How sproof turned market research into a GDPR-compliant precision instrument

Shortly after joining sproof as Head of Marketing, Bennet Dietrich realized that the existing setup for structured outbound was reaching its limits. The team relied on a combination of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and LinkedHelper: companies had to be researched and filtered manually in Sales Navigator, contacts identified one by one, and sequences configured by hand. For a lean sales team, this process was time-consuming and barely scalable.

sproof operates in a highly regulated market (finance, energy, education, critical infrastructure). The biggest challenge was analyzing privacy-compliant B2B market trends in the DACH region with precision and identifying companies with an immediate need for eIDAS-compliant signature solutions. Conventional tools often delivered inaccurate data or violated European data protection standards. sproof was looking for an approach that would bring the entire process together in a single tool: from audience research and market segmentation through to automated outreach and CRM synchronization.

For Bennet Dietrich, one factor was non-negotiable from the very start when choosing a tool: data protection. As a provider of GDPR-compliant e-signatures and identity verification, data sovereignty is part of sproof's DNA—and that extends to its own marketing infrastructure. In Venta AI, sproof found a European partner that shares the same values: a platform that treats GDPR requirements not as a constraint, but as the standard.

Bennet Dietrich first heard about Venta AI through a former manager who was actively using the platform himself. The deciding factor for going operational was Venta AI's strength as a research and intelligence platform. Venta AI's AI infrastructure scans the European market against predefined criteria—company profiles, LinkedIn activity, job postings, press releases—and delivers highly precise market and intent data. This enables sharper segmentation and a deeper understanding of potential customers before the first contact even takes place.

On top of that, the seamless HubSpot integration and the support from the Venta AI team were compelling: with solid expertise, the team helps sproof develop its audience analyses and continuously sharpen its ICP. For a lean marketing team, that was a decisive advantage.

After a joint onboarding, sproof began with structured audience research in the energy and critical infrastructure sector—one of the strongest verticals for the sproof signature solution and an area where sproof already had compelling references. Using industry-specific criteria, the company profile was built out, from company size and location to relevant signals such as job postings or growth indicators.

A clear internal process quickly took shape: curated contact lists were handed directly to sales reps, who then carried the outreach forward on their own. Throughout, the Venta AI team actively contributed recommendations on segmentation, on sharpening the ICP, and on the content and direction of the messaging.

Over time, the research expanded into additional segments: retail and pharma, municipal utilities and energy providers, universities and universities of applied sciences, logistics and transport companies, NGOs as well as public-sector institutions, associations, and ministries in Austria and Germany. Each audience was analyzed individually, from company structure down to the relevant decision-making levels.

Today, sproof's marketing team handles campaign planning independently—from audience definition and research to content direction and performance analysis. All activities are seamlessly synced into HubSpot, where the sales team works through the qualified contacts in a structured way.

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Using Venta AI as a research and intelligence platform produced measurable effects at sproof quickly. Within the first active months, the effort required for qualified market segmentation and the research of relevant target companies dropped by 75%—an early sign that systematic audience analysis had become not only more precise, but also significantly more efficient. On top of that came 100% GDPR-compliant identification of anonymous B2B website visitors with genuine buying interest: intent data made it possible to surface exactly the contacts that truly mattered. Going further, the sproof sales team was able to qualify its leads three times faster thanks to pre-structured company profiles—a direct result of sharper segmentation and better audience intelligence.

What best illustrates the lasting value of Venta AI at sproof is the shift in the quality of the audience work itself. Bennet Dietrich opens the platform every day and uses it as a central intelligence tool: to analyze audiences, identify relevant contacts, and continuously sharpen the ICP. For Bennet, the depth of the research and the relevance of the contacts identified are the biggest benefits of all—supported by a Venta AI team that actively contributes ideas as the audience analyses evolve.

The team has steadily expanded the collaboration and renewed its contract—a clear signal of the ROI it perceives. Internally, Venta AI is now considered a fixed part of sproof's go-to-market process: a structured intelligence foundation for targeted market development across the DACH region.