How Intent Data Connects Marketers with Active Tech Buyers

Modern B2B technology buyers are a mysterious group. Smart, informed and tech-savvy, they like to keep to themselves and are typically challenging to reach. With limited visibility into the behaviour of tech buyers, it can be difficult for marketers to evaluate where these prospects are in their purchase journey and how best to connect with them. Many organizations are now utilizing intent data to help them better understand technology buyer behaviour and improve marketing success.

5-Second Summary

Intent data helps marketers understand and connect with tech-savvy B2B buyers by capturing online activities to determine their interest and improve marketing success.
Organizations using intent data are two times more likely to have a 10% conversion rate compared with the 6% average conversion rate experienced at the top of the marketing funnel.
As you create your targeted campaigns, combine each type of intent data (first-party, second-party, third-party) with other data types for optimal success.

What is intent data?

Intent data is “information that indicates a prospect’s level of interest in a particular product or service online”. When a prospect is preparing to make a purchase decision, they will be actively performing keyword searches, visiting websites, and downloading relevant content. Intent data is the product of capturing and analyzing the online activities of the prospects to determine their readiness to purchase and likelihood of converting to a customer.

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Why is intent data useful?

The use of intent data can have a significant impact on the performance of your marketing and sales strategies. A recent Gartner survey shows that organizations using intent data are two times more likely to have a 10% conversion rate compared with the 6% average conversion rate experienced at the top of the marketing funnel. By using the insights uncovered by intent data, organizations can:

Optimize the timing of marketing and sales outreach: If you know that a prospective buyer is close to making a purchase decision, you can take action to position your product as the most desirable option through immediate, targeted marketing outreach. Using intent signals can help you put your product at the front of the line, staying ahead of your competition.

Improve content personalization: Intent data provides information on the topics that prospects are actively researching, enabling you to develop customized, relevant content. Not only will your personalized content cut through the daily clutter, but your prospects will also appreciate the value that it provides, building a stronger connection and increasing engagement.

Empower your ABM strategy: Leads in your ABM target lists can be sorted to prioritize those accounts that are actively interested in your products, so sales teams can focus on leads that have the greatest revenue potential. Intent data supports the personalization that ABM strategies require and enables marketing and sales teams to tailor outreach based on the specific products of interest to the target accounts.

Uncover buyer interests and pain points: Intent data provides you with insights into what your prospects are thinking about as they search possible solutions. Having more information about buyer interests and pain points can help identity any gaps you may have in your messaging and give you the resources you need to create more targeted content.

Accelerate the sales cycle: Armed with a better understanding of prospects’ interests, objections, and pain points, marketers can create customized communications and pitches that address prospects’ questions and concerns in a timely manner, accelerating the sales cycles.

Types of Intent Data

There are three types of intent data: first-party, second-party, and third-party. For optimal results, marketers typically combine all three types of data in their marketing efforts.

First-party data is information that your organization collects from its own digital activities and assets such as CRM, email campaigns, blog, and other website interactions. It is described as first-party data because your organization has a direct relationship with the user.

Second-party data is information that is obtained from organization A by another organization due to its direct relationship through a public engagement with organization A. For example, if organization A purchases new software and registers it with the software provider, the software provider can collect data about how organization A interacts with the software. Providers of second-party data typically protect user privacy by aggregating and anonymizing the data prior to selling the information.

Third-party data is information that is collected by providers through indirect relationships with users. These providers collect information about industries and organizations by monitoring countless websites via advertising networks, cookies, search history, and data sharing. Similar to second-party data providers, third-party data is aggregated and anonymized to ensure user privacy.

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Combining intent data with other data types

Intent data is invaluable as it signals a prospect’s interest in your product or service, but to ensure that you have a qualified prospect, you still need to understand if the prospect is a good fit for your organization. It’s important to use intent data in combination with other data types as you create your targeted campaigns:

Demographic data: job title, job level, age group, gender, education, and family status.

Firmographic data: industry, size of organization, location, sales and revenue, growth trends, and ownership framework.

Technographic data: the technologies and tools used by organizations, what they use them for, and how long they’ve used them.

Need help getting started using intent data to support your marketing strategies?

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How Intent Data Connects Marketers with Active Tech Buyers

B2B Marketing for Technology Companies.