Buyer Intent
Buyer intent is the demonstrated interest level of a prospect or account in making a purchase decision — measured through behaviors like content consumption, comparison research, multi-vendor evaluation, and direct sales engagement signals indicating active or imminent buying activity.
Why This Matters
Buyer intent is a continuum, not a binary. Top of funnel: searched a relevant keyword once. Middle of funnel: read three articles on the topic, downloaded a comparison guide. Bottom of funnel: requested demos from three vendors in 24 hours, visited pricing pages multiple times, attended competitive webinars. Intent measurement systems track these progressions and trigger targeted outreach at thresholds. For B2B, the bottom-of-funnel signals (multi-vendor evaluation, pricing page revisits, demo requests) command the highest data prices and warrant fastest sales response.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How is buyer intent measured?
Composite scoring across observed behaviors: page visits on relevant content, time-on-site, form fills, downloads, multi-vendor inquiry frequency, recency of activity, and explicit signals like demo requests. Intent platforms aggregate signals across publisher networks to score companies' demand curves at the firmographic level.
What's the difference between intent data and intent signals?
Intent data is the structured dataset (companies + topic interest scores). Intent signals are individual behavioral events (one form fill, one search query). Data aggregates signals into actionable rankings; signals are the raw observations fed into the data system.