Buyer intent data is the missing link that allows B2B brands to achieve jaw-dropping growth, revenue, and efficiency. Read this complete guide to transform your marketing and sales in 2024 with intent data.
What is Buyer Intent Data and Why is it Valuable?
In today’s digital world, B2B buyers do extensive online research before making purchase decisions. In fact, buyers are 57% through the purchase process before they ever talk to a sales rep! This means that understanding buyer behavior prior to direct engagement is crucial for businesses. That’s where buyer intent data comes in.
Definition and Types of Buyer Intent Data
Buyer intent data refers to data that captures the online research activities and behaviors of potential B2B buyers. It provides insights into what your prospects are interested in and where they are in their buyer journey so you can predict who is getting ready to buy.
There are a few different types of intent data:
First-Party vs. Second-Party vs. Third-Party Intent Data
First-party data comes directly from a company’s own website, ad campaigns, and other platforms. This data is extremely valuable since it represents direct interest in your products. However, it only provides part of the picture.
Second-party data is data that a company acquires from a partner through things like co-marketing campaigns, surveys, or events. It can enhance understanding of your target personas.
Third-party data is aggregated by data providers from public web sources. It offers insights into prospects’ behavior on other sites. While less direct than 1st or 2nd party data, it can unlock a broader view of research activities.
Explicit vs. Implicit Intent Signals
Explicit signals represent direct expressions of interest – things like keyword searches, content downloads, or inquiry form submissions.
Implicit signals are more subtle indicators of interest based on web browsing and research behaviors. These include visiting pricing pages, reviewing competitor options, or reading relevant content.
Combining different data types and signal flavors provides the most comprehensive view of each buyer’s journey.
Use Cases and Benefits of Leveraging Buyer Intent Data
Intent data confers many benefits for B2B marketing and sales teams. Here are some of the top ways it can be leveraged:
Identify New Sales Opportunities Early
By knowing which companies are researching solutions like yours, you can convert prospects earlier in their journey before competitors reach them. Prioritizing outreach based on intent propels growth.
Understand Buyer Journeys and Make Data-Driven Decisions
Analyzing the types of content prospects engage with provides insight into where they are in their decision-making process. You can tailor messaging and offers accordingly.
Personalize Marketing Campaigns and Outreach
Intent data enables hyper-targeted, one-to-one marketing. You can serve up tailored content and offers matched to each prospect’s interests.
Prioritize High-Value Accounts and Contacts
Focusing sales efforts on those demonstrating the strongest intent ensures your time gets spent where it can have the most impact.
Predict Churn Risks and Retention Opportunities
Seeing changes in account behavior and emerging competitor interest allows you to get ahead of attrition and improve retention.
There are nearly endless applications for intent data, but it essentially empowers more predictive, orchestrated, and effective marketing and sales. With a clear picture of prospect needs illuminated, you can achieve greater relevancy, conversion, and revenue growth. And in today’s competitive landscape, leveraging data-driven insights is critical.
Intent data delivers tangible benefits like:
- 2x higher prospect-to-customer conversion rates
- 3x larger deal sizes from prioritized opportunities
- 33% faster sales cycles by engaging prospects at the right time
- Up to 30% increase in customer lifetime value through better retention
The savviest B2B brands are applying intent data to amplify results across the funnel. Are you ready to unlock its potential? Keep reading to explore top intent data solutions for turbocharging your marketing and sales success in 2023.
Review of Top B2B Intent Data Providers
With intent data delivering such a wealth of benefits, it’s no wonder adoption is exploding. There are a variety of excellent intent data solutions available today for B2B brands. Here we’ll overview 4 top-rated options to consider:
Bombora
Bombora offers a leading intent data solution used by forward-thinking B2B companies.
Overview of Features and Data Sources
Key capabilities and highlights include:
- 12,000+ intent topics to track that align with your products
- Consent-based data ethically sourced from 5,000+ websites
- 70% exclusive data not available elsewhere
- Patented analytics that baseline typical content consumption before flagging company spikes
- Market insights and alerts on emerging opportunities
- CRM integrations with Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, and more
- Lookalike modeling to expand your universe with similar targets
- Audience building for paid and earned campaigns
Bombora takes an innovative cooperative approach to gathering intent data. Instead of scraping or buying data, it maintains a premium publisher network. Members benefit from exposure to Bombora’s audience.
This results in very high-quality, GDPR and CCPA compliant data. Bombora also provides exceptional customer service and support.
