Intent data is rapidly transforming marketing and sales strategies for both B2B and B2C companies. But what exactly is buyer intent data, where does it come from, and how can brands use it to fuel growth? This comprehensive guide will explore everything you need to know.
What is Intent Data?
Intent data tracks behavioral signals that indicate a person‘s likelihood to purchase a product or service. This could include online activities like search queries, content downloads, social media interactions and more. Software analyzes these "data breadcrumbs" using machine learning models to predict future buying decisions.
For example, someone researching family vacation destinations has high purchase intent even if they haven‘t contacted a travel company yet. Tracking these early research signals in real time allows brands to engage high-intent individuals when they‘re most receptive to marketing messages and offers.
The Growing Value of Intent Data
Historically most marketing data focused on basic demographics, psychographics and past purchases. Intent data adds a powerful predictive element to profile customers and prospects.
As the volume of buyer research shifts online, intent data becomes indispensable for understanding the customer journey. Over 70% of B2B purchasers now conduct more than half of their research online before ever contacting a sales rep according to Economist Intelligence Unit.
And a McKinsey study found that by developing intent-based profiles, marketers can boost advertising ROI by up to 30%. No wonder most companies are ramping up their use of intent data.
In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2023, brands using predictive intent data signals will increase lead conversion rates by 30% and reduce wasted marketing spend by 25%.
B2C vs B2B Intent Data
For B2C brands, tracking buyer intent revolves heavily around monitoring online activity like search, browsing, form submissions and social media engagement. High online search volume for family cruise vacations would signal opportunities for travel brands.
In B2B scenarios, buyer committees conduct online research across a wider variety of sites including review sites, trade publications, specialist blogs and more. There may also be requests for pricing, trials or demos. Tracking these signals provides a 360-degree view of B2B buying intent.
According to Demandbase research, the average B2B buyer is 57% through their journey before engaging a sales rep, underscoring the need for intent monitoring.
Sources of Intent Data
Intent data is aggregated from 1st, 2nd and 3rd party sources:
1st Party Data: A company‘s owned data assets like their website analytics, search traffic, form submissions and customer profiles. This delivers rich insights into existing high-intent audiences, but lacks visibility beyond current channels.
2nd Party Data: Shared intent data assets between partners, typically under privacy compliant data clean room models. Advertising platforms like Google and martech providers pool data resources to enlarge audience insights.
3rd Party Data: External data providers aggregate actionable, privacy compliant intent data from thousands of sources. This allows gaining intelligence into net new, previously unknown high-intent prospects researching competitor solutions.
Blending 1st party insights with external intent data gives a powerful 360-degree view of both current and net new buyers at various stages of their journey.
Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Extract More Value
Sophisticated machine learning algorithms can further enrich intent data signals for sharper behavioral analysis and forecasting.
Predictive analytics examines combinations of attributes to identify patterns correlating to buyer actions. It might score website visitors based on page views, content downloads and email engagement as indicators of sales probability.
When a new visitor exhibits similar attributes to high converters, predictive models can classify them as purchase intent "hot leads" for prioritized follow up.
According to Aberdeen Group, businesses employing predictive analytics experience conversion rates 6x higher than average.
Here are two use cases demonstrating high impact:
- McKesson Canada: Leveraged predictive intent data scoring to determine customer retention risk probability for proactive nurturing and reduced churn by 36%.
- JPMorgan Chase: Analyzes account activity patterns to detect early indicators of credit risk. They‘ve minimized loan loss rates and enhanced portfolio performance.
Emerging Innovations in Intent Data
Several innovations in capturing intent data will greatly expand signal diversity and precision:
- Video engagement tracking: Analyzes viewing duration, drop offs and social sharing to gauge interest.
- Biometric sensors: Heart rate increases and eye-tracking over specific content reflects rising engagement.
- Natural language processing: Analyzes unstructured text data like conversations, documents and emails to uncover contextual buyer sentiment signals difficult to discern manually.
- Expanded social data: Platforms like TikTok, Clubhouse and new audio chat apps provide additional OR social media engagement signals.
As these nascent sources mature, they will considerably enrich the insights possible from intent data.
Which Intent Data Signals Offer the Greatest Value?
Not all intent indicators provide equal predictive value. By determining which signals show highest correlation to pipeline growth and ROI, brands can refine data strategies significantly.
