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3 Ways to Use Intent Data in Multichannel Orchestrations

Author: Kirsten Yee

3 ways to use intent data
Intent data, account based marketing, and orchestration are on (almost) every marketer’s “to-do” list, and all of these things work best in tandem with one another. A lot of marketers are using intent data, have an ABM platform and may even have some level of orchestrated campaigns. Marketers are missing the mark when it comes to taking that intent data and using it to fuel orchestrated ABM campaigns that can move prospects (based on intent signals) to different stages of the campaign. If you find yourself with intent data and an ABM platform – here are three ways you can start using those things together to create an orchestrated campaign.
Still unsure about how to use your intent data? Try our Definitive Guide to Activating Intent Data. 

Intent-Based Targeting

Dynamic audiences

One of the biggest challenges marketers face every day (besides overwhelming expectations with limited budget and resources) is knowing what accounts should be nurtured at what time. Intent-based targeting fills that gap. Marketing teams now have the power to create dynamic audiences based on intent-data that can fuel orchestrated campaigns. Intent scores can change daily, and utilizing dynamic audiences ensures you’re never missing out on accounts with high propensity to buy. 

 

While it is common to see intent-based audiences in regular ABM campaigns, it’s not as often found in ABM orchestrated/multichannel campaigns. This is a missed opportunity because the value of intent is that it tells you who is interested in your product now. If you rely on a human to manually upload accounts/contacts and push them through stages, you will likely be a few steps behind where the prospect is in their purchase journey. ABM orchestrated campaigns can map accounts based on intent topics and then move them through a personalized buying experience, without the constant involvement from marketing.

Create and enrich actual leads

While creating dynamic audiences based on intent is a great way to begin targeting personas quickly within an account, getting to the individual decision-makers or contacts demonstrating intent to buy is the next piece of the puzzle. Knowing what accounts are looking to make a purchase can only take you so far – using intent to identify the actual buying group is what builds pipeline with a higher chance of revenue.

 

While you may already have an intent data provider that gives you visibility into what accounts are in a buying cycle, you will need to determine the people you need to reach. You’ve found the building, but now you need to find the people inside. 

Intent-Based Personalization

Website overlays + pop-ups

One of the best ways to start using intent data is by personalizing your website with overlays and pop-ups based on known topics of interest. If an account is showing intent on one of the many offerings you have, segment the account and personalize the site so the next time they come to your website they are met with relevant messaging that guides them to the next step in their purchase journey. Intent is also a great way to choose who sees what type of pop-up CTA based on topics of interest. 

Onsite messaging

Similarly to the website overlays and pop-ups, onsite messaging can and should be adjusted for prospects showing intent. Account behavior can be flagged before the account ever comes to your website. Based on their behavior, accounts can be categorized into different audiences based on topics or solutions of interest. Then when the accounts do come to your website the website content is altered to fit their needs and goals. Pro tip: even without intent you can use this tactic to change out content and imagery based on industry.

See more ways you can use intent-based personalization.

Intent-Based Sales Actions

Custom landing pages

Knowing the best time to reach out is one thing, but knowing what to say when you reach out is the second piece of the puzzle. With intent-based orchestrations, you can see those signals and automatically trigger custom outreach resources like Triblio’s 1 to 1 landing pages (Triblio Smart Pages). Sales and Business Development teams can use those materials, customize them and reach out with information that is relevant to the prospect’s goals. Another thing to remember is as the intent signals change, it’s important to respond by adjusting content to the new needs of the prospects. Pro tip: Across the Triblio customer base, outreach containing Smart Pages are 3x more likely to elicit a response than those without.

Trigger next best action for sales reps

Intent-based orchestrations can support your sales team by flagging when accounts are researching your product and service (or your competitors). When intent signals come in, it can send notifications to your sales team via email or CRM. So your sales team is getting a fuller picture of where prospects are in their buyer’s journey, even if they are not sharing that information. For example, sometimes prospects go cold and ghost your sales team. It may seem like the deal is lost, but other times intent signals show that they are still interacting with content on their Triblio Smart Page, or on your website. That is when an intent-based orchestration would identify that signal and push the prospect to another set of messaging that is aligned with where they are in their buyer’s journey.

Go Beyond Identifying New Accounts

Intent data is only powerful if you know how to utilize it throughout the entire funnel, beyond just identifying new accounts. It plays a key part in taking that a step further in ABM orchestrated campaigns by revealing what topics and solutions are of interest and should be prioritized with personalized content, and actions by the sales team. Intent data paired with ABM orchestration can be the foundation for a successful demand generation strategy. While both intent data and ABM orchestration are important on their own, together is where you see the multiplier effect. 

