Buyer Intent Data: What It Is and How to Use It Effectively
Picture this: instead of waiting for prospects to find you, you already know who’s searching for solutions like yours. Even better, you know exactly what they’re looking for. Sounds amazing, right?
That’s the magic of buyer intent data. It’s changing how businesses identify and connect with potential buyers.
If you’re in sales or marketing, guessing who to target is no longer an option. You need the right insights to uncover high-intent leads, personalize your approach, and close deals faster.
In this article, we’ll explain what buyer intent data is and why it’s a must-have for staying competitive.
We’ll also show you how platforms like Oneshot.ai make it easy to harness these insights and transform your strategy. Whether you’re a marketer, tech enthusiast, or sales founder, this guide will help you get ahead.
What Is Buyer Intent Data?
Buyer intent data shows what potential customers are interested in based on their online actions. It reveals their interest in certain products, solutions, or services.
These signals, like website visits, keyword searches, and content downloads, show where prospects are in their buying journey. They also indicate how likely they are to make a purchase.
Buyer intent data is split into two primary types:
- First-party intent data: Gathered directly from your site, such as form submissions or page visits.
- Third-party intent data: Collected by external platforms through aggregated activity across multiple sites (e.g., Bombora or Apollo data).
Imagine knowing which companies are looking for solutions like yours while your competitors have no clue—that’s the magic of intent signals.
Why Buyer Intent Data Matters in B2B
Understanding buyer intent isn’t just nice to have—it’s a must for staying ahead in today’s data-driven world. Here’s why it matters:
1. Improved Targeting
Say goodbye to the “spray and pray” approach. With B2B buyer intent data, your team focuses on prospects who are actively seeking solutions.
2. Enhanced Sales Strategies
Equip sales teams with insights that enable them to start meaningful conversations tailored to the prospect’s needs. For instance, OneShot.ai integrates intent data with its AI Insight Agent, so every sales outreach is timely and relevant.
3. Optimized Marketing Campaigns
Run hyper-focused campaigns for leads already researching your product or industry. With buyer data, marketers can serve tailored ads or nurture conversions with personalized emails.
4. Shortened Sales Cycles
Reaching prospects earlier in their buying journeys eliminates wasted time and helps close deals faster.
5. Better ROI on Outbound Efforts
Intent data ensures your efforts target high-value, high-potential opportunities, reducing churn and maximizing returns.
For instance, OneShot.ai uses aggregated intent insights from providers like Apollo and integrates them directly into outreach workflows. This ensures you’re always speaking to the right prospects at the right stage of their buying cycle.
How to Use Buyer Intent Data in Your Business
Buyer intent data isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a tool you can use across various functions. Here’s a breakdown of how to integrate it into your organization:
1. Enhance Sales Outreach
For sales teams, knowing who to contact first is crucial. Buyer intent data helps with lead prioritization and allows teams to approach prospects armed with context.
Tools like OneShot’s Personalization Agent automatically turn intent signals into tailored, impactful outreach across email, LinkedIn, and phone calls.
Key strategies include:
- Timing Matters: Reach out when intent activity surges, such as when a prospect visits your pricing page multiple times.
- Cold Calling 2.0: Use intent signals to know what pain points to address before jumping on a call.
2. Personalize Marketing Campaigns
Using intent data allows marketers to create highly targeted campaigns. For example:
- Tailor email marketing workflows to leads showing active engagement with similar products.
- Serve display ads to companies surging on relevant search terms.
This personalization drastically improves engagement and keeps your messaging aligned with buyer needs.
Pair this with OneShot.ai’s AI Messaging Engine, which uses intent metrics to create dynamic, conversion-driven marketing content at scale.
3. Fuel Content Strategies
Knowing what prospects value most allows you to craft high-performing content assets. Use intent signals to:
- Create blog posts or whitepapers addressing customer pain points.
- Develop targeted landing pages optimized for your ideal buyer personas.
If your sales intent data shows interest in "remote collaboration tools," you could write a comparison blog to attract decision-makers in that niche.
4. Align Sales and Marketing Teams
Intent data establishes a common understanding between sales and marketing teams, ensuring alignment and efficiency. Sales can focus on the leads marketing generates, while marketing can adjust campaigns based on sales feedback.
