Personalized B2B Marketing Through Smart Segmentation

Within B2B marketing, we often use terms without thinking about them or what they actually mean in our work. The classic example is when someone talks about a “lead” — do they mean a person’s name or company, or do they mean a relevant and qualified contact at a target account? 

Furthermore, even when we have agreed definitions, as B2B marketers we are often too busy to stop and ask ourselves — why? When we know that, then we can then reflect on the how — and whether we need to change how we are doing our B2B marketing.

Personalization and segmentation are two areas that are worth reflecting on. Read on to learn what these two terms mean, why they are so important for B2B marketers and how you can use them in your marketing efforts.

What do personalization and segmentation mean for B2B marketers?

It’s difficult to distill these two important terms down to a sentence each, but here are two definitions that B2B marketers can use to understand personalization and segmentation: 

• • Personalization refers to the practice of tailoring marketing strategies, content and messaging to the specific needs, preferences and pain points of individual buyers and businesses.
  • Segmentation refers to the process of dividing a broad market into smaller, more specific groups of buyers and businesses, based on shared characteristics, such as industry, company size, location or buying behavior. 

In practice, this means personalization follows segmentation, making effective segmentation a prerequisite for effective personalized marketing.

Key Segmentation Models to Power B2B Personalization

Before marketers can deliver personalized digital experiences, they need to know who they’re speaking to and why it matters. That’s where segmentation comes in. A comprehensive segmentation strategy doesn’t just split your audience into buckets. It empowers you to prioritize the right prospects, surface relevant content, and drive engagement across the entire buying journey.

Here’s a breakdown of the core segmentation frameworks used in B2B marketing and how they can be applied to personalize and scale engagement using platforms like ON24.

1. 1. Firmographic Segmentation

This is the B2B equivalent of demographics. Firmographic segmentation groups companies based on characteristics like industry, company size, revenue, geographic location or business model.

Why it matters: It’s a fast, scalable way to tailor messaging by vertical or business size. For example, an enterprise SaaS provider might run industry-specific webinars, tailoring experiences by use case or compliance need.

ON24 application: Use firmographic filters to drive targeted invites to vertical-specific experiences, and then track content engagement at the account level using ON24 Intelligence to inform sales follow-up.

1. 1. 1. 2. Technographic Segmentation

This method groups companies based on their tech stack or digital maturity. It looks at what tools they use, how they integrate systems and what digital behaviors they exhibit.

Why it matters: Technographic insight helps marketers match messaging to current capabilities. A company still onboarding its first CRM shouldn’t receive the same nurture stream as one running a fully-integrated ABM stack.

ON24 application: Use pre-registration fields or integrations with platforms like 6sense or Demandbase to infer tech usage. Then personalize post-event journeys based on known platforms or pain points.

1. 3. Behavioral Segmentation

This involves segmenting based on past behavior including webinar attendance, content downloads, email clicks and time spent in virtual experiences.

Why it matters: Behavior tells you what buyers are actually interested in, not just what you think they care about. It surfaces intent and informs timing.

ON24 application: With ON24, behavioral data is native. You can segment audiences based on what content they engage with, how long they engage, and whether they ask questions, participate in polls or request a demo. It’s the foundation of dynamic, data-driven personalization.

1. 4. Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographics go deeper into values, motivations and preferences. They segment based on what drives decisions, not just company attributes.

Why it matters: In long sales cycles, emotional resonance and trust often tip the scales. Understanding your audience’s priorities helps you create content that connects.

ON24 application: Gather psychographic signals through polls, surveys and feedback mechanisms built into webinars and content hubs. Then build nurture streams or engagement hubs that align with identified themes whether it’s innovation, efficiency, compliance or sustainability.

1. 5. Account-Based Segmentation

This approach flips the funnel by starting with a named account list and segmenting within it by buying role, stage and opportunity size.

Why it matters: ABM isn’t new, but it’s more powerful than ever when backed by digital engagement. Targeted experiences for specific accounts deliver high ROI and align sales and marketing.

ON24 application: Leverage the ON24 Engagement Hub or Target pages to build custom experiences for key accounts. Feed engagement data back into your CRM and ABM platforms to surface buying signals in real time.

Why is personalization essential today?

Based on millions of B2B buyer interactions, the data in ON24’s Digital Engagement Benchmarks report shows that personalization is no longer a “nice to have.”

Some key findings include:

• • Personalization resulted in doubled conversion rates for meetings booked.
  • Personalized experiences saw a 68% increase in engagement with calls-to-action, compared to 8% across webinars as a whole. 
  • Year-over-year, the increase in demo requests was almost 4X higher, while growth within non-personalized webinars was 56%.