14 Intent User’s Favourite Buying Signals (That you should be tracking)

14 Intent User’s Favourite Buying Signals (That you should be tracking)

Intent can be abstract. Hard to understand unless you are using it (or selling it) every day. We put together a list of how real sales and marketing leaders use intent signals every day. What signals are their favourite, and why? How do they take a signal and turn it into a meaningful result? Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how intent is ACTUALLY used in the day-to-day.

After consulting with 14 professionals about their top signals, a pattern emerged. We sorted these signals into categories. Navigate to each section to find what signals interest you the most:

If you are a B2B sales or marketing human, selling software solutions, this list is made for you. Find out what signals create the best leads, and unlock untapped intent sources for your team to leverage. 

Growth Signals

“Hiring and tech installs for outbound: is it fair to say ‘duh’? “

– Olivia Kenney

Tim Davidson – Sr. Director, Marketing @ Directive

Signal: Recent Funding (Ex: $5M+ in last 90 days) 

“For us, a lot of companies with recent funding get bigger marketing budgets, and bigger goals to hit so we know this is a perfect time to get in front of them. We also did customer/prospect research and found that a lot of inbound leads that come in have had recent funding.

We use Crunchbase and Cognism to pull a list of the most recent funding information. And then, we have specific LinkedIn campaigns with specific messaging around funding that we add those companies to every month.”

Signal – Recent Hires or Promotions (Ex: Starts a new role as VP of marketing at a software company)

“Similar to funding, we did some prospect/customer research and one of the common reasons our inbounds come in, is that they just started at a new company, they’re gutting and need a partner. We also have higher and faster close rates with new CMOs/VPs at new companies.

To monitor this, we use Cognism and Li. Sales Navigator to pull a list of the most recent promotions/hires at companies we could work with. After that, we have specific LinkedIn campaigns with specific messaging to those contacts being promoted or hired in the last 30 to 60, sometimes 90 days.”

Olivia Kenney – Head of Marketing @LeadSift

Signal: Hiring or Tech Installs

“I want to tell you about my love for knowing when companies are hiring or installing new tech (these often go hand in hand).

Hiring and tech installs for outbound: is it fair to say ‘duh’? 

For LeadSift, companies hiring a bunch of SDRs or installing sales engagement (or similar) tech probably means they’re scaling outbound, and are going to need a bunch of leads. This happens to be an easy fix with LeadSift so there’s a clear, concise way to reach these people. It’s easy for our SDRs to reach people with a problem we help solve, and personalize in a meaningful way.”

Tyler Lessard – VP Marketing and Chief Video Strategist @Vidyard

Signal: Recent Hires or Funding

At Vidyard we love to use signals that indicate a Marketing or Sales team is growing, or potentially shifting focus. New job postings, a newly appointed CMO/CRO, or funding news all suggest their team may be ready to adopt new tools to create sales and marketing efficiency

Micheal Hanson- CEO at Growth Genie

Signal: Recent Hires

“Hiring an SDR manager is a great signal for us. An SDR manager typically creates playbooks and cadences for when they first start, and then train and coach their team how to use them. This is exactly what we do at Growth Genie but we know it can take up to a year to hire, train and onboard an SDR manager, which is the pain we focus on when targeting these companies.”

 

Website Activity

Your website and landing pages are ground zero for buyer intent signals. If you’ve yet to properly get started with intent, begin by tracing high-value actions on your site that lead to purchase. If you haven’t invested in a first-party solution yet, you should get into it now and learn how to use it. From there, you can widen your scope to include review site data from places like G2 or Crunchbase (more on product comparison signals below).

Nadia Milani – VP of Marketing @ Proposify

Signal: High Intent Landing Pages or G2 Reviews

“For Proposify, anytime our ideal customer is showing a number of big time ‘I’m considering Proposify’ signals like visiting high-intent pages on the site or taking actions on high-intent sites like G2 – this triggers an alert in Slack. The first BDR to hit  ✅, prospects the account. This helps us contact the prospect just at the right time.”

Sam Quicke – Director of Marketing @ Kickfire

Signal: High Intent Landing Pages

“Identifying the anonymous accounts visiting your website is a powerful intent signal that an organization is in the market to buy. By understanding what pages they have visited and the content they have engaged with, you can tailor your messaging to provide them with the most relevant information at the height of their interest.

Sales receives Slack notifications when a target account or net-new account engages with our website. Marketing then uses our Google integration to do retargeted advertisement based on the identified accounts.”

