How to Use Intent Data for B2B Sales and Marketing

Understanding and leveraging intent data has become crucial for sales and marketing success. By capturing and analyzing digital signals from potential buyers, businesses can identify in-market leads, personalize their outreach, and significantly improve conversion rates. Whether you want to enhance your ABM strategy, prevent customer churn, or create more targeted content, intent data provides the insights you need to make informed decisions.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore 10 powerful strategies to help you harness the full potential of intent data, enabling you to stay ahead of the competition and drive meaningful results for your business.

1. Identify In-Market Leads

Identifying in-market leads using intent data is about more than just gathering information; it’s about analyzing behavioral signals to pinpoint potential customers who are actively seeking solutions that align with what your business offers.

This process involves tracking online activities—such as content interactions, search queries, and digital engagement—to identify who is in the buying cycle and how ready they are to make a decision.

How to Implement

Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Begin by clearly defining the characteristics of your ideal customer. This includes factors such as industry, company size, job titles, pain points, and buying motivations.

A well-defined ICP helps you focus your efforts on identifying B2B buyers that align with your business objectives. When you know exactly who you’re targeting, you can better tailor your marketing and sales strategies to meet their needs.

Choose the Right Intent Data Sources

• First-Party Intent Data. Gather intent data from your digital assets, such as website interactions, landing page visits, blog engagements, and social media interactions. This data provides valuable insights into how prospects are engaging with your brand.
• Third-Party Intent Data. Partner with B2B intent data providers who aggregate information from external sources like industry publications, forums, review sites, and social media platforms. This data extends your reach beyond your direct interactions and helps identify B2B companies who may not have directly engaged with your brand.

Pro Tip →

Demandbase will notify you when an account’s interest in your keywords suddenly increases. This indicates a potential buying window, allowing you to act promptly.

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Identify Relevant Intent Signals

• Content Consumption. Track the types of content prospects engage with. Are they downloading case studies or tuning into webinars? This reveals their areas of interest and potential pain points.
• Keyword Searches. Monitor search terms and phrases that prospects use on search engines and other platforms. This provides insights into their specific needs and challenges.
• Engagement with Competitors. Keep an eye on prospects who are researching or interacting with your competitors. This indicates they are actively exploring options and may be considering a purchase.
• Firmographic and Technographic Data. Assess whether a prospect’s company size, industry, or technology stack matches your ICP.

Pro Tip →

Demandbase’s AI will expand and refine your list, using its vast data repository to suggest additional keywords and phrases that resonate with your target audience.

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Score and Prioritize Leads

Once you have collected intent data, assign scores to leads based on their intent signals and alignment with your ICP. This process is known as lead scoring and helps you prioritize your sales and marketing efforts. Higher scores indicate a greater potential for conversion.

Targeted Outreach

• Personalized Messaging. Craft messages that address the prospect’s specific needs and demonstrate how your solution can address their pain points.
• Relevant Content. Offer valuable content, such as case studies or whitepapers, that aligns with their demonstrated interests.
• Timely Follow-up. Engage with leads while their interest is still high. Quick follow-up can make a significant difference in converting leads into customers.

Example → Imagine a prospect who frequently reads articles about cloud security challenges, has downloaded a whitepaper on cybersecurity solutions, and has searched for “best cybersecurity tools” online. This behavior showcases a strong intent to purchase within this niche.

As a response, your sales team could reach out with a personalized email or call, highlighting the resources you’ve noticed they’ve engaged with and offering additional materials that could assist in their buying journey.

2. Improve Lead Scoring

Improving lead scoring involves refining your approach to evaluating the readiness and relevance of potential customers. By integrating intent data into your scoring models, you can boost the precision and predictive capabilities of your assessments.

This ensures that your sales and marketing teams concentrate their efforts on prospects who show the strongest likelihood of conversion, optimizing resource allocation and increasing ROI.