Platforms like OneShot.ai integrate intent data seamlessly into CRM systems like Hubspot and Apollo, making collaboration friction-free.
5. Identify Upsell Opportunities
Buyer intent data isn’t just for finding new leads—it also identifies opportunities within your current customer base. By tracking interactions with content or new features (e.g., case studies or product demo pages), you can recognize cross-sell or upsell moments.
For customer success teams, intent signals are a game-changer for reducing churn and increasing lifetime value.
6. Leverage AI-Driven Tools
Top intent data platforms like Bombora and Apollo track billions of signals to spot shifts in buyer behavior. Paired with AI tools like OneShot, these insights help teams scale engagement while keeping it personal.
OneShot.ai’s Scaling Agent keeps outreach balanced, delivering both quality and volume, all powered by the latest intent insights.
Where to Get Buyer Intent Data
If you’re new to leveraging intent data, here are some reliable options to get started:
Reliable Sources for Buyer Intent Data
A pioneer in intent data, Bombora aggregates B2B audience insights from a vast network of data-sharing partners. Their Company Surge analytics highlight spikes in intent signals for specific topics, helping you prioritize prospects actively researching solutions in your industry.
2. Demandbase
Demandbase offers AI-powered account identification and intent data to drive precision targeting in your marketing efforts. It connects with your CRM and ABM tools to give real-time insights, helping you create more effective, tailored campaigns.
3. G2
For companies looking to implement buyer intent data specifically within the software or tech space, G2 gathers insights directly from in-market buyers engaging with product reviews. Understanding which prospects are comparing your solution to competitors gives you a head start in capturing their attention.
LinkedIn aggregates professional activity, signalling intent as users engage with specific content, job postings, or industry updates. With, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can uncover insights to fuel outreach strategies, making every interaction relevant and timely.
ZoomInfo collects intent signals across millions of web domains, pairing this data with enriched contact and company profiles. Their intent monitoring helps you focus on accounts ready to engage, speeding up pipeline growth.
Using these platforms gives teams a competitive edge, helping them spot opportunities and act faster than the competition.
Explore these sources to fuel your data strategy with intent-driven insights.
Best Practices for Implementing Buyer Intent Data
Whether you’re new to intent data or scaling up, following best practices will help you get the most out of it. Here are some key tips to consider:
- Intent Data Providers
Tools like Bombora, Cognism, and Demandbase specialize in intent data aggregation. These platforms provide GDPR-compliant insights into which companies are searching topics relevant to your business.
- CRM and Analytics Platforms
Platforms like Hubspot track first-party signals from your website, including repeat visits or specific content interaction.
- Integrated AI Platforms
For a seamless experience, use AI tools like OneShot.ai. It combines intent data with automation and analytics, cutting out manual prospecting so sales teams can focus on closing deals.
- Data Partnerships
Many businesses, including OneShot.ai, build relationships with multiple intent data providers (Bombora, Apollo, ZoomInfo) to deliver accurate, actionable insights directly to their users.
Buyer Intent Data in Action: A Case Study with OneShot.ai
OneShot.ai customers have seen impressive ROI by integrating intent-driven strategies into their outreach:
- Higher Quality Leads
OneShot.ai’s partnership with data providers like Apollo ensures only high-intent prospects populate outreach lists.
- Improved Open Rates
AI-crafted, intent-aligned messaging greatly increases email open rates.
- Faster Conversions
Leveraging intent allows SDR teams to shorten the sales cycle, focusing only on engaged prospects.
According to one VP of Sales, “OneShot paid for itself in 3 months... It delivered high-quality meetings with accounts we never even thought about.”
By combining buyer intent data with cutting-edge AI, OneShot sets a new benchmark for personalized, scalable go-to-market strategies.
Transform Your Sales and Marketing with Buyer Intent Data
Understanding and using buyer intent isn’t optional anymore—it’s a must for staying ahead today.
Teams using intent data enjoy better targeting, higher conversions, and stronger marketing and sales alignment.
If you’re ready to turn intent signals into actionable outcomes for your sales teams, look no further.
Start your journey with OneShot.ai’s elite AI GTM agents, backed by powerful intent data integrations.
Book your demo today to see how intent-aligned outreach can transform your business.