Use Cases and Customer Results
Bombora enumerates many customer success stories:
- Cloud company Cloudera used Bombora intent data to generate 30+ net new major enterprise deals
- Digital consulting firm iT1 saw 10x higher engagement from Bombora-sourced accounts
- B2B publisher Area Development delivers multi-million dollar sales opportunities to its ad customers using Bombora data
Bombora is routinely rated as a top intent data provider. It empowers B2B brands across industries to improve conversions, accelerates sales cycles, and drives revenue growth leveraging cutting-edge intent data.
6sense
6sense takes an advanced AI and machine learning approach to uncover anonymous buying behavior.
Overview of Features and Data Sources
Key features include:
- Uses artificial intelligence to analyze intent signals from thousands of sources
- Provides insights into all members of a prospect’s buying committee
- Predicts ideal timing for outreach to each target based on purchase stage
- In-depth firmographic filtering and segmentation
- Customized recommendations for content and messaging
- Integration with marketing and sales systems like Salesforce, Marketo, and Gong
The combination of robust data plus AI-powered analysis enables 6sense customers to achieve highly accurate intent insights and orchestration.
Use Cases and Customer Results
Notable 6sense customer achievements include:
- Cloud data warehouse Snowflake saw a 4x higher sales qualified meeting rate compared to benchmarks using 6sense for prospecting
- Marketing services firm Stein IAS achieved 8x greater return on their ABM program powered by 6sense intent and predictions
- Packet fabric realized 3x more pipeline and a 7x larger average deal size after adopting 6sense
For B2B brands looking to leverage the power of AI and intent data, 6sense is a top choice. It makes sales and marketing efforts more predictive and successful.
Demandbase
Demandbase provides an AI-powered Account Intelligence platform centered around intent data.
Overview of Features and Data Sources
Key Demandbase capabilities include:
- Analysis of over 500 billion intent signals monthly
- Support for granular keyword lists for tracking specific solutions
- Account Identification powered by AI to connect anonymous web activity
- Integration with ad platforms like Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn
- Audience building for hyper-targeted campaigns
- Powerful segmentation with custom fields and filters
Demandbase offers extensive proprietary data resources as well as third-party data partnerships. Users can combine first-party and third-party data for a complete view.
Use Cases and Customer Results
Notable results from Demandbase customers include:
- SaaS vendor Traackr saw a 65% larger deal size from Demandbase intent-qualified accounts
- Demandbase’s own sales team boosted deal sizes by 2.4x and reduced time spent prospecting by 65% using their intent data
- High Radius achieved an 8x larger average deal size using Demandbase coupled with marketing automation
For technology businesses seeking robust intent signals, Demandbase is a proven choice. Their AI-powered platform makes sense of torrents of data providing actionable insights.
ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo has emerged as a leader in sales and marketing intelligence solutions.
Overview of Features and Data Sources
Key aspects of ZoomInfo’s intent offering include:
- Broad view of over 300,000 publisher domains
- Streaming Intent providing real-time search and content consumption data
- Ideal Customer Profile matching to identify accounts with high intent
- Technographic insights into target stacks and tools
- Prioritized list of “in market” contacts recommended for outreach
- Integrations with leading CRM, MAP, and sales platforms
ZoomInfo leverages machine learning paired with one of the largest business data networks. Users gain both wide reach and precision when acting on intent signals.
Use Cases and Customer Results
Notable examples of ZoomInfo customer success include:
- Mobile marketing firm Liftoff saw 2x greater ROI and a 20% reduction in cost per acquisition using ZoomInfo data
- Shipping platform ShipStation achieved 30% faster sales cycle times with ZoomInfo intent alerts and data
- ZoomInfo provided cyber-security leader Tenable a 56% lift in product usage after targeted upsells based on intent
For B2B businesses looking for an end-to-end intent-fueled go-to-market platform, ZoomInfo hits the mark. The combination of data scale and science drives results.
There are certainly other excellent intent data tools on the market beyond these leaders. But this gives a taste of top solutions available to augment your tech stack. Unlocking intent data can transform sales and marketing effectiveness.
Best Practices for Using Intent Data to Boost Marketing and Sales
Intent data is a powerful tool, but truly maximizing its impact requires a thoughtful approach. Here we’ll overview some best practices for deploying intent data to lift B2B marketing and sales performance.