How to Implement

Define Intent Signals

• High-Intent Signals. Such as whitepaper downloads, demo requests, pricing page views, and engagement with bottom-of-the-funnel content. These signals indicate a deep level of interest and proximity to a purchase decision.
• Medium-Intent Signals. Include specific page visits (like product pages), repeated site visits, or extended session durations. These suggest a growing interest that could develop into a purchase intent.
• Low-Intent Signals. Such as social media likes or top-of-the-funnel content interactions. These are initial engagement points that may or may not evolve into serious buying interest.

Pro Tip →

With Demandbase, you can identify accounts with consistently high intent over time, signaling sustained interest in your offerings.

Assign Point Values

Assign point values to different intent signals based on their importance and relevance to your business. High-intent signals should receive higher point values, while low-intent signals receive lower values.

• Example Assignments:
  • Demo Request = 50 points
  • Pricing Page View = 40 points
  • Whitepaper Download = 30 points
  • Blog Subscription = 5 points

Adjust point values based on your specific business goals and historical data. For example, if pricing page views correlate more strongly with conversions than demo requests, assign them a higher point value.

 

Pro Tip →

Integrate Demandbase Intent with your CRM or marketing automation platform to assign scores to leads based on their intent level.

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Set Thresholds

Establish clear score thresholds to categorize leads:

• Hot Leads (High Priority). Scores above a certain point (e.g., 80 points) indicate immediate engagement opportunities.
• Warm Leads (Medium Priority). Scores in the middle range (e.g., 40-79 points) that may require nurturing.
• Cold Leads (Low Priority). Scores below a lower threshold (e.g., 0-39 points) indicate early-stage engagement or low buying intent.

Regularly Review and Update Intent Signals

Continuously analyze whether certain actions or behaviors indicate high purchase intent. For example, are there new content types or interactions that signal readiness to buy?

In addition, modify point values based on their actual impact on conversion rates. This ensures your scoring system remains relevant and effective.

Incorporate Negative Scoring

Negative scoring involves identifying actions that suggest a decrease in interest or disqualification of a lead. This helps prevent unqualified leads from receiving high scores.

Examples of Negative Signals:

• Unsubscribing from emails
• Repeatedly declining offers
• Visiting your career page (may indicate interest in employment rather than purchasing).

This helps prevent inflating scores for leads unlikely to convert.

Align Scoring with Sales Stages

• Tailor your scoring system to reflect different sales cycle stages. Modify point values according to the lead’s journey stage, ensuring that your scoring system accurately mirrors their readiness to engage or buy.
  • For example, a webinar registration may be more valuable in the awareness stage than in the decision stage.

Gather Feedback from Sales

• Regularly seek feedback from your sales team on lead quality and scoring accuracy. Sales teams provide valuable insights based on real-world interactions with prospects.
  • Are high-scoring leads converting as expected? Are low-scoring leads being overlooked despite potential?

Example → Let’s say you noticed that leads who download a specific case study consistently convert at a higher rate. You might increase the point value associated with downloading that case study to reflect its significance.

Conversely, if leads who visit your career page rarely convert, you could introduce negative scoring for that behavior.

3. Create Effective Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Strategies

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) follows a unique approach where marketing and sales resources are concentrated on a carefully selected group of high-value accounts. With intent data, you can identify which accounts have the highest likelihood of conversion and craft marketing campaigns specifically designed for them.

How to Implement

Develop Account-Specific Insights

• Research. Gather comprehensive information about each target account. This includes understanding their organizational structure, key decision-makers, business goals, and pain points. B2B sales outsourcing companies often use tools like LinkedIn and industry reports to collect this information. Document it in an account profile.
• Persona Development. Create detailed buyer personas for each account (include demographic details, job roles, pain points, and decision-making criteria). Identify the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders involved in the buying process.
• Intent Mapping. Map out each account’s specific intent signals to understand their current stage in the buyer’s journey and their level of interest in your solution.

