B2B sales and marketing teams are facing the same problem: 95% of buyers are not solution seeking, so how do you find the 5% of buyers that are in-market?
The answer: buyer intent signals. Track and interpret these signals to prioritize hot leads, tailor your approach, and accelerate pipeline.
Here's what intent signals are, how they work, and how to use them to hit pipeline targets.
What are buyer intent signals?
Buyer intent signals are actions or behaviors shown by potential customers that suggest they are interested in buying a product or service. Intent signals are actions prospects take, online and offline, that indicate buying interest.
Here are some examples of online buying signals:
Website behavior
Downloading whitepapers, case studies, or e-books
Engaging with product demos or tutorials
Signing up for a free trial or demo
Subscribing to your blog or newsletter
Repeatedly visiting the same product page
Comparing different product models or features on your website
Watching product demonstration videos or webinars
Adding products to a wishlist or shopping cart
Interacting with online chat support or chatbot
Filling out contact forms or request for information forms
Search behavior
Searching for specific solutions related to your product or service
Using comparison keywords like "best," "top," or "alternative" alongside your brand name or industry terms
Searching for pricing information or reviews of your product or service
Looking for "how-to" guides or tutorials related to your product
Searching for competitor products or services to compare
Email engagement
Clicking on links to specific product pages or pricing information within your emails
Replying to emails with specific questions or requests for more details
Forwarding your emails to colleagues or decision-makers within their company
Opening your emails multiple times
Downloading attachments or resources provided in your emails
Unsubscribing from general newsletters but remaining subscribed to product-specific updates
Social media engagement
Engaging with your social media content through likes, comments, or shares
Participating in conversations or discussions related to your industry or product
Clicking on social media ads or links leading to your website
Mentioning your brand or product in their own social media posts
Following your social media accounts
Joining your brand’s online community or group
Watching live streams or videos of your product demonstrations
Tagging your brand in posts or using your branded hashtags
Now, let’s see what buyer intent signals we can find in the offline world:
Event participation
Attending webinars, virtual events, or industry conferences
Visiting your booth or attending your presentations at trade shows
Signing up for in-person demos or consultations
Engaging with your representatives at networking events
Direct interactions
Calling your sales or support team with inquiries
Requesting in-person meetings or consultations
Providing feedback through surveys or feedback forms
Referring your product or service to peers or colleagues
Use buyer intent signals to focus on the right prospects and convert them faster.
Why are buyer intent signals important?
Buying signals separate random browsers from prospects actively looking for a solution. What intent signals do for sales and marketing:
Prioritize leads: Improve your sales development strategy by pinpointing leads looking to make a purchase and allocating time and resources toward them. This will ensure that efforts are not wasted on less promising prospects.
Personalize outreach: Adapt messaging and communication to address specific needs and pain points the signals reveal. Personalized outreach addresses specific needs and pain points, increasing response rates and conversion.
Improve conversion rates: Increase the potential for signal-based selling by engaging with prospects at the right time and with the right message. Engage prospects with the right message at the right time, and they move through the buying process faster.
Shorten sales cycles: Focus on warm leads to shorten sales cycles. Intent signals tell you who's ready to buy, so you can skip the cold outreach and move straight to conversion.
Gain a competitive advantage: Reach in-market buyers before competitors do. Intent signals show you who's ready to buy, so you can engage first with relevant context.
Improve customer retention: Monitor intent signals post-sale to spot upsell and cross-sell opportunities and prevent churn.
Enhanced marketing ROI: Focus on high-intent leads to increase marketing ROI. 76% of B2B marketers report higher ROI from intent-driven campaigns.
Buyer intent signal types
Buyer intent signals can be broadly categorized into first-party and third-party intent data.
First-party intent data examples
First-party intent data refers to information you collect from your own sources: websites, mobile apps, or other customer interactions. This data provides insights into the potential customers’ behavior and interests, helping you understand what they are looking for and how they interact with the brand.
Website activities
Page views (especially product/pricing pages)
Time spent on site
Content downloads (whitepapers, case studies)
Video views
Form submissions (demo requests, contact forms)
Mobile app activity
App interactions
Features usage
Email engagement
Email opens
Click-through rates
Replies/forwards
Customer relationship management (CRM) data
Sales interactions
Support tickets
Customer feedback
Social media engagement
Likes, shares, comments
Direct messages
Third-party intent data examples
Third-party intent data is information collected by external sources and provides insights into a prospect's behavior outside your direct interactions. This data helps you understand the behaviors and interests of potential customers across the internet, providing a more comprehensive view of market trends and customer intent. When analyzing third-party data, you may get a broader perspective of customer behavior and market trends and more precise targeting of potential customers.
