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Bombora Intent

Last update: 2025-04-14
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Bombora is a comprehensive audience solution that specializes in B2B intent data. Bombora Intent is an Adobe Experience Platform source that you can use to connect your Bombora account to Experience Platform and integrate your account intent data.

With the Bombora Intent source, you can integrate Bombora’s company surge intent data to identify accounts actively researching your products or services. Use Bombora to prioritize in-market accounts to create precise segments and execute hyper-targeted ABM campaigns, ensuring your marketing efforts focus on those account most likely to convert. Additionally, you can leverage intent-driven strategies to optimize ad spend, boost engagement, and maximize ROI.

Read this document for prerequisite information on the Bombora source.

Use cases

Read the following for use case examples that you can apply to the Bombora source.

Demand-Side Platform (DSP) integration

As a B2B marketer, you can create an account list in Real-Time CDP, identify companies that show high intent for your products, then activate this list in Bombora, which integrates directly with DSPs, allowing you to run targeted programmatic ad campaigns using Bombora’s data. This ensures that your ad spend is focused on companies most likely to convert.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Capabilities

As a B2B marketer, you can build an account list based on first and third-party intent signals. You can then activate this list in Bombora, where ABM capabilities allow you to target employees at these accounts specifically, ensuring your ads reach decision-makers rather than a broad audience.

Multi-Channel ABM Activation

As a B2B marketer, you can create an account list in Real-Time CDP, identifying companies with high intent and activate it in Bombora to run targeted campaigns across multiple channels. On paid social media, you can serve personalized ads to professionals at target accounts on platforms like Linkedin and Facebook.

Using native ad platforms, you can ensure your content reaches decision-makers in relevant contexts. You can also extend campaigns to advanced TV, delivering ads to key accounts. This multi-channel approach ensures consistent messaging across platforms, maximizing engagement and conversion rates.

Prerequisites

Read the following sections for prerequisite steps before connecting Bombora to Experience Platform.

IP address allowlist

A list of IP addresses must be added to an allowlist prior to working with source connectors. Failing to add your region-specific IP addresses to your allowlist may lead to errors or non-performance when using sources. See the IP address allowlist page for more information.

Configure permissions on Experience Platform

You must have both View Sources and Manage Sources permissions enabled for your account in order to connect your Bombora account to Experience Platform. Contact your product administrator to obtain the necessary permissions. For more information, read the access control UI guide.

Naming constraints for files and directories

The restrictions listed below must be taken into consideration when naming your cloud storage file or directory:

  • Directory and file component names cannot exceed 255 characters.
  • Directory and file names cannot end with a forward slash (/). If provided, it will be automatically removed.
  • The following reserved URL characters must be properly escaped: ! ' ( ) ; @ & = + $ , % # [ ]
  • The following characters are not allowed: " \ / : | < > * ?.
  • Illegal URL path characters are not allowed. Code points like \uE000, while valid in NTFS filenames, are not valid Unicode characters. In addition, some ASCII or Unicode characters, like control characters (0x00 to 0x1F, \u0081, etc.), are also not allowed. For rules governing Unicode strings in HTTP/1.1 see RFC 2616, Section 2.2: Basic Rules and RFC 3987.
  • The following file names are not allowed: LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, PRN, AUX, NUL, CON, CLOCK$, dot character (.), and two dot characters (…).

Gather required credentials

Bombora on Experience Platform is hosted by Google Cloud Storage. In order to successfully authenticate your Bombora account, you must provide the appropriate values for the following credentials:

Credential Description
Access key ID The Bombora access key ID. This is a 61-character alphanumeric string that is required to authenticate your account to Experience Platform.
Secret access key The Bombora secret access key. This is a 40-character, base-64-encoded string that is required to authenticate your account to Experience Platform.
Bucket name The Bombora bucket from which data will be pulled from.

For more information on these credentials, read the Google Cloud Storage HMAC keys guide. For steps on how to generate your own access key, read the prerequisite guide in the Google Cloud Storage source overview.

Bombora schema

Read this section for information on the Bombora schema and data structure.

The Bombora schema is called Account Intent Weekly. It is the weekly intent information (anonymous B2B buyer research and content consumption) on specified accounts and topics. The data is in parquet format.

