When did you last evaluate the quality of your B2B personas and contact data? If you’re like most marketers, you know the struggle of getting the right content to the right people.
Starting in 2014, Salesforce analyzed over 15 million data points from major B2B databases like Data.com and LinkedIn. The goal? To help marketers understand and improve the accuracy of their targeting.
I spoke with Mathew Sweezey, Principal of Marketing Insights at Salesforce, about his research and insights from the report, B2B Personas: Targeting Audiences. Here’s what he had to say.
Meet Mathew Sweezey
Brian: Mathew, can you tell us a little about your background?
Mathew Sweezey: Sure! I was one of the early employees at Pardot, which later became part of Salesforce. I’ve been in the thick of B2B marketing, writing the book Marketing Automation for Dummies and sharing insights as the Principal of Marketing Insight at Salesforce.
The Spark Behind the Research
Brian: What inspired you to dig into this data?
Mathew Sweezey: As marketers, we often focus on simple metrics like the number of email addresses we collect. But we rarely ask the bigger question: How effective are we? We needed a way to evaluate audience data and understand its true value.
Key Takeaways:

* The average cost of a B2B email address is around $150.
* Most B2B email databases hold about 50,000 contacts, meaning the average database is a $7.5 million asset.
* The only metric we often use to assess email lists is whether the emails bounce—not a great measure of data quality.


The B2B Persona project from Mathew Sweezey
Surprising Discoveries in Audience Data
Brian: What surprised you most during your analysis?
Mathew Sweezey: The biggest surprise was the high level of movement within organizations. People change roles frequently, which can make your database quickly outdated.
Key Insights:

* Role Changes: The contact may no longer fit your target persona even if an email is still valid.
* Database Churn: B2B contact lists churn at a rate of around 15% per year. Without updates, your database could be irrelevant in 4.2 years.
* Personas Are Fluid: People enter and leave target personas daily based on job changes and company shifts.

Tip: Track growth and churn rates in your personas to understand how quickly your audience changes.
Why B2B Marketing is Fundamentally Changing
Brian: Your report suggests B2B marketing is undergoing a major shift. Can you elaborate?
Mathew Sweezey: Traditionally, businesses controlled both the creation and distribution of media. Today, we live in an infinite media environment where anyone can create and share content.
The New Reality:

* No Captive Audience: Consumers now filter content through algorithms and ad blockers.
* Content Overload: There’s an overwhelming amount of content, and only the most relevant messages will make it through.

Insight: The biggest challenge today is cutting through the noise by making content genuinely valuable.
Should We Even Be Asking for Email?
Brian: Given what you’ve shared, should marketers change how they view email as a channel?
Mathew Sweezey: Yes! Email should be treated as just one part of a broader communication strategy. Consider social media handles, which may have a longer shelf life,