Create Personalized Campaign

• Content Customization. Develop tailored content that speaks directly to the challenges and needs of each target account. This could include personalized landing pages, blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, or webinars.
• Multi-Channel Engagement. Use a variety of channels to reach key decision-makers within each account. This could include personalized emails, social media outreach, direct mail campaigns, and even in-person events.

Measure and Optimize

• Track Engagement. Monitor how each target account interacts with your personalized campaigns. You can use marketing automation tools to track metrics such as website visits, content downloads, email opens and clicks, and social media engagement.
• Measure ROI. Evaluate the effectiveness of each ABM campaign by assessing the return on investment. Identify which strategies and channels yield the best results in terms of engagement and lead generation.

A good rule of thumb is to constantly refine your strategies based on performance data. Adjust your content, targeting, and channel mix to enhance engagement and conversion rates.

Example → Suppose intent data reveals that a high-value account is actively researching solutions for project management challenges.

In response, you could develop a personalized landing page that highlights how your software enhances team collaboration and streamlines workflows.

Complement this with targeted emails to key decision-makers, emphasizing case studies or testimonials that resonate with their specific needs.

4. Create Competitive Plays

Competitive plays using intent data involve identifying prospects who are considering your competitors’ products and strategically engaging them to highlight the superiority of your offerings. This approach enables you to position your brand effectively at critical moments in the buyer’s journey, potentially winning them over from your competitors.

How to Implement

Identify Competitor Keywords

• The first step is to identify the keywords and phrases your competitor’s prospects are likely to use when searching for solutions online.
  • To do this, use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to compile a list of competitor keywords. Look for terms that are highly relevant to your industry and commonly associated with your competitors.

Track Competitor Mentions

• Monitoring online conversations, forums, and review sites where your competitors are mentioned can help you identify potential prospects who are actively discussing or evaluating your competitor’s products or services.
• Tools like Brandwatch, Mention, or Sprout Social can help you track competitor mentions across various platforms. Also, set up alerts for key terms and monitor these channels regularly.

Highlight Your Differentiators

• Emphasize what sets your product or service apart from your competitors. This involves showcasing unique features, use cases, superior value, and customer success stories. Here are some ideas:
  • Create comparison charts and feature highlight videos that clearly show your product’s advantages.
  • Develop pricing comparison guides and ROI calculators that help prospects understand the financial benefits of your solution.
  • Collect and publish detailed case studies that focus on customer achievements and satisfaction.

Timely Engagement

• Reaching out to prospects while they are actively researching and evaluating solutions is crucial.  Some ideas you can implement include:
  • Set up marketing automation workflows that trigger emails based on specific prospect actions related to competitors.
  • Offer live chat support on your website to answer questions from prospects who are comparing your product to your competitors.
  • Have your sales team proactively reach out to high-intent prospects who have shown interest in your competitors.

Example → Let’s say a prospect repeatedly visits your competitor’s product comparison page and downloads their pricing guide.

By using this intent data, you can trigger a personalized email campaign that highlights your product’s advantages over the competitor.

This email could offer a free trial or demo, showcasing features like superior customer support or a unique integration that your competitor lacks.

Additionally, you could run targeted ads that emphasize these differentiators and direct the prospect to a landing page specifically designed to convert competitive leads.

5. Identify Customers at High Risk of Churning

Customer churn simply refers to the loss of clients or customers — and this is a critical challenge for any business. A way to get around this is leveraging intent data to detect early signs of churn (e.g., declining engagement or poor customer satisfaction levels) before it happens.

How to Implement

Define Churn Signals

• Product Usage. Look for decreased usage patterns like reduced frequency or fewer interactions, signaling a loss of interest or value.
  • How to solve this: Utilize tools to monitor how customers interact with your product, focusing on changes in usage patterns.
• Customer Support. Monitor increases in support tickets, the severity of issues, or negative feedback, which indicates growing customer frustrations.
  • How to solve this: Analyze customer service interactions to gauge satisfaction and identify unresolved issues.
• Billing and Payments. Pay attention to late payments, downgraded plans, or billing disputes, often precursors to churn.
  • How to solve this: Keep an eye on financial transactions and changes in subscription models.
• Online Behavior. Track activities such as searches for competitors, negative reviews, or unsubscribes from communications, which can signify consideration of alternatives.
  • How to solve this: Use advanced CX software and digital analytics to track online activities that might indicate disengagement or interest in competitors.

