There’s a movement happening in B2B marketing. A whisper campaign, if you will. A murmur that grows louder each time someone uses the phrase “buyer behavior” in a pitch deck or refers to “psychographics” like they just discovered therapy.
The claim? Demographics are dead.
And honestly, I get it. Compared to intent data, demographics feel a little… dusty. They’re the vinyl records of segmentation. Retro. Slightly elitist. Mostly used by people who insist “it’s about more than just the numbers.”
But let me just say this: if demographics are dead, no one told my ad platform. Or my lead scoring model. Or the 17-slide deck where we spent two hours last Tuesday arguing about what counts as “mid-market.”
Because here’s the truth: Demographics aren’t dead. They’ve just been sitting quietly in the corner while everyone fawned over their newer, flashier cousin: behavioral data.
But they’ve still got receipts. And, as it turns out, they’ve been holding your entire B2B campaign strategy together this whole time.
How the “Demographics Are Dead” Myth Got So Popular
Once upon a time, B2B marketers discovered something magical: you could track what people do. What they click. Where they scroll. Whether they prefer downloading whitepapers at 2 a.m. (hello, stressed product managers of the world).
And just like that, we declared demographics irrelevant. Who cares if you’re targeting a VP of Finance at a 500-person logistics company in Ohio if you can target someone searching “best billing software for distributed teams”?
Except… that person could also be an intern doing research. Or a consultant. Or your competitor checking out your pricing page for the fifth time. We’ve all done it.
That’s the issue. Intent signals without context are like trying to guess someone’s favorite pizza topping based on how fast they walked past a Domino’s. Intriguing? Sure. Helpful? Not really.
Why Demographics Still Matter (More Than You Want to Admit)
Let’s start with the obvious: not all buyers are created equal. If you think a CMO at a 1,200-person fintech company behaves the same as a founder of a 12-person design agency, you’re either dangerously optimistic or writing LinkedIn posts for a living.
Demographics and firmographics—titles, company size, industry, location, revenue—give you things you can’t get from behavioral data alone:
- Context. A CFO at a $500M manufacturing company searching “budgeting tools” is not looking for the same thing as a bootstrapped founder Googling “free spreadsheet templates.”
- Qualification. It tells you whether this person can buy from you, or just wishes they could.
- Segmentation that actually works. Because sending a detailed ROI calculator to a solo consultant isn’t personalization. It’s passive aggression.
How BuyerTwin Uses Demographics (Without Making It Boring)
BuyerTwin doesn’t treat demographics like the end of the story. It treats them like the setup—the grounding for everything else that matters.
Here’s how it works (and why it doesn’t feel like reading a census report):
👤 Dynamic Profiles That Actually Mean Something
BuyerTwin starts by anchoring your buyers in reality:
- What’s their role?
- What kind of company do they work for?
- What’s the size, industry, and chaos level of their organization?
Then it adds layers:
- What are they doing?
- What are they searching?
- What emotional state are they probably in?
It doesn’t just say: “This person works at a mid-sized SaaS firm.”
It says: “Alex is a Head of Operations at a 200-person SaaS company, actively researching onboarding tools, clearly frustrated with their current system, and likely trying to prove value to a boss who says things like ‘move the needle.’”
Now that is a profile.
🔍 Intent + Demographics = Buyer Clarity (Finally)
Let’s say two people search “best CRM for scaling teams.”
- One is a marketing manager at a 15-person startup.
- The other is an enterprise systems admin juggling integrations across five departments.
Behaviorally, they look identical. Demographically? They’re universes apart.
BuyerTwin connects the dots so your team doesn’t accidentally send the same generic “Let’s schedule a demo!” email to both. One gets a startup toolkit. The other gets a migration guide and a whiskey sampler.
(Okay, maybe not the whiskey. But imagine the conversion rates.)
🎯 Campaigns That Speak to Real People, Not Job Titles
Here’s a fun marketing game: Write a campaign headline for “IT decision-makers.”
No? Okay, how about:
- IT Director at a 100-person healthtech firm dealing with HIPAA compliance
- vs.
- CTO at a 700-person manufacturing company dealing with legacy system upgrades
Suddenly, “Let’s talk about digital transformation” doesn’t cut it.
BuyerTwin helps you slice your audience by role and situation. That way, you don’t waste your best creative work on the wrong people—or worse, create something so watered down it works for everyone and resonates with no one.
What Happens When You Ignore Demographics (Spoiler: Chaos)
Look, we’ve all done it. We’ve treated behavior like gospel.
Maybe you ran a retargeting ad to everyone who visited your pricing page, only to realize that:
- Half were students
- A quarter were bots
- And the rest were competitors, probably screenshotting your packages
Or maybe you built a nurture stream around “security concerns” only to find out your audience was mostly SMB marketers who just wanted a clean UX and couldn’t care less about SOC 2 compliance.
This is what happens when you forget who your buyer is. It’s like buying a gift for someone based solely on their browsing history. You’re bound to get it wrong, and probably offend them in the process.
So How Do You Combine Demographics and Behavior?
Here’s a radical idea: use both.
BuyerTwin doesn’t make you choose. It:
- Segments by demographics (role, size, industry)
- Tracks real-time behavior and intent
- Maps emotional state, urgency, and channel preference
- Builds smart personas and recommends campaign strategies that match
It’s like turning a blurry photo into a 4K buyer portrait. With feelings. And budget authority.
Final Thoughts from Someone Who Once Built a Persona Named “Midsize Matt”
Look, I love a good behavioral signal as much as the next marketing nerd. Watching someone obsessively rewatch a product demo video is thrilling in a way that probably requires therapy.
But don’t ditch demographics. They’re not dead. They’re just quietly holding your campaigns together while your behavior data takes all the credit.
So the next time someone says, “We don’t really use firmographics anymore,” nod politely. Then log into BuyerTwin and let it show you what happens when who they are and what they do finally work together.
🎯 Want Buyer Profiles That Actually Make Sense?
Let BuyerTwin combine demographics, behavior, and buyer intent—so you know who you’re talking to and what they care about. Sign up for a free account and bring your segmentation back from the dead.