Search behavior
Keyword searches related to your industry or product
Competitor comparisons
Content consumption
Engagement with industry publications or blogs
Participation in online forums or communities
Review site activity
Reading reviews of your or competitors' products
Technographic data
Technologies used by the prospect's company (indicating potential fit with your solution)
Firmographic data
Company size, industry, and location (helping to identify target accounts)
Combine first-party and third-party intent data to see what prospects care about and when they're ready to buy.
How to use buyer intent signals in marketing?
Use intent signals to target the right prospects, run more effective campaigns, and convert more leads.
How to use intent data in marketing:
Targeted content creation and distribution
Identify topics and keywords relevant to your prospects based on their search behavior and content consumption patterns. Use keyword research tools like:
Google Keyword Planner
Ahrefs
Semrush
Moz
SE Ranking
Then, create content around these topics that answers common questions and solves customer problems.
Also pay attention to your existing content. Find formats that get the most engagement on your website, such as blog posts, videos, or infographics. Use heatmaps and user behavior analytics tools like Hotjar to see which parts of your website are most frequently visited and interacted with.
To reach the right audience, distribute this content through targeted channels like email campaigns, social media ads, or native advertising platforms, depending on where your target customers are more likely to discover you.
Personalized website experiences
Use intent data to personalize website content and recommendations based on visitors' browsing history or interests:
Use tracking tools like Google Analytics 4 to gather data on visitors' browsing behavior, such as pages visited, time spent on pages, and interactions, and cookies to track returning visitors and their activities on your website
Identify patterns in the collected data to understand what content or products visitors are most interested in
Segment visitors based on their behavior
Dynamically display relevant product suggestions, case studies, or testimonials based on their intent signals
Run A/B tests on personalized elements to see what drives the most engagement and conversion. Use the insights to refine and improve your personalization strategy.
Lead nurturing and segmentation
Segment leads based on their intent signals. For example, group visitors who frequently visit product pages, download whitepapers, or sign up for newsletters. This can help personalize outreach and other campaigns even further, like creating an email sequence for each segment that addresses their specific interests and stage in the buyer's journey.
For example:
Educational content for early-stage leads
Product comparisons or case studies for mid-stage leads
Special offers or invitations to webinars for late-stage leads
You can automate email sequences using your chosen email marketing tool, setting triggers based on the leads' actions and behaviors.
Review campaign performance regularly and adjust based on engagement metrics. Adjust your emails' content, frequency, and targeting based on engagement metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
Retargeting and remarketing campaigns
Use retargeting to re-engage leads who've visited your site or engaged with your content.
How to run retargeting campaigns:
Install retargeting pixels from platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or LinkedIn Ads. Place pixels on product pages, pricing pages, or content downloads to capture the right audience. These pixels will track visitors and allow you to target them with ads later.
Use the data collected from retargeting pixels to create custom audiences. These can include visitors who viewed specific pages, spent a certain amount of time on your site, or abandoned their shopping cart.
Create engaging ads and include strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that encourage prospects to revisit your website, explore products, or complete a purchase. Offer discounts, free trials, or limited-time offers to increase conversions.
Account-based marketing (ABM) initiatives
Use intent data to find high-value target accounts that show strong buying signals, like:
Increased visits to specific product pages
Content downloads
Engagement with your marketing materials
Segment your potential accounts based on their level of engagement and interest and prioritize those with the highest likelihood of conversion, while making sure they’re aligned with your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Create personalized campaigns for those accounts with messaging and content that speaks to their specific context. You can include case studies, whitepapers, industry-specific examples, testimonials, and use cases that resonate with each account’s unique context.
Engage target accounts through personalized emails, LinkedIn InMails, direct mail, and targeted ads. Coordinate marketing and sales to run effective ABM campaigns.
Event marketing and webinars
Make a list of prospects with intent data indicating interest in your industry or product so that you can send them invitations to your next event. To tailor these invitations effectively, segment the list based on specific interests.
Once you create personalized email invitations, highlight the event's relevance to the prospect’s interests by mentioning topics that will be covered, key speakers, and the value they will gain from attending.
Use the event to show your expertise and present your solutions to prospects' identified pain points. Incorporate case studies, success stories, and live demonstrations to make a compelling case for your offerings.
During the webinar or event, interact with attendees through Q&A sessions, polls, and live chat to address their questions and concerns. Based on their participation and engagement, collect feedback and further intent signals.
Sales and marketing alignment
Aligning sales and marketing will maximize the results of your strategy. According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report, aligned sales and marketing teams close 38% more deals.
Share intent data with sales so they can to prioritize leads and personalize outreach. An integrated CRM and marketing automation platforms can help ensure both teams can access the same intent data and set up recurring meetings to discuss the latest intent data insights and how you can apply them.
