Bombora

Overview

Bombora is a B2B intent data platform that identifies companies actively researching specific topics online. It operates the world's largest B2B data cooperative — a network of thousands of B2B media sites, technology publishers, and trade publications that share anonymized content consumption data in exchange for access to aggregated intent signals. Marketers and sales teams use Bombora's Company Surge data to prioritize outreach to accounts showing elevated research activity for relevant buying topics.

What This Script Does

Bombora deploys a lightweight tag on publisher sites that are members of its data cooperative. The tag is not typically found on brand or e-commerce sites — it operates within the B2B media ecosystem:

Content consumption signal collection

• Fires a tracking event when a visitor reads an article or views content on a Bombora cooperative publisher site
• Records the content topic, article URL, and content category associated with the page
• Associates the content consumption event with a company identity, typically resolved via IP-to-company mapping (mapping the visitor's IP address to an organization using commercial IP intelligence databases)
• Data is aggregated at the company level, not the individual level — Bombora's output is a company-level intent score, not a personal behavioral profile

Intent score computation

• Bombora aggregates content consumption signals across its entire cooperative network
• For each company, Bombora computes topic-level "surge" scores: a measure of how much more the company's employees are researching a given topic compared to their historical baseline
• Surge scores are updated weekly and delivered to customers via API, CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot), and DSP integrations for account-based advertising

Third-party cookie usage

• Bombora sets a third-party cookie (boomr_did, persistent, up to 2 years) to identify the device across cooperative publisher sites
• The device ID is used to stitch together content consumption signals from the same device across multiple publisher visits
• Device IDs are mapped to company identities rather than individual profiles

Consent & Compliance

• Category: Analytics / Marketing
• GDPR: Despite Bombora's company-level aggregation framing, the underlying data collection involves processing behavioral data from identified devices (cookies) — which constitutes personal data processing under GDPR. Publisher members of the Bombora cooperative must obtain consent from visitors before the Bombora tag fires. Bombora is a registered IAB TCF vendor. IAB TCF purposes: Purpose 1 (Store/access information), Purpose 7 (Measure ad performance), Purpose 8 (Measure content performance), Purpose 10 (Develop/improve products).
• CCPA: Bombora's data collection from California residents constitutes "sale" or "sharing" of personal information under CCPA. Publishers must honor opt-out signals (Global Privacy Control) and disclose Bombora participation in the privacy policy.
• Data transfers: Bombora is a US company headquartered in New York. Data is processed in the US. EU-US Data Privacy Framework applies for EU data transfers.
• Cookies set: boomr_did (3rd party, device identifier, up to 2 years), boomr_cid (3rd party, session)

Should You Block This Without Consent?

Conditional. For B2B publishers that are Bombora cooperative members, the Bombora tag requires analytics/marketing consent before firing. Gate the tag on consent under IAB TCF. Note that the company-level aggregation does not eliminate the GDPR consent requirement — the underlying cookie-based device tracking still applies to individual visitors. Disclose Bombora participation clearly in your privacy policy.