Analyze and Segment Customers

• Develop a Churn Prediction Model. Utilize statistical modeling or machine learning algorithms to analyze historical data and identify churn patterns.
• Segment Customers Based on Risk. Group customers into risk categories (high, medium, low) based on their churn score or likelihood to churn.
  • You can do this in your CRM or CX software to categorize customers and prioritize follow-up actions.

Proactive Intervention

Once you’ve identified high-risk customers, take proactive steps to address their concerns and retain them:

• Contact high-risk customers with personalized communication, addressing their specific concerns or issues.
• Provide special discounts, loyalty rewards, or additional support to incentivize them to stay.
• Address any underlying issues that might be contributing to their dissatisfaction, such as product bugs, service gaps, or lack of communication.

Example → Consider a scenario where a once-active customer reduces their interaction with your service, skips payments, and begins exploring competitor sites. These behaviors signal a high risk of churn.

By detecting these changes early, you can initiate targeted actions such as a personalized outreach to understand their concerns, offer tailored solutions or incentives, and address any specific issues they might have.

6. Find Upsell and Cross-Sell Opportunities

Intent data not only helps in identifying potential new customers but is also instrumental in uncovering upsell and cross-sell opportunities within your existing customer base. To do this, you need to monitor how customers interact with your products and content. With this, you can tailor your approach to meet their specific requirements.

How to Implement

Track Product Usage Data

• Feature Usage. Use product analytics tools to track feature usage. Create reports highlighting underutilized features and frequently used ones that could indicate a need for an upgrade.
• Usage Patterns. Analyze how customers use your product to identify potential limitations they are facing with their current plans. For instance, if a customer frequently exceeds their usage limits on a basic plan, they might be a prime candidate for an upgrade. A quick tip is to set up alerts for usage thresholds that indicate when a customer might benefit from a higher-tier plan.

Analyze Content Consumption

Customer interactions with your content can reveal their interests and pain points, guiding your upsell and cross-sell strategies.

• Use content analytics tools to monitor which articles, videos, or resources are most popular among your customers.
• Conduct content audits to find areas where additional resources could drive engagement and product adoption.

Example → Suppose a customer using your project management software frequently engages with content related to team collaboration and communication. This behavior indicates an interest in enhancing their team’s efficiency.

You could offer them an upgrade to a plan that includes advanced collaboration features. Alternatively, you could recommend a complementary communication tool that integrates seamlessly with your software.

7. Personalize Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content personalization is about creating a more engaging and relevant experience by delivering content tailored to the unique interests, preferences, and behaviors of each potential lead.

With intent data effectively, you can identify what topics or types of content your leads are most interested in, allowing you to adjust your content strategy to meet their specific needs, thereby increasing engagement and improving conversion rates.

How to Implement

Track Content Consumption

• Track which blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, or videos potential leads view on your website or through third-party platforms. This helps you identify their interests and content preferences.

Identify Keywords

• Identify the keywords and phrases that are driving traffic to your content. This can indicate what your leads are searching for and what information they value.
  • Pay attention to high-volume and relevant keywords that align with your content offerings.

Segment Audience

• Segment your audience into groups based on their behavior, interests, and engagement with your content. This could be based on the type of content they consume, the topics they are interested in, or their stage in the buyer’s journey.

Create Targeted Content

• Produce blog posts, emails, social media posts, and other content formats that speak directly to the needs and interests of each segment.

Deliver Personalized Content

• Use marketing automation tools to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time, ensuring maximum relevance and engagement.
  • You can set up workflows that trigger content delivery based on specific actions or engagement patterns.

Example → Let’s imagine a lead consistently views blog posts about cloud security. Recognizing this interest, you could segment this lead into a group interested in cloud security.