Integrate Intent Data into Your Existing Tech Stack
To amplify results, intent data must be woven into your existing workflows and systems. Look for intent providers with robust integrations or APIs compatible with your martech and salestech stack. Common connections include:
CRM Platforms – Sync intent alerts on prospects and accounts to CRM records for monitoring and Assignment. Salesforce, HubSpot, Pardot, and Marketo are commonly integrated.
MAPs – Build automated nurture campaigns triggered by intent spikes to generate and qualify leads. Integrate with Eloqua, Pardot, or Marketo.
ABM Platforms – Use intent signals to identify and target key accounts via orchestrated multichannel campaigns. Connect with Terminus, Demandbase, and Madison Logic.
Ad Platforms – Leverage intent topics to build targeted audiences for digital ads and personalize creative. Integrate intent data with Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
Sales Engagement – Empower sales teams to have relevant, timely conversations by integrating intent alerts into Outreach, SalesLoft, Groove, or ConnectAndSell.
Live Chat – Popup or proactively reach out to high-intent website visitors via Drift, Intercom, or LiveChat integrations.
Analytics – Track granular metrics on the impact of intent data campaigns using connectors for Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Heap, and more.
Marketing Automation – Use workflows, triggered campaigns, personalized content, and lead scoring powered by intent data piped into your MAP.
Carefully assess your martech and salestech stack and identify where integrating intent data can add fuel. Consider premium integrations some intent vendors provide as well as no-code tools like Zapier.
Analyze Buyer Journey Stages and Behavior Patterns
Simply activating intent data is the first step. To maximize value, you need to analyze the insights. Explore questions like:
- Which topics or products see the most interest over time? How does this align with your solutions?
- Can you correlate certain content engagement patterns to different buyer stages? Does blog traffic indicate early research vs. case studies and pricing pages pointing to consideration?
- What sources provide the highest quality, sales-ready leads? Do certain channels or campaigns over-index for converting prospects with strong intent?
- Which types of accounts tend to demonstrate intent – small businesses or large enterprises? Companies in certain geographies or industries? This can help focus target marketing.
- Are there seasonality trends in buyer behavior? When do people research most actively? Plan campaigns accordingly.
Build point-of-view hypotheses around your ideal customers’ journeys and leverage intent patterns to support, refine, or disprove them. Continuously evolve understanding.
Build Hyper-Personalized Campaigns Focused on High-Intent Leads
The real magic happens when you apply intent insights to orchestrate hyper-targeted, relevant, multi-touch campaigns focused on high-intent prospects. Considerplays like:
- Targeted content syndication – Promote blog posts, ebooks, or other materials aligned with topics prospects are exploring to grab their attention. Curate a custom nurture stream.
- Intent-based ad targeting – Identify and bid higher to prospects actively viewing and searching for relevant solutions. Serve up relevant creative.
- Personalized direct mail – Send custom brochures or postcards with messaging tailored to a prospect’s demonstrated interests. Capture attention with physical touchpoints.
- One-to-one email cadences – Craft individual email nurture campaigns for each prospect tailored to their intent data and stage. Send time-sensitive offers around their signals.
- Predictive scoring models – Weight intent history highly in lead scoring to bubble up sales-ready prospects for outreach.
- AI-optimized touch sequencing – Use intent signals around sales-readiness to determine optimal next interaction across channels ranging from email to phone.
- Intent-focused events – Host webinars, dinners, or other small events centered around hot topics that prospects are exploring to draw a targeted, engaged audience primed for conversion.
Get creative in building campaigns that tap into intent to deliver ridiculous relevance. Take a personalized approach and watch results climb.
Track ROI and Optimize Your Approach Over Time
Like any effective growth program, you need to be data-driven about tracking campaign impact and optimizing over time. Important metrics to monitor include:
- Sales cycle acceleration – Are prospects with identified intent converting faster from lead to sale? Measure average sales cycle time with and without intent data.
- Increased deal sizes – Do intent-informed opportunities result in larger average contract values? Compare ACV for intent leads vs. non-intent.
- Interest to opportunity conversion – What portion of prospects demonstrating intent ultimately become sales opportunities? Improve messaging and nurturing to increase this rate.
- Expanded pipeline reach – Is intent allowing you to build pipeline with net new prospects you weren’t previously engaging? Intent data can unlock new markets.
- Lower CAC – Does leveraging intent data allow you to acquire customers at lower cost? Factor in campaign and sales costs for intent-driven deals.
Compare these metrics over time and against historical baselines without intent data. Look for patterns to guide optimization. Double down on what works and try new approaches where needed. With continuous improvement, you’ll compound value.
