Top 3 Ways to Use Intent Data in Your Marketing & Sales Strategies

“Sorry, we’re not looking for a new solution right now.” Heard that one before, right?

In today’s world, timing is everything. Engaging the right buyers at the right moment with the right message isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential.

If you’re unable to reach these audiences that are in-market, your message will just become noise to your prospects. And good luck trying to grow revenue and stay ahead of your competitors. But that’s where buyer intent data from an engaged audience comes in.

First-party buyer intent data, like TechnologyAdvice Buyer Intent, gives marketers and sales teams the ability to identify in-market accounts and craft personalized strategies that help them close bigger deals, faster. But how can you make the most of these helpful insights?

Keep reading to learn three key areas where buyer intent data shines: targeting and prioritization, engagement and conversion, and customer retention.

1. Targeting and Prioritization 

Let’s face it, as marketers and sellers, we’ve all wasted time and energy on the wrong accounts. They fit our ICP and check most of the boxes of who we sell to, but they just aren’t looking for a new solution at this time.

We know that all leads are NOT created equal. Buyer intent data is an (overpowered) tool in the toolbelt that helps you actually prioritize your outreach effort on the right buyers at the right time–when they’re actively researching solutions in your market.

For marketers, intent data is often used in Account-Based Marketing (ABM) programs. Why waste time and budget running an ABM campaign to prospects who aren’t in-market when your goal is to generate pipeline and revenue? 

By leveraging intent data in this way, you can optimize your ad spend and tune your targeting to pinpoint audiences with the strongest buying signals, helping you prioritize industries and specific accounts where intent activity is surging.

But what about sales? How can they use it in their day-to-day goals?

If you had a choice to spend time making calls to accounts actively researching products like the ones you sell versus accounts not doing that, which are you picking? (I promise that isn’t a trick question.)

Every salesperson would choose the option that helps them prioritize outreach to decision-makers who are most likely to engage. Additionally, intent data helps sales align with marketing teams by working from the same playbook to close more deals together. Just how nature intended.

What it looks like in practice: Here’s a simple example of how intent data helps with prioritizing and targeting. Instead of blanketing an entire industry with ads or emails, you could focus your campaign on accounts actively reading buyer’s guides or product comparisons across the TechnologyAdvice audience ecosystem or other publishers in your category.

If you want to use intent data, you’re going to need a reliable source for the data. We (shamelessly) recommend TechnologyAdvice (TA) Buyer Intent as one key source, offering you real-time buyer intent data from a unique audience of millions of tech buyers who are actively researching new solutions across 30+ trusted media brands and product review sites.  

And with TA Buyer intent, you can easily integrate these buying signals directly into ZoomInfo Sales to save your team time by layering ZoomInfo’s contact-level intelligence with TA’s first-party intent data. Here’s a look at how easy it is to find your ICP at in-market accounts in ZoomInfo Sales:

And the best part? To celebrate the launch of this new partnership, TA Buyer Intent data is available at no additional cost to existing ZoomInfo Sales customers for a three month trial period if you sign up before the end of 2024.

2. Engagement and Conversion

Once you’ve identified the right accounts, the next logical step is engaging them with content and messaging that speaks to their specific needs. 

More than ever, today’s buyers demand more personalized messaging that speaks directly to their unique needs and interests.

This shift is a chance to create stronger connections with your audience by engaging them in a way that feels relevant and timely. Buyer intent data provides a roadmap for exactly how to do this. It tells you not just who to target, but when to reach out and how to resonate with them.

For marketers, that can mean crafting tailored nurture campaigns that move the needle—whether that’s targeting that account by serving up a comparison guide when a prospect is weighing their options or highlighting a case study that aligns with their industry in a targeted email send. It can even help inform your overall content strategy if you see that a certain sub-segment of companies are looking for solutions in your market category.

For sellers, it means knowing exactly what accounts are researching and jumping in with targeted outreach and messaging. Leave cold calls or canned pitches on the sideline. Instead, come to the table with insights that build credibility and trust right from the start of their buying journey with you.

Why it matters: In today’s crowded marketplace, the ability to personalize your messaging at the right time isn’t just a competitive advantage—it’s an expectation. And the proof is out there with 96% of B2B marketers reporting that they’ve seen success in achieving their goals when using intent data.

Intent data gives you the tools to meet that expectation and engage with prospects in a way that accelerates the path to conversion.

What it looks like in practice: Imagine a high-intent account shows interest in project management software, and multiple people at that company have been engaging with product reviews and vendor comparisons in recent weeks. Your marketing team could deliver a case study highlighting ROI, while your sales team could follow up with specific information about how your company compares to other vendors they’ve been researching—moving the account further down the funnel (in your direction).

3. Customer Retention

What good is it to spend the time and energy getting these customers without keeping them past their expected LTV?

Like Mike Posner said in his hit song from 2010 – “Baby Please Don’t Gooooo” (Okay, “hit” is a stretch). The point is that knowing when to even initiate the B2B version of “please don’t go” can actually save your company thousands (if not millions) in churned revenue.

Sorry to break it to you sales leaders, but new business isn’t the only way to grow revenue. 😉

Buyer intent data helps you stay one step ahead of your customers before you get the dreaded “we need talk” breakup message.

Buyer intent data can notify your sales teams when existing customers are researching your competitors or related decision-making content within your market category – a strong indicator that they may be considering a new solution. This proactive insight allows account executives and customer success teams to step in, address potential concerns, and secure the relationship.

But beyond just keeping customers, marketing and sales teams can actually increase revenue with targeted upsell campaigns, to engage customers with the next solution they need.

What it looks like in practice: Say an existing client starts exploring alternatives to your product on TechnologyAdvice.com. With intent data, your sales team can step in, schedule a check-in, and showcase new features or support options that solidify the partnership.

Here’s how you can set this up in ZoomInfo Sales using TA Buyer Intent as the trigger. Whenever one of your customers is researching other solutions, your sales team can immediately reach out to them:

How TechnologyAdvice Buyer Intent Helps You Do It All

At TechnologyAdvice, we know that buyer intent data is only as good as the insights it provides. That’s why our first-party buyer intent data is designed to give you the same clarity we use to fuel successful campaigns for our clients.

Collected from our 30+ niche tech media brands with over 12 million monthly pageviews, our 1st party intent data empowers you to:

• Target and prioritize the right accounts with confidence.
• Engage prospects at the perfect moment with personalized outreach.
• Retain and grow your customer base by spotting churn risks early.

Through our partnership with ZoomInfo, accessing these insights has never been easier. Joint customers can layer TechnologyAdvice Buyer Intent with ZoomInfo’s contact-level intelligence—directly in the ZoomInfo Sales platform—to get a complete picture of in-market accounts and key decision-makers.

The best part? Current ZoomInfo Sales customers can access TechnologyAdvice Buyer Intent FREE for 3 months when they sign up!

Want to learn more? Check out this video walking through how you can use this integration to reach the right buyers at the right time:

Claim your free trial today and make 2025 your best year yet!