B2B Businesses are Applying Netflix and Disney’s Tactics and it is Paying Off

Netflix and Disney have been making headlines with ‘crackdowns’ on password sharing and the billions of dollars in revenue and millions of new subscribers they have gained as a result. 

While much has been made of these companies’ efforts to curtail password sharing, a similar, albeit quieter, revolution is happening in the work of B2B (Business-to-Business) services. 

Inspired by the success of streaming services, B2B businesses are now starting to detect account sharing and are themselves seeing spectacular results. 

The Account Sharing Dilemma

Tackling and monetizing account sharing hasn’t been without controversy with Netflix’s announcement causing angst amongst users who were sharing their accounts with family and friends. 

The want to monetize the people sharing someone else's account has been balanced against the concern of cancellations and users reacting poorly to being rightfully or wrongfully accused of the practice. While Netflix’s results show these concerns were nothing to worry about, in the world of B2B companies have a lot more options than a ‘crackdown’. 

Many companies are starting to use systems such as Upollo to detect account sharing and give that information to their customer success or sales team to use as leads for team expansion opportunities. Instead of a threat to kick them off their account or harsh log outs, these companies are flagging security concerns and having conversations about who else in a team would benefit from their solution. 

Expanding usage and the bottom line

These conversations led by data are netting companies millions or tens of millions in additional revenue and pipeline and companies are seeing an acceleration in growth throughout the customers they sell to. 

A research platform within a month of setting up a system to detect account sharers found hundreds of accounts they could turn from a single seat to anywhere from two to ten seats. 

While there has been significant downward pressure on net dollar retention across the B2B market, account sharing appears to be a rare exception that can grow net dollar retention by multiples. Account sharing not only opens up large gains initially, but unlocks continuous expansion as teams and their usage of the service grows, now that the habit of having one login for a team is broken.

It’s not just the big players benefiting

While Netflix and other streaming services have large data science, engineering and product teams behind their password sharing efforts. Small players are also getting to benefit as simply plug and play solutions become available. 

A real estate startup added in account sharing detection and saw within the first 24 hours that at least 5% of their user base were sharing accounts often across many different offices and with an average of 5 users behind each shared account. 

For a small startup being able to capitalise on this viral growth is huge and it provides much needed information about usage and expansion opportunities they would otherwise be blind to.

It’s only getting easier and more common

As B2B companies continue to evolve their strategies for dealing with account sharing, the lessons learned from B2C giants like Netflix and Disney are proving invaluable. By adopting a combination of expansion platforms, like Upollo, and new customer success & sales plays, these businesses are monetizing account sharing and accelerating NDR growth. 

While B2B has learnt a lot from Netflix and Disney, they may be showing them how to monetize this viral sharing without the feeling of a ‘crackdown’.