Next, create a whitepaper on cloud security best practices tailored to this audience. Using your marketing automation platform, set up a workflow to send a personalized email to this lead, including a link to the new whitepaper.

The email could highlight key insights from the whitepaper and explain how it addresses their specific pain points.

8. Create Effective Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting is a marketing tactic that focuses on users who have previously interacted with your brand but have not yet converted into customers. In this case, you can leverage intent data to re-engage these leads with highly relevant content and offers tailored to their specific interactions with your brand, increasing the chances of conversion.

How to Implement

Track Website Visitors

• The foundation of retargeting is tracking user interactions on your website. You can do this using cookies or tracking pixels to monitor behaviors such as pages viewed, time spent on site, products viewed, and other relevant actions.

Segment Audience

• Segment your website visitors into different groups based on their behavior.
  • For example, create segments for users who have viewed specific product pages, abandoned shopping carts, or spent a significant amount of time on particular sections of your site.

Create Retargeting Campaigns

• Create variations of ads and emails and ensure that the content is relevant to the specific interests of each segment. Highlight products or services they have viewed, offer discounts, or provide additional information to entice them back.
  • For example, design ads featuring the exact products viewed by the user, or craft emails that address the specific reasons they might have abandoned their cart.

Deliver Targeted Ads

• Create campaigns in Google Ads and Facebook Ads Manager, setting up audience targeting based on your website visitor segments. Use dynamic ads to automatically show the products users have viewed.

Example → Let’s say a user visits your online store, adds items to their shopping cart, but leaves without completing the purchase. You can retarget this user with a personalized email offering an incentive to return and complete their purchase, such as a discount or free shipping.

Additionally, you could run ads on Facebook and Google that highlight the specific items left in their cart, reminding them of their interest and encouraging them to finalize their purchase.

9. Send Effective Direct Emails

Effective direct email marketing relies on understanding the specific needs and interests of your recipients. You can replicate this with intent data by analyzing the actions and behaviors of your prospects to tailor messages that resonate on a personal level.

How to Implement

Craft Personalized Email Content

• Subject Line. Craft subject lines that directly address the recipient’s recent interactions or expressed interests. Personalized subject lines catch attention and improve open rates.
• Body Copy. Use insights from intent data to highlight how your product or service can specifically address their situation.
• Call to Action (CTA). Design CTAs that are clear and directly related to the recipient’s previous actions or shown interests. This could be an invitation to schedule a demo, download a further resource, or take advantage of a limited-time offer.
• Dynamic Content. Use dynamic content blocks to display different content to different segments, allowing you to personalize your emails at scale.

Optimize Email Timing and Frequency

• Timely Follow-up. Send follow-up emails based on specific triggers, such as website visits, content downloads, or event registrations. This keeps your communication relevant and aligned with their position on the conversion funnel.
• Avoid Over-communication. Balance the frequency of your emails to maintain engagement without overwhelming your prospects. Regular but well-spaced emails keep you at the forefront of their minds without becoming a nuisance.

Example → Suppose a prospect recently viewed your pricing page. You could send them a personalized email with a subject line like “Ready to Get Started with [Product Name]?” The body copy could address potential budget concerns and offer a special discount to encourage them to proceed.

10. Sales Enablement

Sales enablement is all about providing your SDRs and sales team with the resources, information, and tools they need to engage effectively with prospects and close deals.

Integrating intent data into this process significantly enhances the effectiveness of your sales efforts by giving reps valuable insights into the specific interests, needs, and pain points of potential buyers.

How to Implement

Integrate Intent Data with Your CRM

• Connect your intent data platform to your CRM system to ensure that intent signals are accessible alongside other critical lead or account information. This integration gives sales reps and SDRs a comprehensive view of each prospect, enhancing their ability to engage meaningfully.

 

Pro Tip →

Your IT or sales team can integrate Demandbase with your CRM, ensuring that intent data flows seamlessly into the system.

