What Is Intent Data? A Practical Guide for B2B Marketing Teams
Intent data reveals which companies are researching a purchase before they ever fill a form. Here's how it works and how B2B teams use it to build pipeline.
Most B2B buyers do the bulk of their research anonymously: they read your pricing page, compare you against alternatives, and come back three times — all without filling a single form. By the time they do raise their hand, the shortlist is already made. Intent data is how you see that research while it's happening. It's the behavioral signals a company leaves on your website — which pages they view, how often they return, whether they're reading comparison content — turned into a score that tells you how close they are to buying. Teams that act on intent data follow up while the deal is still open, instead of competing for prospects who have already decided. The playbook is simple: capture visit signals (cookieless, privacy-safe), score every account from 0 to 100 based on behavior, and route the hottest accounts to outreach with context on what they actually looked at. That last part matters — a follow-up that references real interest converts dramatically better than a cold blast. If your traffic is growing but pipeline isn't, the demand probably isn't missing. It's just invisible. Intent data makes it visible.