Intent Data
Information about what potential customers are actively searching for, researching, or showing interest in online. It reveals buying signals before someone raises their hand—like tracking which product pages prospects visit, what problems they're searching for, or which competitors they're researching.
Full Explanation
Intent data solves a fundamental marketing problem: how do you find prospects who are actually ready to buy, rather than blasting messages to everyone and hoping some stick? Traditionally, marketers relied on demographic data (age, company size, job title) to guess who might be interested. Intent data flips this: instead of guessing based on who someone is, it shows what they're actively doing right now.
Think of it like the difference between a billboard that says "Are you in sales?" versus watching which salespeople actually walk into your store, which products they pick up, and how long they spend reading the label. Intent data is the latter—it's behavioral evidence of interest.
Intent data comes in two flavors. First-party intent is what you collect directly: which pages prospects visit on your website, which emails they open, which demo requests they submit. Third-party intent comes from external sources—tools that track what people search for on Google, which industry reports they download, which competitor websites they visit, or which LinkedIn posts they engage with. Vendors like 6sense, Demandbase, and ZoomInfo aggregate this third-party data and sell it to B2B marketers.
In practice, this shows up in your marketing stack as lead scoring that actually works. Instead of scoring someone as "hot" because they work at a Fortune 500 company, you score them as hot because they've visited your pricing page three times this week, downloaded your ROI calculator, and searched for "how to reduce marketing costs" on Google. Sales teams can then prioritize outreach to prospects showing the strongest buying signals.
The practical implication: when evaluating AI-powered marketing tools, ask what intent signals they track and how they weight them. Some tools only see your website behavior; better ones integrate third-party intent data. This determines whether your AI is making smart predictions or just educated guesses.
Why It Matters
Intent data directly improves sales efficiency and conversion rates. When your sales team focuses on prospects actively researching solutions (rather than cold-calling random leads), conversion rates typically increase 20-40% and sales cycles shorten. This means faster revenue and lower customer acquisition costs.
For budget allocation, intent data helps you spend smarter. Instead of running broad awareness campaigns to everyone in your target industry, you can concentrate budget on the 10-15% of prospects showing active buying intent. This shifts marketing from a volume game to a precision game—fewer impressions, higher ROI.
Competitively, companies using intent data win deals faster. If a prospect is researching your solution and your competitor's, the team that reaches them first with relevant messaging typically wins. Intent data also reveals which competitors are stealing your mindshare, letting you adjust messaging proactively. When selecting AI tools, prioritize those that integrate intent data—it's the difference between reactive marketing and predictive marketing.
Get the Full AI Marketing Learning Path
Courses, workshops, frameworks, daily intelligence, and 6 proprietary tools — built for marketing leaders adopting AI.
Trusted by 10,000+ Directors and CMOs.
Related Terms
Propensity Scoring
A predictive model that assigns a numerical score to each customer or prospect based on their likelihood to take a desired action—like making a purchase, clicking an email, or upgrading. It helps you prioritize who to contact and how to personalize your approach.
Buying Signals
Observable actions or behaviors that indicate a prospect is ready to make a purchase decision. These can be explicit (like downloading a pricing guide) or implicit (like visiting your pricing page multiple times). CMOs care because identifying buying signals lets you prioritize sales outreach and personalize messaging at the exact moment someone is most likely to convert.
Intent-Based Marketing
Marketing that targets people based on signals showing they're actively looking to buy—like search queries, website behavior, or content consumption—rather than just demographic categories. It's about reaching the right person at the moment they're ready to act.
Signal-Based Selling
A sales approach where AI identifies behavioral clues (website visits, content downloads, job changes) that indicate a prospect is actively looking to buy, then triggers immediate outreach. Instead of guessing who's interested, you respond to real buying intent signals in real time.
Related Tools
Related Reading
Get the Full AI Marketing Learning Path
Courses, workshops, frameworks, daily intelligence, and 6 proprietary tools — built for marketing leaders adopting AI.
Trusted by 10,000+ Directors and CMOs.