In an increasingly cookie-less and ad-blocker-filled existence, intent data has taken on an increasingly prominent role among demand generation functions. But it’s useful for lead generation too. 

Intent data, in its simplest form, is information that provides insight into a potential customer's purchasing intentions. It allows marketers to understand where a prospect is in the buying journey, what content and talking points resonate, and what products or services they might be interested in. This invaluable insight enables businesses to tailor their marketing efforts, ensuring they reach the right audience at the right time with the right message.

There are three primary types of intent data: first-party, second-party, and third-party. Each type comes with its unique characteristics, benefits, and challenges, and understanding these differences is crucial for any B2B marketing leader aiming to maximize their lead generation efforts.

In the following sections, we will delve deeper into each type of intent data, providing definitions, examples, and strategies for effective use in B2B marketing. We will also explore how to integrate these different types of intent data for optimal results and look at the future of intent data in a world moving towards a cookieless future.

Pros of intent data for B2B Lead Generation

First, let’s start with a high-level overview of why intent data is useful for lead generation: 

Identifying Interested Prospects: Intent data can reveal which prospects are actively researching or showing interest in your product or service. This allows you to focus your efforts on those who are already in the buying journey, increasing the efficiency of your lead generation efforts.

Personalization: With insights from intent data, you can tailor your messaging and offers to match the specific interests and needs of each prospect. This level of personalization can significantly improve engagement and conversion rates.

Predictive Analysis: Intent data can help you predict which prospects are most likely to become leads based on their online behavior. This can enable you to proactively engage these prospects and guide them towards conversion.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): For ABM strategies, intent data can provide insights into which accounts are showing buying signals, allowing you to prioritize high-value targets and tailor your approach to each account.

Sales and Marketing Alignment: Intent data can help align sales and marketing efforts by providing both teams with the same information about prospect behavior. This can lead to more coordinated and effective lead generation strategies.

While intent data has often been used in demand generation – which focuses on driving awareness and interest in a company's overall offerings – lead generation is about converting that interest into actionable leads. Intent data provides the insights needed to make this process more targeted, efficient, and successful.

Understanding First-Party Intent Data For B2B Marketing

If intent data is a event, you can think of first-party intent data as the host of the event. You’re the one who invited people to attend in the first place. You’re the one who controls the location. Who sets up the experience, and who can swoop in to change the mood.

At this event, first-party intent data includes:

• Website Analytics: Data showing what content a visitor engaged with on your site.
• CRM Data: Information tracking a customer's interactions with your brand.
• Subscription Data: Insights from a subscription service showing what kind of content a user prefers.

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The beauty of first-party intent data lies in its authenticity and relevance. It's like unearthing gold nuggets straight from the source, unfiltered and highly relevant to your brand. It provides a clear view of:

• How prospects and customers are interacting with your brand.
• What interests them.
• Where they are in their buying journey.

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Read more: 15 Powerful Email Strategies for B2B Marketing

However, like mining for gold, leveraging first-party intent data comes with its challenges:

• It requires a strategic approach to data collection and analysis. You need to know what data to collect, how to analyze it, and most importantly, how to apply the insights you gain from it. This can be a daunting task, especially for businesses that are new to data-driven marketing.
• It only gives you a partial view of the buyer's journey. It tells you what a prospect or customer does when they're interacting with your brand, but it doesn't tell you what they do elsewhere. This can limit your understanding of their overall intent.

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Despite these challenges, first-party intent data is a powerful tool. It can help you:

• Understand your audience better.
• Profile leads to determine who your most valuable leads are.
• Personalize your marketing efforts.
• Nurture leads and guide them down the funnel with additional data.

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The key is to understand its limitations and find ways to supplement it with other types of intent data.

Exploring Second-Party and Downstream Intent Data For B2B Marketing

Imagine you've just wrapped up your event, and you're now having a coffee with a friend who also attended. Your friend starts sharing their observations from the event - the conversations they had, the interactions they noticed, and the behaviors you might have missed. This additional layer of information is like second-party intent data in the world of B2B marketing.

Second-party intent data is essentially another company's first-party data that they've chosen to share with you. This could include:

• Shared Insights: Information about how users interact with their brand, similar to the interactions your friend noticed at your event.
• Complementary Data: Insights that fill in the gaps of your own data, providing a more comprehensive view of the customer journey.
• A special type of second-party data is downstream intent data: This is high-quality data that focuses on actual in-market buyers. It's like your friend not only sharing general observations from the event but also telling you about specific guests who showed a keen interest in your event, who they talked to the most, and what topics they seemed most interested in.

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However, just like your friend's observations, second-party and downstream intent data come with their own set of challenges:

• Limited Availability: Not all companies share their first-party data. It's like not all friends will be willing or able to share their observations from your event.
• Quality Variations: The quality of second-party data can vary greatly, depending on the source. It's important to choose reliable partners, just like you'd trust the observations of a reliable friend.
• Differing formats and measurement methods: It may be hard to ingest 2nd party data into automations or ongoing marketing efforts due to formatting or measurement differences. 

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Despite these challenges, second-party and downstream intent data can be incredibly valuable for B2B marketing. They can help you:

• Gain deeper insights into your target audience.
• Complement and enhance your first-party data.
• Expand understanding of patterns past your own web properties.
• Identify in-market buyers more accurately.

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The key is to find reliable sources of second-party data and understand how to integrate these insights with your own first-party data for a more comprehensive view of your prospects.