The reason for these dramatic differences is simple: buyers respond far more positively to personalized and relevant marketing. Indeed, research from Forrester and Adobe found that two-thirds of B2B buyers expected the same or better personalization in their professional lives vs. their personal lives. A study by ON24 and Heinz Marketing revealed a similar picture, with 65% expecting highly personalized experiences.

More to the point,‌ the ON24 Digital Engagement Benchmarks report suggests that even if your organization isn’t personalizing its marketing, your competitors are probably already doing so, as the use of key personalization tactics on the ON24 platform grew exponentially through the final quarter of 2023. 

But there’s an even bigger reason to make personalization essential — the growth of generative AI means that companies are set to increase the volume of personalized content dramatically. 

According to BCG, 67% of CMOs are planning to use AI to personalize experiences in 2024. Separately, a study from LinkedIn shows that more than half (51%) of B2B marketers plan to use Generative AI to create optimized and engaging content that resonates with target audiences.

So, if you are reading this and aren’t already doing personalization, these studies should make it clear: personalization is essential and for you and other marketers, the trends make it critical to change how you engage.

Why are first-party data and segmentation needed for effective personalization?

As mentioned above, personalization follows segmentation. But to effectively do segmentation, you need data — and the most potential comes from first-party data.

First-party data enables accurate segmentation and more effective personalization by being collected and controlled by your organization alone. By its nature, none of your competitors will have the same first-party data, allowing B2B marketers to create uniquely personalized experiences. 

Not only that, but using first-party data for personalization creates a feedback loop of data. Using ‌insights from first-party data to personalize digital experiences makes for better interactions, which promote more engagement. That engagement not only powers your pipeline, but it also means marketers will have even more first-party data on their buyers to create even better personalization and more effective experiences. 

But another critical element is that first-party data is far more likely to be available in real-time. In the context of segmentation, today’s marketers are more likely to build segments that are dynamic — in that contacts and accounts enter and leave given segments based on their real-time behaviors, preferences and interactions, allowing marketers to respond quickly and effectively to evolving buyer needs. 

As an example, this means that the moment someone shifts from one stage of the buying journey to another, the offers they see can change as they leave one segment and join another.

Furthermore, first-party data is essential to fuel the creation of personalized content and experiences through generative AI. At ON24, it’s this first-party data that makes our AI-powered Analytics and Content Engine (ACE) possible.

Leveraging Data and Analytics to Power Smarter Segmentation

Segmentation is only as good as the data behind it. In today’s digital-first environment, that means going beyond static lists and firmographic filters to create dynamic, data-rich segments that reflect real buyer behavior in real time.

With the right analytics infrastructure in place, marketers can evolve from “one-size-fits-all” campaigns to highly personalized experiences that adapt to every interaction.

Behavioral insights in action

Modern engagement platforms like ON24 capture deep behavioral signals, from webinar interactions and resource downloads to time spent in digital experiences. These insights offer more than surface-level engagement metrics. They help build a clearer picture of where a prospect sits in the buying journey and what content or messages will resonate most.

By using engagement data to continuously refine segments, for example separating viewers who downloaded a case study from those who only skimmed a landing page, marketers can prioritize higher-intent leads and personalize follow-up with confidence.

Real-time responsiveness through integrated systems

Dynamic segmentation hinges on integrations. When engagement data flows seamlessly into your CRM, MAP or ABM platform, segments can evolve automatically based on live behavior. A lead attending a webinar and requesting a demo can shift from top-of-funnel nurture into a high-intent segment immediately, triggering personalized content, sales outreach or a tailored CTA.

For ON24 customers, integrations with tools like Salesforce, Marketo and 6sense enable this kind of data-driven agility. Whether it’s auto-enrolling prospects into targeted nurture tracks or alerting sales to high-value engagement, segmentation becomes a living, breathing part of your marketing engine.

From insights to optimization

Data also plays a key role in optimizing segmentation strategies over time. Marketers can test and compare the performance of different segments, evaluating which content, format or CTA combinations drive the most engagement or conversions. With access to granular insights, you can identify where friction exists, which personas are most responsive and how to improve the experience for every audience.

Ultimately, smarter segmentation isn’t about collecting more data. It’s about activating the data you already have to build relationships that convert.

Examples of segments built with data

Data is essential to creating segments. Before you segment, you need to know some information about the buyer, such as contact title and business relationship. The stage of the funnel a buyer is in is another crucial piece of insight that goes a long way in segmenting an audience so buyers receive the content that is valuable for where they are in their buying process. 