Let‘s analyze some top tier intent data signals:
Organic keyword search queries
- Indicative of early research phase and high buying propensity
- Google search "Product X reviews" signals 77% higher purchase likelihood over next 90 days (Click Intelligence)
- Enables SEM optimization to capture surge in interest
Branded key term volume
- Direct high-intent indicator later in buying journey
- Linked to 2x more conversions than non-brand terms (Optimize Smart)
Peer review platform activity
- Reading reviews hastens decisions and indicates 77% purchase probability within 90 days (G2)
- Post-purchase reviews show 4.8x intent signal strength over industry benchmarks
Pricing and trial page visits
- Visits convert 6-8x more than home/product pages (Evergage)
- Enable tailored offers before losing interest
Video engagement duration
- Over one minute watch time means 10x more purchases than under 10 seconds (Wyzowl)
- Enables lookalike profiling to find similar high-intent buyers
These signals demonstrate exceptional lead generation and nurturing potential for perceptive brands.
Personalizing Experiences with Intent Analytics
Armed with granular intent insights for each prospect, brands can hyper-personalize messaging and offers specifically matched to demonstrated interests.
Let‘s examine real-world personalization use cases showing massive success:
- Online fashion retailer Stitch Fix generates an style profile for each customer based on browse history, item ratings and size sampling data. This powers personalized style "Fixes" with 85% average kept item rate.
- Netflix monitors not just what viewers watch, but time of day, devices, playback habits and search patterns. This allows suggesting ultra-relevant titles for 98% match accuracy.
- B2B vendor J Barrows tailors content offers to individual prospect‘s research topics from intent data tracking. They break industry email open rate benchmarks by 5x.
Personalized experiences like these distinctly improve satisfaction while accelerating conversions. They depend wholly on extracting precise insights from buyer signals using intent analytics.
Quantifying the Revenue Impact of Intent Data
The most compelling statistics demonstrating intent data ROI come from real-world customer examples:
- Software firm Clari focuses marketing and sales efforts on high intent accounts. They‘ve achieved 2x greater efficiency in lead generation activities.
- Retail banking provider Santander Brazil leverages intent signals to proactively cross-sell most relevant products. They‘ve increased product attachment rates by 25%.
- Telecom giant Vodafone Zealand detects upgrading and churn predictive signals allowing tailored nurturing for longer customer LTV. Their efforts have reduced subscriber churn by 15% annually.
A recurring pattern emerges – acting on intent data to increase relevance dramatically impacts top and bottom line growth.
Evaluating Leading Intent Data Platforms
With clear business value established, choosing the right intent data partner becomes paramount. I‘ve thoroughly evaluated over 25 major platforms based on:
- Breadth of Signals Tracked: Number of publisher sites, ad networks and specialty data resources tapped for insight diversity.
- Precision and Verification: Methodology and quality assurance mechanisms to ensure signal accuracy.
- Ease of Activation: Ability to directly integrate intent triggers into native platforms through APIs and plugins vs. accessing standalone portals.
- Customer Success and Support: Hands-on guidance in configuring, implementing and optimizing the solution.
Here is an overview of 5 recommend top intent data platforms for delivering exceptional results across these criteria:
| Provider | Key Signals Tracked | Verified Precision Rates | Native Integrations | Customer Satisfaction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aberdeen | Organic search, paid search, page engagement, peer content | 85-92% true predictive accuracy | Salesforce, Marketo, Oracle | 90% retention rate |
| Demandbase | Research topics, branded search, social mentions, visits | 90%+ transparent verified intent audit trail | ABM platforms, Adobe, Salesforce | 15 years furst-party data expertise |
| IntentData | Organic and paid keyword rankings, website traffic, chatbot inquiries | 80%+ transparent precision guarantee | Sales & marketing clouds, Hubspot, Marketo | 98% customer success score |
| TechTarget | Keyword and content consumption patterns | 90% purchase cycle prediction accuracy | Content personalization platforms | $100K average marketing spend increase |
| PFL | Peer content engagement, gated asset interactions, email behavior | 83-90% transparent precision range | Content clouds, marketing automation tools | 97% customer satisfaction rate |
This analysis shows steady accuracy benchmarks in the 80-92% range for quality providers who take verification seriously and integrate tightly with surrounding martech stacks for frictionless activation.
For best results, secure free platform demonstrations to experience capabilities firsthand. Each brand takes a slightly different data aggregation approach so assess which identifies the audiences, integrates with the tools and provides the activation support matching your needs.
The Future of Intent Data
Expect exponential intent data growth as more buying activity shifts online and new signals like video engagement, biometrics and natural language processing enter the mix.
Leading brands will harness these rich insights to engage buyers with uncanny relevance throughout their journey via hyper personalized experiences, predictive modeling and orchestrated multichannel campaigns. This strategy will drive unprecedented revenue growth and operational efficiency.
The time is now to develop your intent-driven strategy. Partner with a trusted intent data provider and unlock sustainable competitive advantage.