Intent data alone doesn’t drive success – how you apply it does. Follow these best practices to maximize intent ROI and growth.
FAQs About Buyer Intent Data
Intent data delivers powerful benefits, but it does come with nuances. Here we’ll tackle some frequently asked questions to build knowledge.
What are some common challenges with intent data?
While extremely valuable, intent data is not perfect. Some potential pitfalls include:
Data relevance – Some third-party aggregators collect wide swaths of generic keywords and clicks. These “spray and pray” signals may lack relevance to your specific solutions. Seek targeted, quality data.
Data staleness – With fast-changing prospect behavior, yesterday’s intent insights may not reflect today’s needs. Seek real-time streaming data and analysis versus batched updates.
Data transparency – Some providers are vague about sources and methods. Without transparency, it’s hard to gauge true intent validity. Seek details on where data comes from and how it’s processed.
Alert overload – Basic intent platforms may fire off irrelevant alerts overwhelm teams. Look for smart intent scoring to deliver only the most sales-ready signals.
Integration difficulties – Lacking deep integration with CRM, MAP and other systems reduces intent usability. Seek turnkey connectors or robust APIs.
Measurement challenges – Since intent touches many systems, attribution can be complex. Use UTM tagging, correlation analysis, and multi-touch modeling to overcome this.
While very powerful, intent data takes thoughtful planning to maximize value and avoid potential downsides. Work with transparent providers and take an orchestrated approach.
How much does intent data cost?
Intent data pricing varies based on:
Data source and exclusivity – Unique proprietary data carries premium pricing, while third-party aggregators are more affordable. Similarly, exclusive access to certain data sets costs more.
Volume and seats – Larger volumes of intent topics and signals covered plus additional user seats raise price.
Level of analysis – Platforms with more advanced AI and analytics capabilities command higher pricing than raw data feeds.
Support and services – White-glove services like implementation, analysis, and optimization support increase costs but also value.
Integrations and APIs – Turnkey integrations and API access add expense but can multiply intent data ROI.
Average entry-level costs for quality intent data range from $1,000 to $5,000 monthly depending on above factors. For advanced enterprise-grade solutions with expansive data and science, fees can exceed $25,000 per month.
Compared to the revenue lift potential, intent data provides strong ROI. Still, strike the right balance between price and value.
What KPIs can I track to measure the impact of intent data?
Key performance indicators to monitor include:
- Sales cycle acceleration – Average reduction in days from prospect to closed deal
- Expanded deal sizes – Percentage increase in average contract values
- New customer reach – Additional percentage of prospects engaged from net new accounts
- Lead to opportunity yield – Improvement in percentage of leads becoming sales oppportunities
- Lower customer acquisition cost – Decrease in sales and marketing spend per won deal
- Revenue tied to intent – Percent or dollar amount of sales pipeline and bookings influenced by intent
Apply multi-touch attribution to quantify intent’s impact across metrics. Overlay trends before and after adoption to isolate value. Refine tracking to sharpen use of intent data.
How can I get started with intent data?
Keys to launching intent data effectively:
Select your provider – Assess leading solutions against factors like data sources, analysis depth, integrations, and customer results.
Plan integration – Map the flow of intent alerts into your sales and marketing systems and processes. Address any gaps.
Establish workflows – Define playbooks for handing and acting on new intent signals. Remove friction and delays.
Train teams – Educate colleagues on receiving and leveraging intent alerts to maximize follow-through.
Start small – Pilot intent data on a focused product line or customer segment before expanding. Learn and optimize.
Review impact – Establish key metrics and review often. Refine approaches to amplify outcomes.
While ready to provide value on day one, intent data ROI compounds over time as you refine strategies and teams get more adept at activation. Patience and discipline drives results.
Intent data can be a game-changing force multiplier for B2B marketing and sales. But as with any powerful tool, it requires knowledge, planning, and skill to wield effectively. We hope these questions provide a strong foundation. Reach out if any other aspects of leveraging intent data need clarification. The journey promises big rewards.
Get More from Your Marketing and Sales Initiatives with Buyer Intent Data
In our digital world, B2B buyers are self-educating more than ever before making purchasing decisions. With so much information at their fingertips, they have high expectations of relevance. Brands that can demonstrate understanding of each prospect’s needs and interests differentiate themselves and drive faster growth.
Intent data is the keystone that makes anticipatory, personalized marketing possible. By revealing digital body language, intent data enables you to engage buyers at precisely the right time with exactly the right message to accelerate conversion.
