Drift unveils a chat window that knows when your account is visiting the site

When someone from a targeted account visits your website, Demandbase and other vendors can direct on-site ads, targeted content or follow-up ads to that target’s interests.

This week, Boston-based Drift is launching Drift ABM, which it says is the first site-based chat targeted by account.

When a visitor from a targeted account visits the website, the salesperson for that account gets a real-time browser notification or smartphone push notification, and the visitor sees a chat window with a welcome message that has been personalized by the salesperson for that account.

The salesperson can then log on to Drift via mobile app or desktop browser and chat directly with the contact. If the salesperson isn’t available, the chat’s bot asks the visitor to leave a message or to set up a time to chat.

Too often, Director of Marketing David Gerhardt told me, companies spend time, effort and resources to get someone from a targeted account to their site — only to direct that visitor to fill out a form.

Drift, founded in 2014, calls itself “the world’s first and only conversational marketing and sales platform” and is focused on making chat a regular part of business marketing and sales. In addition to chat, it also offers customer relationship management (CRM) and email.

Before Drift ABM, Gerhardt said, visitors to the site were greeted by Drift’s chat window, but they were anonymous until they identified themselves, unless they filled out a lead form and were marked with a corresponding cookie.

Now, IP address lookup via business intelligence provider Clearbit tells Drift where the visitor is from. Gerhardt said that, while IP lookup is not 100 percent on the mark, it has a high accuracy. Drift ABM syncs with Salesforce, so that it knows each salesperson’s targeted accounts.

In addition to Salesforce, Drift is integrated with Marketo, HubSpot, Demandbase and MailChimp, or it can add a tool to its workflow via Zapier.

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About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.