Buyer Intent Data: Third Party Data & First Party Intent Data

Buyer intent data, or sometimes referred to as intent data, has been seen as a holy grail for B2B marketers for decades, and rightly so. I mean if you can identify prospects who appear to be interested in the solution that your company offers before they have made a decision, it has the potential to impact your sales revenue in dramatic ways. However, how the intent data is derived and the accuracy of the data being utilized to make decisions and drive strategy will always be the issue that can determine overall success or failure.

In fact, a Gartner research report details that more than 70% of B2B marketers are expected to incorporate third-party intent data to target buyers and that using only 3rd-party intent data would no longer be enough; requiring more capabilities from technology providers to make intent data more effective.

So where does intent data come from and how is it limited?

Traditional Buyer Intent Data Is Third Party

Third party intent data is information and insights that are collected from open channels such as all internet websites, content platforms, and other social media channels and most organizations within the B2B sales space are utilizing this kind of intent data. This intent data is always comprised of information from digital touchpoints that are outside of your organization itself. The signals that make up third-party data rarely offer detail down to individuals within an organization, nor does it offer specifics on the stage of the buying process that an organization currently resides. However, third party intent data is often utilized by B2B marketers to strategize their content marketing or even their account based marketing in general and broad ways.

3rd party data would never include information that is discovered or saved within an organization itself. All third party intent data is discovered externally to your organization.

First Party Intent Data Can Transform Sales Organizations

First party intent differs from 3rd party in that it involves information directly gathered from within the organization itself. First-party intent data can have the ability to directly impact sales organizations because of the channels used to obtain the information. Most 1st party intent data however is subjective in that it comes from things such as searches and keyword queries, cookies, and other internal behavioral tracking systems and technologies. Sources such as email insights, nurture workflows, and funnels, customer interactions, as well as social media monitoring comprise the majority of first party intent data used by sales organizations to improve their sales results.

The challenge with this kind of 1st party intent information is that it leaves a lot of the questions such as who, when, and why unanswered. Even most first party intent data within organizations can’t break down the individual who is driving the intent or the stage at which the person AND the organization is at within their research process.

Making 1st Party Intent Data Detailed And Actionable

Integrating intent data into content strategies is valuable and 3rd party intent data can be used to help lead new content demands from customers. But the game changes significantly when first-party intent data can be integrated into direct relationship building and sales strategies.

It’s one thing to identify a potential company to generate content for, guessing what stage of the buyer’s journey they are at, it is an entirely different thing to be able to show a sales rep the likely person showing buying intent within an organization. Furthermore, if the data can also show or allude to the stage of the purchasing process that the individual is currently at, then buyer intent data just moved from a shotgun approach and more toward pinpoint, focused direct targeting.

The same thing goes for social media here also. Your company’s social presence is good, but your reach and effectiveness are limited, as well as the first party data that can be derived through that channel directly. However, if your entire sales team’s social accounts can be combined and utilized properly with social selling activities, your universe of reach AND 1st party intent data can become substantially larger and more defined, resulting in more human interactions, conversations and helping to get in front of your buyers earlier in their journey.

This is the challenge that most sales organizations struggle with. How do we use both 3rd party and 1st part buyer intent data to measurably impact our sales results. Furthermore, they are all trying to understand how to turn intent data into something that is detailed enough to be at the individual and company level, while also becoming actionable early enough in the buyer’s journey.

Finally, An Intent Data Solution Exists

That’s exactly what the FunnelAmplified digital engagement platform has accomplished. First party buyer intent data at the individual level within an identified organization. Data that offers actionable information to help your salespeople become part of the research process for a prospect early in the process.

We utilize many unique functions along with reverse IP tracking plus 1st party intent data and other tools that have traditionally been used generically by marketing, and establish a subset of that which can be used to directly impact the sales process within an organization. It is a completely different and totally unique approach to solving the intent data challenge. More importantly, it’s proven and very effective.

Want to see the FunnelAmplified first party intent data technology in action? Click for more information.

If you love the details, here’s a video I put together that is lengthy, but drills down deep into just how unique our first-party intent data is and how it dramatically impacts our users sales results.