Empower Sales Reps with Insights

• Implement sales intelligence features in the CRM that alert sales reps and SDRs to high-intent activities, such as a prospect viewing a pricing page multiple times or downloading key content.
• Set up personalized dashboards within the CRM that summarize each prospect’s intent signals, providing at-a-glance insights that can guide sales strategies.
• Develop talking points or scripts that are tailored to the intent data, helping reps address specific interests or pain points during their interactions.
  • Also, conduct training sessions to educate your sales team on how to interpret and use buyer intent data effectively.

Personalize Sales Outreach

• A personalized approach to sales outreach is a cornerstone of any successful sales development strategy. Encourage your sales team to reference specific content that a prospect has consumed, address the pain points or challenges they’ve shown interest in, and offer relevant solutions based on their unique needs.
• Use intent data to determine the best timing and content for follow-up communications.
  • For example, if a prospect frequently revisits a particular product page, it might be the right time to offer a demo or provide a detailed comparison guide.

Example → Take a scenario where a sales rep observes that a prospect has frequently visited the pricing page and downloaded a competitive analysis whitepaper.

With this intent data, the sales rep can craft a personalized email or phone script that directly addresses the prospect’s apparent interest in pricing and competitive options.

The rep might say, “I noticed you’ve been looking at our pricing options and how we compare to others in the market. I’d love to discuss how our solutions not only offer competitive pricing but also provide additional value that could be crucial for your specific needs.”

This tailored approach shows the prospect that the sales rep understands their interests and is prepared to address them directly.

Reveal In-Market Buyers with Demandbase

When it comes to leveraging intent data to drive sales and marketing success, Demandbase comes to mind.

Whether you’re looking to personalize your marketing strategies, optimize your sales outreach, or enhance your overall customer engagement, Demandbase offers the tools and insights you need to make data-driven decisions that yield real results.

Why Do Customers Choose Demandbase?

Comprehensive Support for Sales Enablement

Demandbase doesn’t just stop at providing data—it also equips your sales team with actionable insights and tools to engage effectively with prospects.

From real-time alerts to personalized dashboards, Demandbase ensures that your sales reps have everything they need to close deals faster.

Content That Converts

Demandbase excels in providing the context that makes content resonate with your target audience. By analyzing content consumption patterns and intent signals, Demandbase helps you craft personalized content that speaks directly to the needs and interests of your prospects.

Whether it’s through finely targeted emails or precisely tailored ads, your messages will hit the mark every time, significantly improving engagement and driving conversions.

Integration and Insight Like No Other

With Demandbase, you don’t have to worry about complex setups or difficult integrations. The platform easily connects with your existing CRM and marketing tools, bringing intent data directly into the systems you already use.

This seamless integration means your sales efforts are always one step ahead, ensuring that every interaction is informed and every opportunity is maximized.

While we could talk about how businesses across various industries trust Demandbase to deliver the insights that drive growth — we’d rather you hear it from our clients.

In a world where every lead could be the next big opportunity, Demandbase gives you the insights to reach out with precision, personalize with intelligence, and close deals with confidence.

FAQs

What is Intent Data?

Intent data provides insights into potential buyers’ interests by tracking their online activities, such as website visits, content downloads, and social media interactions. It helps businesses identify prospects who are actively researching or considering a purchase.

What Are the Types of Intent Data?

Intent data can be classified into several types: First-Party, Third-Party, Individual, and Account-Level. Each B2B data type offers unique insights, from specific user behavior on your website to aggregated signals from entire organizations.

How is Intent Data Collected?

Intent data is gathered through various methods, including tracking pixels, cookies, form submissions, social media monitoring, and data aggregation by third-party vendors. These techniques provide a comprehensive view of potential buyer behavior.

What is Intent Marketing?

Intent marketing uses intent data to create highly targeted and personalized campaigns. By understanding what potential buyers are actively researching, you can tailor your messaging to meet their specific needs, increasing the chances of conversion.

 

 

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