Key benefits you can realize by embracing intent data include:
Reach Prospects When They’re Ready to Buy
Buyers generate abundant intent signals as they research solutions to their problems. Identifying and engaging prospects demonstrating active intent lets you intervene at the critical moment when they’re ready to buy, not before or after. Timing is everything.
Start Relationships Earlier in the Buyer Journey
Typically brands wait until leads convert on a website before initiating conversations. But intent data allows you to start nurturing and building relationships much earlier in the journey, while prospects are still anonymous website visitors conducting research. This amplifies conversion rates later on.
Orchestrate Personalized Multi-Channel Campaigns
Intent data informs orchestration of tailored messaging and content across channels ranging from email to ads to direct mail. You can serve each prospect with exactly what they need, when they need it based on their demonstrated interests. Relevance pays off big.
Focus Sales Efforts on Hot Prospects
Time is the scarcest resource in sales. Intent data ensures sales reps spend time only with prospects exhibiting solid buying signals instead of wasting effort on cold leads. The most promising opportunities rise to the top.
Reduce Wasted Spend on Cold Outbound Prospecting
Many marketing leads and sales calls result in dead ends because they’re not grounded in signaled buyer interest. Intent qualifies who is most likely to buy, reducing wasted time and budget on cold outbound efforts. Marketing efficiency improves.
Retain and Expand Accounts with Early Churn Predictions
When intent data shows prospects exploring competitors after becoming customers, you can proactively retain them with re-engagement campaigns. Intent data illuminates risks early when retention is more successful.
The benefits of leveraging intent data are profound. In competitive markets, intent-powered orchestration is quickly becoming a must-have capability. Brands that master it gain advantage.
Now is the time to adopt intent data if you haven’t already. With the right approach, intent can drive transformational growth. Can you afford to remain in the dark about your prospects’ needs and purchase plans? Empower your team to start mind reading with intent data.
Key Takeaways
The importance of buyer intent data for B2B marketing and sales success cannot be overstated. Here are the key lessons to remember:
- Intent data reveals digital body language, enabling you to engage prospects at the right time with relevant messaging to accelerate conversion.
- Combining first, second, and third-party intent data from both explicit and implicit signals provides the most complete view of prospect behavior and interests.
- Leading intent data solutions like Bombora, 6sense, Demandbase, and ZoomInfo apply sophisticated analysis to surface sales-ready accounts.
- Integrating intent data into your existing martech and salestech stack maximizes impact across initiatives from ads to email and more.
- Build orchestrated, hyper-personalized campaigns focused on high-intent individuals using insights uncovered by intent data.
- Continuously track ROI and optimize approaches over time to improve results as your team gets more adept at leveraging intent.
- With the right expectations and game plan, intent data can help you reach prospects when ready to buy, improve conversion and retention, accelerate sales cycles, and make marketing and sales efforts more efficient.
The ingredients for B2B success are changing fast. In 2023 and beyond, intent data represents perhaps the most valuable weapon for gaining competitive advantage and elevating growth. Unlock its potential today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What are the main benefits of using intent data?
A: The key benefits include reaching prospects when they’re ready to buy, starting relationships earlier, orchestrating personalized campaigns, focusing sales efforts on hot leads, reducing wasted spend, and predicting churn risks early.
Q: What types of intent data are there?
A: There are three main types – first-party from your own sources, second-party from partners, and third-party aggregated by data providers. There are also explicit signals like searches and implicit signals like web activity.
Q: How accurate is intent data?
A: Quality can vary significantly. Seek providers with transparent sources and methods. Combining multiple data types yields greater accuracy than any single signal.
Q: How much does intent data cost?
A: Entry-level costs range from $1,000 to $5,000 monthly. Enterprise-grade solutions exceed $25,000 per month. Pricing depends on data exclusivity, volume, analysis depth, and more.
Q: What are some challenges with intent data?
A: Potential issues include irrelevant or stale data, lack of transparency, alert overload, integration difficulties, and measurement challenges. Pick providers carefully and take an orchestrated approach.
Q: What KPIs help measure intent data impact?
A: Key metrics include sales cycle acceleration, expanded deal sizes, new customer reach, lead conversion rates, lower CAC, and revenue directly attributed to intent.
Q: How can I get started with intent data?
A: First select a provider, plan integrations, establish workflows, train teams, start small, and continuously review impact. Seek help to ensure a successful launch.