What is Intent Data and how does it work?

What is Intent Data?

Your prospects are looking for a solution to their problem(s). While they are on the hunt to find the best option, it is your job to ensure they see you and your products. Strike while the iron is hot, and if you are making use of intent data, you’d have a better understanding of when to strike.

Intent data is a dataset based on the identity and behavior of a business or an individual who may be interested in your products. With the help of behavioral data, which includes interactions with online content, competitors, events, and influencers, intent data predicts whether a prospect is willing to purchase your product. Intent data can certainly accelerate the efficiency of marketing and sales decisions.

According to research from Salesforce and Publicis.Sapient, 87 percent of shoppers research products online before making a purchase. These shoppers search online, read content, and compare multiple options that may address their problems. Intent data is gathered from a number of digital sources, which use cookies to observe main intent search items or terms. By dint of intent data, a prospect or account which is in an active buying journey can be pinpointed and you can take timely action to grab their attention..  

Sales and marketing teams study behavioral signals and prioritize accounts that show interest in the company’s product. B2B intent data can help increase the rate of conversion by finding the activity of different accounts via:

• Product reviews
• Blogs and infographics
• Comparisons among similar products
• Social platforms such as Quora.com
• General news

Intent data is invaluable for any B2B company as organizations can reach their prospective customers much earlier in the decision-making process and help them before any competitor even knows about the buyer’s interest. For forward-thinking companies, intent data bring massive opportunities as they can be the first to reach their prospects ans as you know, usually the first sales representative through the door wins the deal!

Types of Intent Data:

There are two key types of Intent Data:

First-party (internal intent data) is the data that you can get from your own sources such as your website through the use of tracking and marketing automation platform tools. Such insight is also known as engagement data. When you analyze a visitor’s activity on your page and their engagement with your content by studying metrics such as the time spent on the page, topic of the page, etc, you can identify a buyer’s interest and their place along the customer journey process.

With such information at hand, you can nurture these prospects and potentially conver them. For instance, if someone fills out a form on your website, you can nurture them by showing them relevant ads and sending appropriate emails that might help them move along the customer journey process.

Third-party (external intent data) is insight that is provided by third-parties (usually through cookies). This is information is coming from sites that are beyond your control. Consequently, you get access to a wider view of a prospect’s intent across different websites on the Internet. This intent data can throw light over your buyer’s intent on specific subject areas and sites that you could use to convert them.

No doubt, intent data is a form of sales intelligence as it can tell you which accounts are in the search for a solution on third-part sites. When a buyer encounters a problem, they usually check for solutions online. When research on a specific topic is more than usual, the prospect gets highlighted and you get the chance to win them over.

How to use B2B Intent Data?

There are five main ways of using Intent Data:

1- Recognize early buyer interest:  Intent Data helps you identify companies who are looking at your product or solution before they reach you via a form submission, etc. Using this information, you can place yourself at different positions during a buyer’s customer journey before your competitors.

2- Create Targeted Account Lists (TALs): Accounts that are active can be easily highlighted in your outreach lists by your marketing and sales teams and added to your TAL.

Click here to learn more about creating TALs.

3- Personalization: With intent data, you can add personalize  every interaction you have with your potential customers. Everyone loves to be treated with a touch of personalization. With intent data at hand, you knoe what your prospects are looking for and how they feel, and so, you can make them feel heard and understood. These personalized outreach interactions can work wonders for you!

4- Lead Scoring: Create a method to score your leads and focus on the ones that weigh more according to your list of attributes. This way you can prioritize accounts that show interest and buying intent.

We have discussed the importance of lead scoring earlier. Please head out to and learn more about the topic.

5- Healthy Customer Relationships: Intent Data can help you foster relationships with existing customers too. Your support department can see the level of satisfaction your customers are enjoying at any point and work on aspects that still might be missing.

How can Intent Data help you?

Intent data can drastically increase your leads and conversions, but you have to use it smartly. A business development representative (BDR) can use B2B buyer intent data with firmographic and technographic information and have the context they need for a competent outbound sales.

Here are the three key benefits of using intent data for your business:

1-Enhanced efficiency: Both marketing and sales teams are more efficient as they can systematically approach active accounts. Intent data can support multiple different marketing and sales use cases.

2-Shorter sales cycle: You are not just focusing on any account. Instead, your teams are working on intent-qualified leads that have a higher chance of conversion. This improves your company’s pipeline quality.

3-Higher conversion rates: More deals are bound to come your way if you are making learned decisions using your buyers intent data. When you concentrate on active accounts, you will have higher conversion rates.

Last Word:

Intent-based marketing is the method that focuses on  listening to signals that demonstrate a prospect is looking for a specific topic, so you can send the right message at the right time.

This king of marketing is set to observe, learn, and then reach out to potential customers. Better campaign personalization and the ability to pinpoint prospective customers who have not engaged with your content are the reasons why one should investigate more into their buyer intent data and get involved in timely engagement that can lead to quality customer relations.  

Let’s talk:

If you would like to learn more about how intent data can help you reach your B2B goals, feel free to contact us and book an appointment. We are always happy to listen to you and provide any help that we can.

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