The table below displays various types of segments marketers may use to segment audiences for better personalization. Segments can be built with anything from a single item of data — say, just a funnel stage — or can be built based on multiple items of data.

In each case, where a buyer doesn’t fall into a particular segment — whether because of a lack of data, or because they don’t align exactly to a segment — the fallback acts as a default. These are the individuals you don’t have any data on and therefore don’t fall into any segment. 

Segment type	By funnel stage	By business relationship	By contact title	By account vertical	By region	By customer registration field
Segment 1	Awareness	Customer	CXO	Technology	NA	Pick list
Segment 2	Consideration	Prospect	VP/Director	Professional Services	EMEA	Check box
Segment 3	Selection	Partner	Manager	Life Sciences	APAC	Text
Fallback	Awareness	Prospect	Manager	Horizontal	Global	Custom

Once you’ve got your segmentation nailed down, you can align your content marketing strategy to deliver offers, content and experiences tailored to each group. Being more relevant and targeted, the content and experiences are far more likely to drive engagement and conversions because you’ve addressed the buyer’s needs. More engagement also means you’ll be gaining even more first-party data which will give you even further insights on your buyers. 

Also, if you are reading this as an ON24 customer, it’s easy to both create segments and target them with personalized offers and content through Segment Builder, as seen in the clip taken from a recap of ON24 Next below:

Three tips for personalization through segmentation

Here are three ideas to try out to personalize your own B2B marketing efforts.

#1: Personalize calls-to-action by funnel stage

Typically, you will have your leads and contacted assigned by funnel stage or lead score within your marketing automation platform. If that’s not the case, at the very least, they will be assigned by whether they are a customer or a prospect. 

Expanding the table shared earlier to include both prospective and existing customers, we could segment across ‌the entire customer lifecycle to deliver different CTAs in line with our goals for each segment.

Segment name	Funnel stage	Your goal	Examples of personalized CTA offers
Early-stage / TOFU	Awareness	Get the buyer to realize they have a problem.	Beginner’s guide e-book Trends webinar.
Mid-stage / MOFU	Consideration	Prove to the prospect why and how our solutions is a good fit for their organization. Get our solution onto their shortlist for the final decision.	Download analyst buyer’s guide (e.g., Forrester Wave, Gartner Magic Quadrant). Attend event with customer speakers sharing tips. Case studies.
Late-stage / BOFU	Selection	Give our buyer the right push and validation they need to move forward with our solution.	Sign up for a demo. Book a meeting with sales.
Not yet engaged / onboarded	Customer Adoption	Ensure our customer is onboarded successfully, efficiently, and without friction. Provide our customer with the right resources, materials, and guidance to ensure they have a positive experience with us.	Link to customer hub or forum. Live Q&A / office hours webinar. Book a training session or success call.
Engaged	Customer Engagement	Give our customer new ways to expand/renew their current contract. Facilitate further engagement from our customers with our solution.	Upsell offer — learn about new product or feature. Attend customer summit or dinner. Need help? Contact us!
Champion	Customer Advocacy	Reward our customer’s loyalty and celebrate their achievements publicly. Ask for referrals and testimonials.	Share your success — speak at our event. Refer a customer. Leave a review.
Likely to lapse	Customer Priority Renewal	Reduce risk of churn. Secure renewal.	Live Q&A / office hours webinar. Book a call with an expert. Need help? Contact us!
Fallback	(No segment)	Identify prospect. Assess buying intent.	Link to content hub with multiple assets ordered by buying stage / intent.

So, if a prospect is in the Awareness segment, they might be shown CTAs for a beginner’s guide e-book or a trends webinar. However, if they are further down the funnel in the Selection segment, CTAs for signing up for a demo or booking a meeting with sales would align with goals for that segment. Similarly, if a customer is in the Customer Advocacy segment, where the goal is to reward them for their loyalty and celebrate their achievements publicly, they might be shown CTAs for speaking at an event or to refer a customer.

In fact, chances are that you already have such segments identified within your marketing automation system or account-based marketing tools — making it easy to create CTAs specifically for each. For ON24 customers who are using Marketo or 6sense, segmentation data from there can also be mapped directly into Segment Builder, making it even easier to display relevant CTAs within your digital experiences.

#2: Personalize content offers for target accounts by function and keywords in job title

Usually, buyer data such as job level or seniority is captured early on due to the sales team wanting to identify decision-makers and influencers, especially when targeting high-value accounts. For an ABM strategy, targeted content hubs can be an excellent way to offer ‌white-glove experiences. 

However, even within a single account, different individuals have different needs. For example, an executive is likely to be concerned about cost and strategy. By contrast, ‌end-users will want to know whether the solution will make their lives easier and enable them to be more effective. Even if the end-user is not the overall decision-maker, they are likely to be a significant influencer. 

