){kind=small}
How would your sales process change if you could detect when someone matching your ideal customer profile was in the market and looking to solve a problem you could help with?
If you knew, you’d be able to reach out at the perfect time and help them in their buying journey, answering key questions they have.
If you can leverage a buyer intent data provider and repeatedly identify in-market leads at the right time, you’ll be at a significant advantage compared to your competition.
In this article, I’ll show you some of the leading tools on the market to help you find the best one for your sales needs.
Let’s dive in.
What is B2B Buyer Intent Data?
B2B intent data is aggregated data that shows you when a potential buyer is in the market and researching for a new product or service.
Intent data shows you when someone is displaying signs of intent to purchase, such as researching or engaging with content around a particular topic.
How Can You Use Intent Data?
Intent data gives you real-time access to buying signals your prospects are showing. If you use this data well, it can help you:
Improve the timing of your outreach
Personalize your cold emails based on buyer intent
Improve knowledge and context across your sales team
Start conversations with in-market buyers before your competitors can
When you start using a buyer intent tool like the ones we’re going to look at, it’s vital that you integrate it fully into your sales workflow. That’s the only way you’ll get the real value from it.
First-Party vs. Third-Party Intent Data
There are two main kinds of intent data:
First-party
Third-party
First-party intent data is data that you collect from your own tools. For example, if a lead fills out a contact form on your website, that’s an intent signal.
Third-party intent data is anything that comes from external sources, such as information on external websites a lead is visiting and social media activity.
Because you have the ability to collect first-party intent data from your own website, all of the major B2B intent data providers that we’re going to look at here focus on providing you with third-party intent data.
Next, let’s take a look at the tools.
Best Buyer Intent Tools and Software to Find In-Market Leads
1. Cognism
Tracks prospect buyer signal trends and notify you when there’s a significant boost in buyer intent
Cognism is an intent data platform that collects consent-based buyer intent signals from around the web.
The data works by comparing a prospect's interest in a topic at the present moment compared to their interest in the past. This is useful because you won’t get notifications for any intent that isn’t genuine, ensuring you only reach out to in-market prospects.
Cognism’s data comes from high-trafficked websites that their data provider partners with and shares that data back to you in your dashboard. The data is fully GDPR compliant.
You can integrate the platform with your existing sales tools, like HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Zapier to build custom workflows to help your team gather information on prospects more efficiently, and enrich the contact records you have with actionable intent data.
Pricing: Available upon request
Features:
CRM and sales tools integrations to create productive workflows and push intent data into your most-used tools
Gather intent data from buyers researching on popular B2B websites
Fully GDPR compliant data sourcing process
2. D&B
B2B data platform that includes an intent signal database to get a deeper understanding of your customer journey
D&B is a sales platform that includes a range of powerful features to help you reach out to prospects at the best time, thanks to their wealth of actionable intent data.
When you start using it, you can add keywords related to your business services, which means you can keep your prospecting efforts as focused as possible.
D&B uses natural language processing and deep learning to analyze signals across the web and create reports for you that show how engaged your target accounts are and whether or not they’re showing the signals you’re waiting for before reaching out.
As well as intent data, D&B has a database of 170+ million B2B records complete with verified contact information that you can use to build a qualified prospect list during your list-building process.
When you’ve created a prospect list you can prioritize by the intent they’re showing to optimize how you work through your pipeline and reach out to every prospect at the perfect time.
Pricing: Available on request
Features:
Lead prioritization based on intent
Create lists of keywords and get notified when target accounts search for them
Weekly reports on new in-market accounts
3. Cyance
Account-based marketing platform to unlock and show you hidden behavioral signals that your audience is displaying with a focus on the European market
Cyance is buyer intent software designed for sales teams running an ABM approach, and as part of their offering, include a buyer intent tool that you can leverage to improve your sales process.
You can customize the type of intent signals you want to be notified for based on keywords and general topics to ensure you’re only notified when someone is researching a problem that your business can help solve.
You can also see company profiles and use Cyance’s “FIT Score” model to assess how well individual company accounts match against your ideal sales lead. The scoring system shows you how well they’ve responded to content in your industry and how far they are on their buying journey. With that knowledge, you can reach out in a more personalized way and start more conversations with highly qualified leads.
