Technographic data records the technologies a company uses: the analytics, advertising, commerce, CRM and infrastructure tools running on its website and in its systems. It is built by detecting known signatures in public code and records, and it shows what a company has installed, not what it pays for or intends to buy.
How detection works
A detector reads what a site sends to a browser and matches it against a catalogue of known signatures. The views are the page content, the scripts and tag-manager containers it loads, network requests, response headers and public DNS records. DNS adds tools that leave no mark on a page, such as an email provider or a domain verification with a software vendor. Where a tool exposes a public account id, such as a pixel or an analytics property, the id is kept with it.
Common mistakes
- Treating the website as the whole stack. A data warehouse or an ERP leaves no trace on a homepage.
- Reading presence as spend or usage. A tag shows a tool is installed, not how many seats are paid for.
- Reading absence as removal. A tag can vanish from one read behind a consent banner and return.
- Counting the first scan of a site as adoption. Every tool looks new on a first read, though the company may have run it for years.
In Fokals data
The marketing stack dataset has Technology Stack, one record per website and technology, with its first-seen and last-seen dates, the view in which it was detected and the public account IDs where a tool exposes one. Technology Changes records every adoption, removal and platform migration with its observation time. The catalogue recognises 6,283 technologies in 68 categories.
A first observation of a site sets a baseline and writes no events, so every event is a real change. A removal is recorded once the technology is confirmed missing on a later observation. The method is set out in how we detect the technologies on a company website.
Related terms
- Firmographic data: who a company is.
- Installed base: the customers a vendor's technology runs for.
- Technology churn: the rate at which a technology is dropped.
- Intent data: what a company is likely to buy next.
Frequently asked questions
How do you find out what technology a company uses?
Read the signals its website publishes: the scripts and tags in the page, the tag-manager containers it loads, its response headers and its DNS records, then match them to a catalogue of known tools. Detection services automate this across many sites, and it is worth checking that a service dates each finding, because a change with no date cannot be tested. For a single site you can view the page source, or the network requests the page makes.
What can technographic data show about a company's stack?
It shows the tools a company exposes publicly, mostly on its website and in its DNS records: analytics, advertising, commerce, CRM, hosting, email and security tools, each with the dates it was first and last seen. Treat a detection as evidence that a tool is installed, and read Technology Changes to see when it arrived or left.
What is the difference between technographic data and intent data?
Technographic data records what a company already runs. Intent data estimates what it is likely to buy or build next. A company that has just added a tool appears in both: as an event in technographic data, and as a signal that raises an intent score. The comparison of the two covers how they combine.