Marketing teams should provide the sales team detailed insights into each lead's activities, such as the content they’ve engaged with and the pages they’ve visited. Use this information to personalize sales outreach, making it more relevant and compelling for each lead.
In return, sales teams can share prospect questions and insights from their calls and help create content that addresses the pain points identified through intent data. Messaging has to be tailored to different stages of the buying journey, from building awareness to consideration to decision.
How to use buyer intent signals in sales?
Intent signals work for sales and SDR teams too. How sales and SDRs use intent signals to close more deals:
Lead scoring and prioritization
Score leads based on intent signals, website visits, content downloads, email engagement, to identify who's ready to buy. Factors to consider include website visits, content downloads, email engagement, and social media interactions.
Leads with high scores demonstrate strong buying intent and should be prioritized for immediate outreach. For example, give a higher score to a lead who keeps visiting your pricing page and downloads a product demo than to a lead who only visits a blog post.
Use intent data to create tiered lead lists, prioritizing those with the highest chances for conversion:
Tier 1 leads show the strongest purchasing intent and should get immediate attention from your sales team
Tier 2 and Tier 3 leads require nurturing but still show potential for future conversion
Personalized outreach
Tailor your messaging and communication to resonate with the specific interests and needs indicated by the intent signals. Reference the content leads consumed, such as whitepapers or webinars, and the keywords they searched.
For example, if a lead downloaded a case study about increasing sales efficiency, mention this in your outreach and highlight how your product addresses similar challenges.
Show that you understand their unique challenges and offer solutions like case studies, testimonials, or specific product features that address their pain points.
Say a lead has been researching solutions for reducing operational costs. In that case, you can highlight how your product can help them achieve this goal.
Timing optimization
Reach out when interest is high, when a lead has engaged with multiple pieces of content or visited your site frequently, especially when selling to large companies. Buyer intent signals enable you to reach out when interest is high, when a lead is most likely to engage with your outreach.
For example, if a lead has recently engaged with multiple pieces of content or visited your site frequently, this indicates a high level of interest and is an optimal time to reach out.
Analyze intent signals to determine the best times to contact leads, such as after interacting with a specific piece of content or during peak engagement times.
Sales enablement
Ensure your sales team has access to detailed intent data and understands how to interpret it. Use a centralized dashboard that integrates intent data from various sources, making it easily accessible for your sales team.
Conduct training sessions to help your sales team learn how to use intent data to inform their sales conversations. Equip them with personalized talking points and relevant content based on the intent signals.
Continuous monitoring and optimization
Monitor the effectiveness of your outreach based on intent signals and adjust strategies as needed. Use analytics tools to track which types of outreach (emails, calls, social media interactions) are most effective at converting leads.
When you identify these indicators, prioritize them. For example, if data shows that leads who attend webinars are more likely to convert, prioritize outreach to webinar attendees.
Regularly review performance data and adjust lead scoring criteria, outreach timing, and personalized messaging strategies to optimize results.
Tools for tracking buying intent signals
Intent tracking tools give sales teams precise insights into customer behavior, so they can target the right prospects at the right time.
First-party intent data tools
First-party intent tools show you what prospects do on your site, in your emails, and in your CRM. Here are some essential tools and their functionalities:
Website analytics tools
Google Analytics 4 tracks website visitor behavior, including pages visited, time on site, and conversion actions, and offers advanced analysis features like event tracking and user journey mapping.
Adobe Analytics provides an in-depth analysis of web traffic and user engagement. It offers real-time data analysis and custom reporting to understand visitor behavior better.
CRM systems
Salesforce captures and analyzes data from customer interactions, including sales calls, emails, and support tickets. It integrates with various other tools to comprehensively view customer relationships and behaviors.
HubSpot tracks interactions across multiple channels and consolidates them into a unified customer profile. Provides insights into customer lifecycle stages and helps personalize outreach efforts.
Marketing automation platforms
Marketo tracks engagement with email campaigns, landing pages, and other marketing assets. It automates marketing tasks and provides detailed analytics on campaign performance and lead behavior.
Pardot monitors prospect activities, and scores leads based on their engagement with your content. Offers tools for creating personalized email campaigns and landing pages to nurture leads.
Social listening tools
Hootsuite monitors mentions of your brand or industry on social media platforms. It analyzes social media engagement and sentiment to understand audience perceptions and trends.
Brandwatch tracks online conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry. It provides detailed reports on social media mentions, sentiment analysis, and influencer identification.
Third-party buyer intent data providers
UserGems
UserGems is a powerful tool that allows sales teams to focus on high-potential prospects by monitoring job changes and company news within their CRM contacts. By alerting sales reps to significant career moves or organizational shifts, UserGems enables timely and personalized outreach, increasing the likelihood of converting warm leads into customers.
