What is Intent Data?
Picture this: you’re a sales rep calling companies that might need your product. Most of them aren’t thinking about buying anything right now. They’re busy, distracted, and your call interrupts their day. Your conversion rate is maybe 2% on a good week.
Now imagine if you could see which companies are actively researching solutions like yours right now. Not tomorrow, not next quarter—today. Which ones are reading articles about the problem you solve, comparing vendors on review sites, and downloading buying guides. That’s what intent data gives you.
Intent data reveals the digital body language of companies researching solutions in your category. When a company starts showing unusual interest in topics related to what you sell, that’s a buying signal worth paying attention to.
Without intent data, you’re essentially cold calling in the dark. You might reach out to a company that won’t think about your category for another six months. Or worse, you might miss the company that’s ready to buy this week because you didn’t know they were in-market.
With intent data, you flip the script entirely. You contact companies when they’re already thinking about the problem you solve. Your messaging lands differently when someone’s actively researching rather than being interrupted. Your conversion rates jump from 2% to 15% or higher because you’re matching your timing to their buying journey.
The Three Types of Intent Data You Should Know
First-Party Intent: What Happens on Your Own Website
First-party intent data comes from your own digital properties—your website, marketing emails, and content platforms. When someone from a specific company visits your pricing page three times in one week, that’s a strong intent signal. When they download your comparison guide or watch a product demo video, you’re seeing real buying interest.
This is the gold standard of intent data because it’s the most accurate. These people found you, engaged with your content, and showed specific interest in your solution. The challenge is that first-party intent only captures companies already aware of you. You’re missing all the prospects researching the category who haven’t discovered your brand yet.
Most companies collect first-party intent through website tracking tools that identify which companies visit their site, even when visitors don’t fill out a form. Tools like Clearbit Reveal, Leadfeeder, and RB2B specialize in this, matching IP addresses to company names and showing you exactly what each account looked at.
Third-Party Intent: The Broader Research Landscape
Third-party intent data captures buying signals from across the web—publisher networks, content sites, and industry resources where your prospects research before they ever visit your website. Providers like Bombora aggregate data from thousands of business websites to identify which companies are consuming content about specific topics.
Here’s how it works in practice: Let’s say you sell marketing automation software. Bombora tracks when companies show unusual spikes in consumption of content about topics like “email automation,” “lead scoring,” and “marketing workflows.” When a company’s employees read five articles about email automation in a week when they normally read zero, that surge indicates active research.
The advantage is discovering companies before they know your brand exists. You can reach out while they’re still learning about the problem and considering solutions, not after they’ve already built their shortlist. The downside is the data is less precise than first-party—you’re seeing category-level interest, not specific interest in your product.
Second-Party Intent: The Power of Review Sites
Second-party intent sits in between first and third-party data. It comes from trusted platforms where buyers actively research and compare vendors—sites like G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius. When a company visits your G2 profile, compares you against competitors, or reads reviews about your category, that’s incredibly high-quality intent.
Why is review site intent so valuable? Because these visitors are further along in their buying journey. They’re not just learning about the problem anymore—they’re actively evaluating specific solutions. Someone comparing you against two competitors on G2 is likely weeks away from a purchase decision, not months.
G2 and similar platforms offer intent products that let you see which companies are researching your category and your specific product page. For software companies, this is often the highest-converting intent source because the visitor intent is so clear and immediate.
How Intent Data Gets Collected and Scored
Understanding where intent data comes from helps you evaluate its quality and use it effectively. There are four main collection methods you’ll encounter.
Content consumption tracking happens through publisher cooperatives. Business websites and publishers share anonymized data about what companies read. When someone from Acme Corp reads an article about cloud security, that signal gets aggregated. Bombora pioneered this model with their Company Surge data cooperative, which now includes thousands of B2B websites.
Review site behavior tracking is straightforward—platforms like G2 and TrustRadius can see which companies visit which vendor profiles and category pages. This is first-party data for the review site, which they package as intent data for vendors listed on their platform.
Website visitor identification uses IP address matching and reverse lookups to identify anonymous website visitors. When someone from a company visits your site, tracking scripts capture their IP address and match it to company databases. This gives you first-party intent without requiring form fills.
Search and bidstream data aggregates signals from advertising exchanges and search behavior. When companies search for keywords related to your category or interact with ads in your space, that creates intent signals. This data source is less common and raises more privacy considerations.
