more frequent research.

By aligning signal selection to specific objectives, marketers can build a focused foundation before combining those signals into a broader data recipe.

Combine signals to build a data recipe

Sophisticated B2B marketers are optimizing campaign performance by combining multiple signals to shape their target audience. In fact, recent research shows that 72% of B2B marketers use between two and five audience data types most or all of the time.

As Kristy Derby-Strauss shared, she layered two data sources for one client to expand her total addressable market:

Bombora’s Curated Ecosystem Audiences, which bring together signals from partner platforms like G2 to identify accounts actively researching and evaluating solutions,
Bombora’s Intent-based audiences, which identified companies showing increased research activity across the open web.

In this example, only 25% of accounts overlapped between the two data sources, highlighting how layering signals can uncover additional in-market accounts that may not be captured through a single source alone.

Done well, this approach moves beyond isolated data points and creates a clear, actionable data recipe that gets you one step closer to reaching your objectives.

2. Activate signals in the places that matter

A data recipe only works if it meets buyers where they’re actually researching.

Kevin Mallon explains that this is where platforms like Reddit play a key role: “The opportunity isn’t just to add more data. It’s figuring out how to layer those signals and meet buyers where decisions are actually happening.”

People come to Reddit to ask questions, learn from others’ experiences, and discuss real operational challenges with peers. Reaching audiences in these environments allows marketers to engage buyers within the context of active research, not just static attributes.

To do this at scale, signals need to be translated into addressable audiences.

With Curated Ecosystem Audiences, Bombora partners with authoritative B2B data sources like Crunchbase, Definitive Healthcare, G2 and HG Insights to transform their proprietary signals into addressable digital audiences that can be deployed in over 100 destinations, such as The Trade Desk, LiveRamp, Google DV360, and of course, Reddit.

3. Measure signal strategies with the right framework

As marketers’ audience strategies become increasingly complex, measurement becomes increasingly important.

Kristy Derby-Strauss emphasized the importance of testing discipline: “You can’t launch a thousand new things at once. You need to set up tests so you can actually compare tactics.”

This also means measuring how signals translate into outcomes. For example, if you are targeting accounts showing product comparison behavior, you can track whether those accounts engage with product-focused content or return to your site at higher rates.

Traditional metrics like clicks and conversions still play a role, but they are not always the most meaningful indicators of success. Direct traffic trends, brand sentiment, and video completion rates can provide deeper insight.

In an environment where buyers may not convert immediately, understanding which accounts have been exposed to your brand provides meaningful context for future sales conversations.

The bottom line

More data alone is not the advantage.

The advantage comes from building a clear data recipe:

Select and combine the right signals based on your objective
Activate signals in the places that matter
Measure signals with the right framework

Teams that do this well will be better positioned to reach in-market accounts, engage buyers with relevant context, and achieve their objectives.