Aberdeen

Aberdeen (Aberdeen Strategy & Research) is a US market research and marketing intelligence firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1988, the company conducts survey-driven B2B research on technology, customer management and business operations, and sells research assets and custom studies to vendors and analysts.^[1][2][4].

Since November 2020 Aberdeen has been owned by Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD), and it operates as a division of that business. Its methodology centers on primary surveys of business decision-makers and a maturity-class framework that benchmarks respondents against organizational performance metrics.^[1][2]

What It Does

Aberdeen produces independent market research intended to inform business-to-business buying decisions. The firm collects data from thousands of business leaders across job roles and industries, describing its approach as fact-based, unbiased and outcome-centric, and analyzes results through a maturity framework comparing top performers with average and lagging organizations.^[1]

The company publishes a research library of market-facing reports — recent examples include surveys on IT modernization, secure remote access and customer experience leadership — and offers private intelligence briefings, custom surveys and tailored research assets for vendor marketing programs.^[1]

Data And Methodology

Aberdeen's methodology combines online survey responses with targeting data and first-party visitor intelligence. During its intent-data era the company combined topic-level web interactions, opt-in databases and win/loss history to score purchase intent; after its acquisition of The Big Willow in December 2018 it incorporated behavioral tracking of billions of device IDs across web pages into these models.^[2]

Buyers And Use Cases

Customers are primarily B2B technology marketers, sales teams and industry analysts, who use Aberdeen surveys for content marketing, demand generation and market benchmarking. Aberdeen's research has been widely cited by media outlets covering topics from customer retention to employee onboarding practices.^[2]

History

Founded in 1988 as Aberdeen Group, the company was acquired by Harte Hanks in September 2006 and by private equity firm Halyard Capital in April 2015. Marc Osofsky became chief executive in October 2017.^[2]

In May 2016 Aberdeen partnered with Bombora, a B2B intent data provider, and in December 2018 it acquired intent data firm The Big Willow. On November 24, 2020, Spiceworks Ziff Davis acquired Aberdeen Group, which now operates as Aberdeen Strategy & Research, a division of SWZD.^[1][2]

Landscape

Aberdeen competes with other IT market research and analyst firms serving B2B technology vendors. It should not be confused with Aberdeen Group plc, the UK asset manager formerly known as Standard Life Aberdeen and abrdn, which trades under the same name following its March 2025 rebrand.^[3]