As an example, here is how a software company selling to marketers might target different audiences within key accounts.

Segment name	Example data to build segment	Their needs	Examples of personalized content offer
CTO or CIO	Job function contains IT, Tech, Information or Dev Title contains CTO, CIO or “Chief”	Ensure any marketing technology is compliant with security. Use Microsoft Entra as SSO.	White paper on product’s data security benefits (e.g., ISO 27001 or SOC 2 Type 2 compliance).
CMO	Job function contains Marketing or Revenue Title contains CMO or “Chief”	Improve marketing’s digital maturity. Lead the marketing function effectively.	Marketing Maturity Assessment Tool CMO Leadership Briefing
VP / Director of Sales	Job functions contain Sales or Revenue Title contains Sales or “Business Development”	Close more deals and revenue. Convert more marketing leads.	E-book on Converting Marketing Leads. On-demand demo showing how marketing tech platform integrates with sales CRM.
Fallback	(No segment)	Identify prospect. Assess buying intent.	Marketing Best Practices Webinar

#3: Personalize event invitations by region or geography

For this final example, here’s how ON24 recently personalized using segments. For the ON24 Next launch event, if attendees were based within traveling distance of one of ON24’s Engage 24 roadshow locations, they were offered an invite to attend on the console.

Other forms of segmentation were also present, including different offers depending on whether someone was a current customer or not.

But there are many other ways that location can be used, for example by offering the chance to connect with a local sales rep, or to download a report tailored for a particular market.

Real-World Success Stories: ON24 in Action

Understanding the theoretical aspects of segmentation and personalization is crucial, but seeing these strategies effectively implemented in real-world scenarios brings them to life. Let’s explore how various organizations have leveraged ON24’s platform to achieve remarkable results.

6sense: Achieving a 10,000% ROI

6sense utilized ON24 to transform its digital engagement strategy, resulting in an astounding 10,000% return on investment. By creating personalized experiences tailored to their target accounts, 6sense was able to significantly enhance pipeline generation and conversion rates.​

Read the full story here: 6sense Boosts ROI by 10,000%

AAA: Increasing Sales by 41%

AAA turned to ON24 to revamp its webinar strategy, focusing on delivering personalized content to specific audience segments. This approach led to a 41% increase in sales, demonstrating the power of targeted digital engagement.​

Discover more: AAA Boosts Sales by 41%

Autodesk: Driving 12x ROI on Pipeline

Autodesk leveraged ON24’s platform to create engaging webinars that resonated with their audience’s needs. This strategic move resulted in a 12-fold return on investment, highlighting the effectiveness of personalized digital experiences.​

Learn more: Autodesk Drives 12x ROI on Pipeline

Roche: Influencing 76% of HCP Attendees

Roche utilized ON24 to engage healthcare professionals through tailored webinars, successfully influencing 76% of attendees. This case underscores the impact of personalized content in the healthcare sector.​ON24

Read the case study: Roche Influences 76% of HCP Attendees

Protolabs: Boosting Qualified Prospects by 62%

By implementing ON24’s solutions, Protolabs achieved a 62% increase in qualified prospects. Their approach focused on delivering relevant content that addressed specific customer needs, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.​ON24

Explore the details: Protolabs Boosts Qualified Prospects by 62%

La Trobe University: Enhancing Open Day Enrollment by 167%

La Trobe University transitioned its traditional open day events to ON24’s digital platform, resulting in a 167% increase in enrollment. This shift allowed for broader reach and more personalized interactions with prospective students.​ON24

Find out more: La Trobe University Boosts Open Day Enrollment by 167%

Summary recap

• • Personalization is tailoring marketing to individual buyers and businesses, while segmentation is dividing the market into smaller groups based on shared characteristics.
  • Personalization is essential because buyers respond more positively to relevant marketing, and competitors are already doing it (Source: ON24 Digital Engagement Benchmarks Report).
  • First-party data is crucial for effective personalization because it is unique to your organization and provides real-time insights. It will become even more important as businesses use generative AI to create and scale personalized content.
  • Three simple ways that B2B marketers can try now include: 
    • #1: Personalize calls-to-action by funnel stage;
    • #2: Personalize content offers for target accounts by function and keywords in job title; and
    • #3: Personalize event invitations by region or geography.
  • Segment Builder provides an easy way for ON24 customers to target and deliver personalized content.

If you want to start improving how you personalize your experiences, change how you engage and drive more revenue,  about ON24 change how you engage, see how the ON24 Intelligent Engagement Platform can help you.