Pricing: Available after a demo
Features:
A large dataset of intent signals in the European market
Compares company buying signals to the signals your ideal customers usually shows
Keyword and topic filtering
4. Kickfire
Platform to help you identify intent signals from people visiting and engaging with your company
Kickfire is a first-party data platform that collects data on companies engaging with your marketing website or content assets across the web and identifies the companies behind it.
After integrating Kickfire with your Analytics tools, it will cross-reference the data there with a company IP database to show you the companies visiting your website. You can see reports on actively engaged accounts and the pages that in-market accounts are visiting on your website.
To help speed up your outreach, Kickfire also has a B2B database of contact details so you can reach out to engaged prospects at the perfect time. You’ll also know where the visitor is located, which can help you pinpoint the exact employee who did visit your website to help you target the right person.
As well as being perfect for sales purposes, your customer support team can use it to monitor when customers are visiting your website and monitor signals that may suggest they need extra support.
Pricing: Available on request and can vary based on the analytics platform you use
Features:
Quickly connect to your analytics platform with native integrations or via the API
Identify key decision-makers actively visiting and engaging with your website
Find contact details from the contact database and link them to company IP addresses
5. ZoomInfo
One of the leading platforms for real-time buyer intent data collection and notifications to improve your sales process
ZoomInfo is an established player in the B2B sales world, so it’s no surprise that the platform also includes buyer intent software to give you extra insights and enrich your existing sales data.
ZoomInfo partners with 300,000 content publishers and collects over a trillion intent signals from B2B buyers every month, and it’s one of the largest intent data networks on the market.
You can build keyword clusters of topics relating to your business. For example, if you run a software development agency you could create clusters around keywords like “app development” or “software development services”. When an account matching your target criteria is searching for those topics, you’ll be notified and can reach out at the perfect time.
ZoomInfo has all of the necessary certifications to ensure the data they source is compliant, including SOC2 and ISO27001.
Pricing: Intent data available on their top plan, custom pricing based on your exact requirements
Features:
Intent data network of 300,000+ publishers to collect and aggregate buying signals
Real-time buyer intent tracking and notification system
Enriches intent data with contract information and recommends the best prospects to reach out to
6. Bombora
Track target account research trends and surge topics to identify the most sales-ready leads in real-time
Bombora is another market-leading option. In fact, other intent data tools we’ve recommended rely on Bombora’s raw data to fuel their own tools.
Their buyer intent data is sourced from publishers, and they feed the information back into your Bombora dashboard, or directly into your CRM.
Most intent data software focuses on one particular market, but Bombora has excellent worldwide coverage.
As well as being able to use topic and keyword filtering for topics, there’s a Topic Surge feature that shows you how a company is adapting their search habits based on where they are in their company lifecycle.
For example, if a company researches for “Enterprise CRM” multiple times in a given period, you’ll get a notification showing you that information so you can time your outreach perfectly.
Like with most of these intent data platforms, it’s designed for teams running Account-Based Marketing programs and doesn’t come cheap, but if your average deal size is high it will likely pay itself back quickly.
Pricing: Available on request
Features:
See trending topics that your target accounts are actively researching
Integrations with an extensive list of sales and martech tools
8,000+ topics that can be filtered to find your ideal searchers
7. G2 Intent
Find buyers actively looking for products on G2’s extensive B2B software directory
G2 is known mainly for the extensive B2B software directory containing thousands of products across almost every industry.
The company is now using their data on website visitors to re-package into valuable intent data.
Because G2 has segmented its database into clear categories, the data is highly actionable. For example, suppose an existing customer starts looking at competitors in your product category. When that happens, G2 can notify you immediately. You can reach out to find out why they're considering switching, find ways to improve your working relationship, and retain your at-risk client.
You can also see the common competitors your prospects are looking at in G2’s directory, which can help you personalize your sales pitches and prepare for sales objections that are likely to come up in sales calls.
G2 Buyer Intent can be integrated into your sales stack, and you can set up automation such as being able to retarget warm buyers automatically with LinkedIn ads or sync your intent data with your HubSpot CRM and automatically email prospects showing intent to switch away from your business or upgrade their plan with you.