Definition and examples of third-party intent data (external intent data)

Now, let's imagine you've hired a professional event planner for your next shindig. This planner has a wealth of experience organizing numerous events and can provide insights about general guest behaviors, event trends, and patterns. However, their data is not specific to your event, and they might not know the unique characteristics of your guests. This is akin to third-party intent data in the world of B2B marketing.

Third-party intent data is information collected by entities that don't have a direct relationship with the user from whom the data was collected. This could include:

• Aggregated Data: Information collected from various websites, platforms, and sources, similar to the event planner's broad knowledge of different events.
• Behavioral Insights: Data about user behaviors, interests, and activities across the web, akin to the event planner's understanding of general guest behaviors and trends.

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However, just like the event planner's insights, third-party intent data comes with its own set of challenges:

• Lack of Personalization: The data is not specific to your brand or audience. 
• Data Privacy Concerns: There are increasing regulations around data privacy, which can limit the availability and use of third-party data. It's akin to privacy concerns that might limit what a event planner can share about previous events.

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Despite these challenges, third-party intent data can be a valuable tool for B2B marketing. It can help you:

• Understand broader market trends and behaviors.
• Identify new potential markets or audiences.

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Complement your first-party and second-party data for a more comprehensive view.

The key is to understand the limitations of third-party data and use it strategically to supplement your own data and insights.

Web scraping for third-party intent data: the largest data source of all

One way to collect these footprints is through web scraping, a technique used to extract large amounts of data from websites. It's like having a detective in our bustling city, meticulously collecting and analyzing footprints. Here are some examples of the valuable intent data cues that can be collected through web scraping:

• Reviews and Comments: These can provide insights into what customers like or dislike about a product or service, and what factors influence their purchasing decisions.
• Website Changes: Actions such as new articles or announcements on a lead's website can indicate a company's current focus areas or upcoming initiatives.
• Hiring Changes: Changes in a company's hiring can signal growth, expansion into new areas, or shifts in strategy, all of which can provide valuable context for your marketing efforts.

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However, just like a detective's work, web scraping comes with its own set of challenges:

• Data Quality: The internet is vast and varied, and not all data is accurate or relevant. It's important to verify and clean the data before using it.
• Data Privacy and Legal Concerns: There are regulations and ethical considerations around web scraping, and it's crucial to respect user privacy and adhere to all relevant laws and guidelines.

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Despite these challenges, web scraping can be a powerful tool for collecting third-party intent data. It can help you understand the broader market trends, identify new potential leads, and gain a more comprehensive view of your prospects' behaviors and intentions. The key is to use it responsibly and strategically, always respecting user privacy and data regulations.

Ask an Expert: An Expert Marketing Perspective

We caught up with Kristin, a growth marketer at MarketerHire with strong experience in B2B tech, e-commerce, and consumer tech. She noted the extent to which intent data is enabling ABM to occur for the first time at scale. In particular:

“While there is value in a highly personalized, 1-to-1, enterprise level ABM program, the advent of intent-based marketing has meant that ABM-at-scale becomes more embedded in the overall demand generation strategy -- leading to reaching prospects at the right time in their buying cycle with the content and messaging that resonates.”

Read more: Account-Based Marketing Versus Lead Generation

How to integrate first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data

Integrating first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of data is valuable on its own, but when you put them together, they create a complete picture of your prospect's intent. Here are some actionable steps to integrate these different types of intent data:

• Data Collection: Start by collecting first-party data from your own channels, such as your website, CRM, and email marketing platform. Then, supplement this with second-party data from trusted partners and third-party data from reputable providers.

• Data Consolidation: Bring all your data together in a centralized data platform. This could be a data warehouse, a customer data platform (CDP), or a marketing automation platform that supports data integration.

• Data Analysis: Use analytics tools to analyze the data and extract meaningful insights. Look for patterns and trends that can inform your marketing and sales strategies.

• Segmentation: Based on your analysis, segment your prospects into different groups. For example, you might have one segment for prospects who have shown a strong intent to purchase, and another for those who are still in the early stages of the buyer's journey.

• Personalization: Use the insights from your data to personalize your marketing and sales efforts. This could involve tailoring your messaging, targeting specific segments with relevant offers, or adjusting your sales approach based on a prospect's intent signals.

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Read more: Our Comprehensive Guide to Nurture Campaigns For B2B

• Automation: Automate your marketing and sales processes where possible. For example, you could set up automated email campaigns that are triggered by specific intent signals, or use AI-powered tools to recommend the next best action based on a prospect's behavior.

• Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and update your data integration strategy. As you collect more data and gain more insights, you'll likely find new opportunities to improve your marketing and sales efforts.

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By integrating first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your prospects' intent, personalize your marketing and sales efforts, and ultimately, generate more qualified leads. The key is to approach it as an ongoing process, continually refining your strategy based on the insights you gain.

Conclusion

In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital marketing, intent data has emerged as a powerful tool for understanding and engaging potential customers. By harnessing the unique characteristics of first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data, B2B marketers can craft personalized strategies that resonate with prospects at every stage of the buying journey. The future of intent data looks promising, especially as the industry moves towards a cookieless future, opening new avenues for innovation and effectiveness.

However, navigating the complexities of intent data requires expertise and precision. That's where MarketerHire comes into play. With the ability to match you with the top 5% of marketing freelancers in as few as 48 hours, MarketerHire can provide you with the talent you need to leverage intent data to its fullest potential. Don't miss out on the opportunity to transform your B2B marketing strategy. Reach out today and take the first step towards a more targeted and successful marketing campaign.