23/10/2020

With the wide breadth of data available on the internet, categorising all this information and using it to further specific business goals can be complex. When considering a specific lead, it can be then further difficult to accurately grade or score the lead with traditional data, due to the large amount of guesswork involved. However, with the use of up-to-date intent data, B2B marketers can precisely determine the purchase likelihood of a lead and consequently optimise their engagement strategy, both timing-wise and in terms of the type of approach. With the increase of social listening technologies and data gather possibilities, intent data is becoming a key b2b marketing tool to bring higher results. 

What is Intent Data? 

Intent data is data that reveals information about a buyer’s likelihood to take a certain action. Specifically, within B2B, this typically revolves around what topics or products/services a buyer is interested in, and hence if they have a higher propensity to purchase. The different types of intent data can be separated between two indicators:

Implicit vs Explicit

Implicit intent data is inferred from a buyers’ behaviour while explicit data is declared by the buyer. 

First-party vs Third-party

Intent data generated directly from buyer activity on owned websites its considered first-party data; when obtained from vendors that collect intent data from publisher sites it is named third-party data. 

How is Intent Data Gathered?

Buyers’ are frequently and actively researching products and services online. When a buyer is researching on your organisation’s own website it can give varying indications on buyers’ intent to purchase. Depending on the type of content and pages they are visiting, as well as with what frequency and in which way, it can reveal relevant predictions on buyers’ buying intent. In addition to this type of first-party data, third-party intent data can be purchased from providers that collect buying signals through content-rich business media sites. This type of data is more focused around early interest, showing the general topics of interest of certain accounts rather than specific leads, while one-to-one interactions on your website can be applied on both a company and lead level.   

In more technical terms, the actual data gather occurs by the content being tagged with metadata that describes the topics it contains. Buyer interactions with the content are then tracked and used to build an intent data dataset. Usually, content on owned websites has a larger number of specific topic tags meaning that first-party data is generally more exact than third-party data.  

How can Intent Data be Useful for B2B Marketing? 

There are a number of ways in which intent data can be used to power B2B marketing campaigns. Some of the most common methods include those listed below:

Improved Segmentation

Through intent data, companies can use intent data to define their ideal customers and create a more comprehensive picture of the buyer’s needs, interests and pain points. This can be used to support more effective targeting when creating a B2B marketing campaign. 

Optimised Content

by having a more extensive understanding of the characteristics of a lead and their level of interest, content can be personalised to increase engagement. Content can be made to properly adapted to the buyers’ interests beyond simply their job title or company. This can be especially effective in lead nurturing marketing campaigns, in content marketing efforts or for sales enablement. 

Marketing and Sales Alignment

Intent data can be used as a common language between sales and marketing to facilitate functions such as sales enablement and moving prospects down the funnel. 

Marketing Automation

By implementing marketing automation technologies that take advantage of intent data, it can save your team time spent on data entry and analysis by automatically setting off alerts when buyers intent is signifying purchase or other funnel stages. 

Personalised Landing Pages

Each component of a landing page should be optimised to meet buyer needs. Ergo, intent data can be used employed to adjust different page elements to meet users with varying needs at different buying stages. 

Search engine optimisation

Beyond keyword research, search intent is an even more effective element to rank highly in a search. When a page effectively meets buyer search criteria through the use of intent data by meeting B2B buyer pain points, needs and objectives, it can greatly help improve organic presence.