Pricing: Available after a demo call
Features:
Tap into G2’s wealth of data from their B2B directory
Find out when customers are searching for competitors
See accounts actively looking and comparing real solutions
8. DemandScience Intelligence
B2B data provider combined with intent data to help you quickly identify and reach out to in-market buyers
DemandScience Intelligence, previously known as Leadiro, is a B2B data platform combined with an intent data supply.
You can search for prospects in the extensive database based on criteria like technographics, demographics, and firmographics, or, find companies searching for topics related to your industry using their buyer intent data.
The data is updated in real-time so you can be notified when key prospects are making decisions and ensure your pipeline is filled with prospects that are ready to make a decision.
As you would expect, DemandScience Intelligence integrates with most sales tools and you can easily move data from the platform into your CRM to ensure you stay on top of your sales pipeline at all times.
Pricing: Contact their sales department for pricing details
Features:
Track intent signals and instantly access verified B2B contact records
6,000+ topics to monitor for purchase intent
Add data directly to your CRM
How to Use Buyer Intent Data in Your Sales Outreach
Buyer intent data is a powerful asset if you want to have conversations with qualified leads.
You can identify who is in the market for a product or service like yours and reach out at the perfect time.
The best way to reach out? Cold email.
You can use a cold email tool like QuickMail to automate your cold email outreach and send personalized campaigns at scale.
Once you’ve identified your in-market prospects, it’s time to write your personalized emails.
1. Using Intent Data to Personalize Your Emails
The first major benefit of intent data is that you can personalize your cold emails to match your prospect’s stage in the buying journey.
You can then use your insights to personalize your cold emails to increase your chances of getting a reply.
For example, you could tailor your opening line to be something related to the topic or solutions they’re researching, or adjust your call-to-action to focus on an action that makes sense for their situation.
A prospect who is actively looking at solutions will be more likely to want to jump on a call than someone who isn’t looking for new products/services, so use their intent to adjust your copy.
To ensure every email stands out, you can also use QuickMail’s attributes.
These let you add custom information to each email, such as names, company names, or custom opening lines, all without needing to type out every email by hand to improve your sales productivity and leave you more time to talk with your leads.
2. Send Cold Emails and Follow Up Automatically
In QuickMail you can add automatic follow-ups to prospects that don’t reply.
Add a new Wait step in your campaign and choose the delay. Two to three days will be enough as you know your prospect is currently in their buying cycle and you need to make sure they see your outreach.
Then, add your follow-up email step after, and it will be sent after the delay you’ve chosen.
As your prospect is getting ready to make a purchase, make sure to add real value and show you’re able to help solve their pain point.
If your email copy resonates you’ll see 10-20% reply rates to your cold emails, and more if your email lands in their inbox at the moment they’re looking to solve a key business problem.
3. Add Your Whole Sales Team to QuickMail
As your sales team grows you need to ensure they're all on the same page regarding outreach.
QuickMail is designed for teams, and you can add your whole team to your account to collaborate and track different campaigns in one place.
When your outreach volume increases you can also use QuickMail’s unique inbox rotation feature to manage sending volume and ensure your emails always maintain strong deliverability.
Emails will be sent from different team accounts to keep the sending volume on each account low. This helps with deliverability and ensures every email your team sends lands in your prospect’s primary inbox.
When the replies come in, any team member can jump in and reply, and all of your campaign metrics will be available in one place.
If you’re ready to start sending cold emails to in-market buyers, try out QuickMail with a free trial.
Wrapping Up
Buyer intent data software is a powerful addition to your sales tool stack. When used correctly, you can get up-to-date insights on buyers matching your ICP who are in-market and ready to have a conversation with you.
Using that information, you can:
Improve the timing of your outreach
Personalize your email and sales copy to improve reply rates
Keep your CRM up-to-date and follow up with leads at the perfect time
Most B2B buyer intent data software isn’t cheap. Expect to spend five figures or more yearly. But, if you use the data in your day-to-day sales work and it can help improve your reply rate and close rate, it’s going to deliver a return on investment for your business.