Most providers score intent signals to help you prioritize. Bombora’s Company Surge score, for example, compares current consumption levels to baseline activity. A score of 75 means a company is consuming 75% more content about a topic than usual. Scores above 70 typically indicate strong buying signals worth acting on.
Choosing the Right Intent Data Provider
The intent data landscape has consolidated around a few major players, each with different strengths and ideal use cases.
Bombora operates the largest B2B data cooperative and tracks intent across more than 5,000 topics. Their Company Surge scores have become an industry standard, and they integrate with most major sales and marketing platforms. Bombora is best for mid-market and enterprise companies with mature ABM programs. The pricing is enterprise-level, typically requiring annual commitments. The strength is breadth of coverage and topic granularity—you can track very specific research areas. The weakness is that it’s aggregated third-party data, so signal quality varies.
G2 offers intent data based on activity within their review platform. This is incredibly high-quality intent because visitors are actively comparing vendors and reading reviews. G2 intent is ideal for software companies listed on their platform. You can see which companies viewed your profile, compared you to competitors, and researched your category. The limitation is that it only captures review site behavior, missing earlier-stage research.
ZoomInfo Intent bundles intent signals with their core contact database. The advantage is having intent data and contact information in one platform. When you identify a high-intent account, you immediately have access to decision-makers at that company. This makes activation faster and easier. ZoomInfo Intent comes with higher-tier subscriptions and is best for companies already using ZoomInfo for prospecting.
6sense positions itself as a predictive platform rather than just an intent data provider. They combine intent signals from multiple sources with AI to predict which accounts are in-market. The platform includes account identification, intent scoring, orchestration, and measurement. 6sense is built for large ABM programs and comes with enterprise pricing to match. The comprehensive approach is powerful but requires significant investment and dedicated resources.
Leadfeeder and RB2B focus exclusively on website visitor identification—turning your own website traffic into first-party intent. These tools are affordable (starting around $79/month) and quick to implement. They’re ideal for SMBs and companies just starting with intent data. The limitation is you only see companies that already found your website, but that’s often enough to generate significant pipeline.
Five Practical Strategies for Using Intent Data
Strategy 1: Prioritize Your Outbound Based on Buying Signals
The most straightforward use of intent data is routing high-intent accounts to sales for immediate follow-up. Instead of working through lists alphabetically or randomly, your reps focus on companies actively researching solutions.
Set up workflows that automatically flag accounts above certain intent thresholds. Accounts scoring above 80 might go straight to sales for same-day outreach. Accounts in the 50-80 range get added to high-priority sequences with faster follow-up cadences. Lower-scoring accounts stay in standard nurture programs.
The key is speed. Intent signals decay quickly—a company researching this week might make a decision next week. Configure alerts so reps know within hours when target accounts show buying signals, not days later.
Strategy 2: Personalize Your Messaging to What They’re Researching
Generic outreach gets ignored. But when you reference the specific topics a company has been researching, your message stands out. Intent data shows you what problems prospects are trying to solve right now.
Let’s say your intent data shows a company has been heavily consuming content about “customer data platforms” and “marketing attribution.” Your outreach can speak directly to those interests rather than making assumptions about their challenges.
The message might acknowledge you noticed they’re exploring ways to unify customer data and improve attribution accuracy. You could share a specific case study about helping a similar company solve exactly those challenges. This level of personalization is only possible with intent insights.
Strategy 3: Time Your Outreach for Maximum Impact
Most sales teams reach out to accounts on their own schedule—when they finish building a list, when it’s “time for outbound,” or when quotas are due. Intent data flips this around so you reach out based on the prospect’s timeline.
When a company first shows intent signals, they’re typically early in their research. As those signals intensify over days or weeks, they’re moving through their buying journey. The strongest signals often happen right before vendor selection.
Monitor intent over time rather than reacting to single spikes. A company showing consistent elevated intent for 2-3 weeks is more qualified than one with a single surge. Set up tracking to identify when accounts cross thresholds and when their intent accelerates, then time your outreach accordingly.
Strategy 4: Build Better Lead Scoring Models
Intent data becomes even more powerful when combined with other qualification factors. A company showing high intent might not be a good fit if they’re in the wrong industry or too small for your solution.
Build scoring models that weight multiple signals together. You might assign 40 points for high intent scores, 30 points for ICP fit based on firmographics, 20 points for engagement with your content, and 10 points for recent website visits. Total scores above 80 become hot leads routed directly to sales.
