The truth intent data vendors don’t want you to know
The latest buzz word in B2B marketing is Intent Data. Intent Data is the analysis of a prospective buyers’ search and browsing history to predict the buyers’ intentions and next moves. Intent data falls into two categories 1st party and 3rd party intent data.
1st party intent data is derived by measuring and analyzing the engagement of known prospects, with content presented to them, to predict their buying intentions.
3rd party intent data is derived by tracking browsing histories of anonymous individuals and by using reverse IP mapping to identify the name of the company where these individuals work.
Currently, 3rd party intent data is mesmerizing the B2B marketing community and is the talk of the town. However, 3rd party intent data is not the silver bullet B2B marketers are looking for.
The Problems with Third-Party Intent Data
Inaccurate IP mapping
For intent data to be useful you have to be confident the 3rd party intent data vendor has accurately identified who’s truly behind the activity. Many vendors rely on reverse IP lookup to identify “active” companies. Since IP addresses tend to change often, IP mapping tools easily go out of date, further undermining accuracy. In the end, the impact of all this is wasted spend, wasted effort and squandered internal momentum.
Expiration rate of intent data
The lack of immediacy is one of the biggest hurdles with third party intent data. Do you know what blog posts or articles you read last week? I don’t. Interests evolve; today, I’m interested in content video marketing. Next week, I may be interested in nurturing leads. Only a few of my passing interests turn into a bigger time commitment, something that 3rd party intent data cannot accurately predict.
Invisibility of individuals
3rd party intent data doesn’t identify the person behind the search or internet activity. 3rd party intent data is based on speculation that a person from a particular IP address works for a particular company. As such, you just know the account has an interest but are left wondering who and reaching out to people who may not have expressed an interest.
How to utilize Intent Data?
In order for intent data to be meaningful, it must link to a particular person, not a company i.e. help you understand what a particular person is interested in.
xiQ’s first hand Intent Data
xiQ offers unprecedented capabilities to generate first hand insights and accurate analytics based on the content audience is engaging with. xiQ lets you place curated content in front of your audience and analyze the content your prospects are interested in and extrapolate intent data.
Authentic, first party insights help you gain better insights and make more informed decisions leading to more personalization and improved relationships.
Qualify leads through powerful analytics
xiQ monitors the engagement of your prospects with content that you have served them through email campaigns or micro-sites. xiQ’s AI extracts, in real-time, the keywords, entities, and topic a person is interested in. First-hand insights are extremely valuable as there is no guesswork involved and present a first-hand account of each prospect and each campaign.
These insights allow marketers to further align their content strategy with the interests of their audiences. Sales reps use these insights to further refine and personalize their pitches.
Customer tailor your pitch by combining Intent Data with AI-derived personality analysis
Now that we know what a person is interested in, xiQ helps you better understand who that person is by using AI to predict their personality type based on real-time DISC personality analysis. xiQ’s DISC analysis provides recommendations on how to engage prospects and help sales reps personalize and custom-tailor their pitches.
With xiQ’s first-hand Intent Data and DISC personality analysis:
- Uncover “what” a person is interested in
- Understand who the person is
- Improve content strategy
- Remove guesswork
- Extract intent data about people, not companies