Field name Datatype Required Business key Notes
Account_Name STRING TRUE YES The canonical name of the company.
Domain STRING TRUE YES The domain of the identified account that is showing intent.
Topic_Id STRING TRUE YES The Bombora topic ID.
Topic_Name STRING TRUE The Bombora topic name.
Cluster_Name STRING TRUE The cluster name on Bombora for a given topic.
Cluster_Id STRING TRUE The cluster ID associated with a given topic.
Composite_Score INTEGER TRUE The composite score represents a domain’s consumption pattern for a given topic over a specified time period. The composite score is measured between 0 and 100, where 100 represents the highest possible score and 0 represents the lowest possible score. A composite score of over 60 represents an increase in interest in a particular topic by a domain. This is also referred to as a “surge”.
Partition_Date DATE TRUE The calendar date of a snapshot. This is done weekly, at the end-of-week, in mm/dd/yyyy format.
TIP

Any changes to the schema will be communicated to Adobe in advance. To support seamless schema evolution, maintaining backward compatibility is essential. Experience Platform enforces an additive-only versioning approach, ensuring that any updates to the schema are non-destructive. This means that breaking changes are strictly prohibited, and only changes that enhance or extend the existing schema are allowed.

Connect your Bombora account to Experience Platform in the UI

Once you have completed your prerequisite setup, read the tutorial on connecting your Bombora account to Experience Platform to start your integration.

Frequently asked questions

Read this section for answers to frequently asked questions regarding the Bombora source.

Do I need to have need to have an existing contract with Bombora to use their account intent data in Real-Time CDP B2B Edition?

 Answer

Yes, you must have an active contract with Bombora to access and utilize their intent data within Experience Platform and Real-Time CDP B2B Edition. The integration leverages your existing agreement with the Bombora to ingest and activate account intent signals in Experience Platform and Real-Time CDP.

Are custom fields from Bombora supported in this integration?

 Answer

Currently, you can only use standard Bombora fields for ingestion and activation. To view the list of supported fields, read the Bombora schema guide for the details on field availability.

Can I ingest data from Bombora to Experience Platform on an ad-hoc basis?

 Answer

Yes, you can ingest data from Bombora on an ad-hoc basis. You can create a new dataflow to ingest the latest intent data, as long as there is new data from Bombora. However, you can only have one active dataflow at a time. Therefore, ensure that you delete the existing dataflow, before creating a new one.

What is the validation process for intent data and how can I check which intent data is linked to a specific account?

 Answer

To validate intent data and determine which intent signals are linked to specific accounts, use Adobe Experience Platform Query Service by AccountID.

How can I look up an intent for a specific company?

 Answer

Execute an SQL query in Query Service to search for intent data using the company name or AccountID. To view all intent data for a specific company, you can run an SQL query in Query Service using the company name or AccountID to fetch all associated intent signals.

I found an issue with the account matching process in Experience Platform, what should I do?

 Answer

The resolution depends on the specific issue:

  • Incorrect or missing company domain in Experience Platform: If the issue stems from an incorrect company domain value in the account data, update the company domain field in Experience Platform to ensure accurate matching.
  • Incorrect field mapping in dataflow: If the issue is due to an incorrect company domain field path in the dataflow, update the dataflow configuration to reference the correct field path.

How do I delete intent data in Experience Platform?

 Answer

You must delete the dataset in order to delete intent data in Experience Platform.

What field is used to match accounts from Bombora to Experience Platform?

 Answer

The accountOrganization.domain field is used for matching accounts. If your organization uses a different custom field to store the website name, ensure that you provide the correct field path for accurate mapping.

What happens when a company domain is updated in Experience Platform?

 Answer

When a company domain is updated, the new domain value will be applied in the next dataflow run. This ensures that:

  • Future intent data ingestion use the updated domain for account matching.
  • Any previously mismatched intent signals may now align correctly with the intended account.
  • No retroactive changes are made to past ingested data-only new and incoming data will reflect the update.

What is the domain matching process?

 Answer

Domain matching in Experience Platform is based on an exact match of the scrubbed domain field value. Experience Platform automatically removes prefixes (e.g., https://www.) and retains the top-level domain (e.g., adobe.com). Matching requires an exact domain value, with no support for fuzzy matching or subdomains.

Where can I use intent data?

 Answer

Intent data can be utilized in Account Audiences to enhance targeting, segmentation, and personalization. By leveraging intent signals, businesses can identify and engage with accounts showing high interest in specific topics, optimizing marketing and sales outreach.

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