With UserGems, you can expect the following benefits:
Higher conversion rates: UserGems helps identify and prioritize key contacts within Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) accounts, leading to a qualified channel that converts three times higher.
Key contact identification: Focuses on identifying and targeting key contacts in target accounts to enhance pipeline generation.
Opportunity management: Keeps teams informed about changes within open opportunities, enabling them to stay on top of developments.
Multi-threading: Encourages engagement with multiple stakeholders within target accounts, potentially increasing win rates by five times.
Churn prevention: Helps prevent churn risks by alerting teams to significant changes within existing accounts.
Automated updates: Ensures monthly CRM data refreshes, syncing contacts from calendars to CRM and opportunities.
Consistent data quality: Maintains high-quality data within the CRM for better decision-making.
Bombora
Bombora is a leading provider of B2B intent data, aggregating signals from over 5,000 premium B2B websites. Using its exclusive Company Surge® methodology, Bombora helps prioritize leads, optimize marketing campaigns, and accelerate sales by targeting prospects with strong purchase intent. The data integrates seamlessly with existing tools and workflows, enhancing sales and marketing processes without requiring significant changes.
Demandbase
Demandbase is a comprehensive third-party intent data provider that offers an AI-driven Go-to-Market (GTM) platform to help businesses find and engage target accounts most likely to purchase. By combining first-party data, third-party data, and artificial intelligence, Demandbase provides account intelligence to identify in-market accounts, prioritize leads, and deliver personalized marketing and sales strategies.
Their platform integrates various data sources and tools, including ABM, sales intelligence, predictive analytics, and personalized advertising, ensuring seamless orchestration and enhanced engagement across the buyer journey.
6sense
6sense uses AI to drive revenue growth by automatically predicting buying intent, crafting targeted messaging, and booking meetings. Uncovering hidden buying signals in the "Dark Funnel™," 6sense provides deep insights into buyer behavior, allowing businesses to engage the right accounts at the right time.
The platform offers comprehensive features, including intent data, predictive analytics, account and contact search, and targeted advertising, all seamlessly integrated with existing tech stacks like Salesforce and HubSpot. This ensures enhanced alignment and efficiency across marketing and sales teams, ultimately boosting pipeline and conversion rates.
G2
G2 is a software review platform that tracks buyer intent data based on user behavior and interactions on its platform. This provides valuable insights into which companies are actively researching software solutions and their specific interests, allowing vendors to target their marketing and sales efforts more effectively.
Dealfront (formerly Leadfeeder)
Dealfront identifies companies visiting your website, turning anonymous traffic into high-value leads. By revealing the exact behavior of these companies, Dealfront allows sales teams to see which companies are interested, even if their employees work remotely. They can further personalize outreach and tailor follow-up based on the visitor's demonstrated interest, increasing the chances of converting them into customers.
The platform integrates seamlessly with tools like Pipedrive, Salesforce, HubSpot, and others, making it easy to connect leads and create new deals.
ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a comprehensive B2B data platform that helps businesses connect with and close their most valuable buyers. It provides comprehensive and accurate B2B contact data, including contact information, email addresses, and firmographic information.
Its AI-driven solutions, such as ZoomInfo Copilot, deliver targeted B2B insights, allowing sales teams to focus on the best accounts and automate outreach. This platform helps increase win rates, reduce marketing spend, and improve overall productivity. ZoomInfo also offers tools for ABM, data management, and recruitment, making it a versatile solution for driving business growth.
Additional tools to consider
Lead scoring software
These tools automatically assign scores to leads based on their intent signals and other criteria such as engagement level, demographic information, and past interactions.
They help prioritize leads for sales and marketing teams, ensuring that the most promising prospects are targeted first. With lead scoring tools you can increase efficiency and conversion rates.
Intent data aggregators
Intent data aggregators combine intent data from multiple sources to provide a more comprehensive and accurate view of buyer intent. This aggregated data helps identify broader trends and deeper insights into customer behavior.
They offer a more holistic view of potential customers' interests and readiness to buy, enhancing the precision of marketing and sales strategies. Businesses can better understand and predict buyer behavior by integrating diverse data points.
Track buyer intent signals with UserGems
Buyer intent signals help you identify high-quality leads, personalize your outreach, and optimize your timing. Using them, you’ll improve your conversion rates, shorten sales cycles, improve customer retention, and gain a competitive edge in the market.
To fully realize the potential of buyer intent signals, you need the right sales acceleration tool, and nothing beats UserGems in this area. It monitors job changes, company news, and other relevant updates, enabling timely and personalized outreach. UserGems is designed to improve sales and marketing efforts by providing actionable insights, helping teams focus on the most promising leads, and driving higher conversion rates and revenue growth.
Ready to turn intent signals into pipeline?
Book a demo with UserGems today and see how you can convert insights into high-value leads and drive your business growth.