This prevents chasing false positives while ensuring you act on qualified accounts showing buying signals. The combination of intent and fit is more predictive than either factor alone.
Strategy 5: Coordinate Account-Based Plays
For your most important target accounts, use intent signals to trigger coordinated multi-channel campaigns. When a tier-one account shows intent, that kicks off a play involving ads, email, LinkedIn outreach, and direct sales contact.
Sales Development Reps, Account Executives, and marketing all get alerted when priority accounts go into buying mode. SDRs might send personalized video messages, marketing serves targeted ads mentioning the researched topics, and AEs reach out directly if they have existing relationships.
This orchestrated approach surrounds high-intent accounts with relevant touches across channels, significantly increasing breakthrough rates compared to single-channel outreach.
Measuring Whether Intent Data Actually Works
The honest question every sales leader asks is: does this actually improve results enough to justify the cost? Intent data subscriptions aren’t cheap, so you need to measure impact.
Compare performance metrics for intent-based outreach versus standard prospecting. Track response rates, meeting rates, sales cycle length, and win rates separately for accounts engaged based on intent signals versus those reached through traditional methods.
Most companies see response rates improve from 5-10% to 15-25% when reaching out to high-intent accounts. Meeting rates typically double or triple. Sales cycles often compress by 20-30% because prospects are already educated about the problem and solution categories. Win rates improve 20-30% because you’re talking to companies actively shopping, not planting seeds for future need.
Calculate ROI by comparing the cost of your intent data subscription against the additional pipeline and revenue it generates. If you’re paying $30,000 annually for intent data but it helps you close three additional deals worth $100,000 in margin, the ROI is clear.
Run A/B tests where possible. Have some reps use intent data for prioritization while others work without it, then compare results. This isolated comparison shows true impact better than before-and-after measurements that might capture other changing variables.
Common Challenges When Implementing Intent Data
Data quality and noise is the first obstacle most teams hit. Not every intent signal represents real buying activity. A company’s employee might be researching for a school project or personal interest. Marketing teams at your prospects might be reading competitor content for research that has nothing to do with purchasing.
Combat this by requiring multiple signals before acting and by combining intent with firmographic fit. A 50-person startup showing intent for enterprise software probably isn’t qualified regardless of their research activity. Layer intent on top of ICP criteria rather than replacing qualification.
Acting fast enough is often harder than it sounds. Intent signals have a shelf life measured in days, not weeks. If it takes you five days to route a lead and assign follow-up, the opportunity may be gone. Automate as much as possible—automatic routing, triggered sequences, real-time alerts to reps. Remove manual handoffs that introduce delays.
Integration challenges can bog down implementation. If intent data lives in a separate platform that reps have to log into separately from their CRM, adoption will be low. Invest in proper integrations so intent scores appear directly in your CRM alongside other contact and account information. Make it impossible for reps to ignore high-intent signals by surfacing them in their existing workflow.
Proving ROI gets difficult when intent is one of many touchpoints in complex B2B sales cycles. A prospect might show intent, receive outreach, engage with ads, attend a webinar, and eventually convert. Attributing that deal to intent specifically requires thoughtful tracking. Tag intent-sourced opportunities clearly in your CRM and compare their progression and close rates against other sources.
Key Takeaways
Intent data has fundamentally changed B2B prospecting by replacing guesswork with timing. Instead of interrupting prospects randomly and hoping they happen to be interested, you can identify companies actively researching solutions and reach out when they’re most receptive.
Start with first-party intent if you’re new to this—identify companies visiting your website and engaging with your content. It’s the easiest to implement and highest quality. Layer in third-party intent from providers like Bombora or G2 as your program matures to discover accounts earlier in their journey.
Combine intent signals with strong firmographic qualification. High intent doesn’t matter if the company isn’t a good fit for your solution. The magic happens when you find accounts that match your ICP and show active buying signals.
Speed matters enormously with intent data. Signals decay quickly as prospects move through their research and make decisions. Set up automated workflows that route high-intent accounts to sales immediately and trigger timely outreach.
Personalize your messaging based on what prospects are researching. Reference the specific topics they’ve been consuming content about. Show that you understand where they are in their journey rather than blasting generic pitches.
The best time to reach a prospect is when they’re already looking for you. Intent data tells you exactly when that is.
Need Help With Intent-Based Targeting?
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