Content Engagements

It’s all about content these days. If you have an eye on what topics your prospects are reading up about, that’s an early sign that you can use to get your foot in the door and start distributing solid thought leadership. 

Joseph Marilla – Principal Demand-Generation Marketing Manager @ Blackbaud

Signal: Solution Adjacent Webinars

“Outside of  ‘Contact Us’  forms and users clicking ‘I want to talk to sales’ via chatbots, unsurprisingly, intent is really difficult to nail down.  We’ve seen that you could have 10 different users clicks the same ‘high intent’ asset and find they’re at completely different stages in their journey.  That said, one somewhat consistent signal we’ve seen is users coming from thought leadership, solution-adjacent webinars. We spend time to understand our users via product marketing, customer success, and sales feedback loops. With those insights, we decide what content and topics will resonate most with our ICP and bring those topics to life via webinars which convert to high intent leads at a rate of anywhere from 20-40%. It’s not a perfect science, but we just keep our eyes on the data and our ears towards our customers and prospects.”

Rachel Ferranti – VP of Marketing at Selling Simplified

Signal: Keyword Activity

“For us, it’s great to understand what a marketing company’s greatest demand gen challenge might be through examining activity around terms like data quality, global reach, or lead engagement. An intent signal like that is valuable for us because we already know that our ABM accounts are actively engaged in demand gen initiatives, but backed with an intent data point like the above, we can create more personalized outreach and tailored solutions from the onset of our interactions with target accounts.”

Competitive Engagements

We found that competitive signals rise in the final stage of buying while all third-party signals drop by 52%. If an account is showing competitive engagements, it’s time to double down on your efforts. Social proof, highly targeted messaging, and persistence is key to winning these deals. 

Andrew Mahr – Chief Customer Officer @ Triblio

Signal: Product Comparison

“The profile of an account goes a long way toward determining which intent signals are most relevant. For a greenfield account, we’re more likely to prioritize signals that indicate an active product comparison is underway, whereas for our competitors’ customers it’s more effective to watch for risk signals indicating troubles with implementation, ROI, and so on.”

Laura Hannan – Founder @ Pitch121

Signal: Engaging a Competitor on Social Media

“For Pitch121 and our clients there are clear signals for intent on our LinkedIn feeds.  The secret sauce for me on Leadsift is finding those in your target market who have followed or engaged with a competitor.  Added bonus is that you know who exactly did that with the LinkedIn URL.  Other tracking or intent tools I’ve used tell you ‘someone at your target company’ – leaving you fishing for who that might be.”

Tech Stack

To target prospects by tech stack we recommend getting a data solution that enriches accounts with technographic data, does your solution work well for Salesforce users? Did you just release a HubSpot integration? LeadSift can help you find who’s installed a solution that compliments yours.

Gina Whitmore – Sr. Director of Sales Development @ Copado

Signal: DevOps Skills

“At Copado, we have a pretty niche persona so we spend time researching the skills that prospects list on their LinkedIn page; for example, if they have “Salesforce” or “DevOps” or even one of our competitors listed, those tend to be a great starting point for us because that indicates they see the value in a DevOps tool and potentially used our product at a past company or have at least felt the pain points in a typical DevOps process.”

Tina Bean – Cofounder, VP Strategic Partnerships @ KickFire

Signal: Marketing Automation 

Typically when people take on a marketing automation solution, they see intent data as their next step. I look for that as an intent signal.” 

Tim Davidson – Sr. Director, Marketing @ Directive

Signal: Tech Usage + Department Head Count

“Based off the clients current customer base, enriching the data and finding similarities based on AOV. For example, AOV is 27% higher when they have 50+ people in sales . Those triggers can be found using people data labs (# of people in a department), using BuiltWith for the active tech count and Slintel for technology.

The biggest thing we’ll do is create specific messaging and ads for each of the triggers. For example, if they use a specific ABM platform, have messaging that talks about how their tech integrates or compliments it.”

Buyer Movement

“When you go to reach out, you’ve got the trigger event that they’re in a new position. You’ve got the empathy to say ‘I know you just landed there, but maybe in a few weeks when you’re settled we should talk’. And the best part, you have a second reason for that conversation.” 

– Ollie Whitfeild

Ollie Whitfield – Growth Marketing @ VanillaSoft

Signal: Job Change

“Picture the scene. The decision-maker you spoke to, who became a customer… just left the company they work for a few months after signing with you. You know them, you’ve helped them, and they’ve trusted you to solve a problem in their work. 

 

But now they’ve gone to a new company. You can use the “social credit” you’ve built up with them over the course of the relationship and how it started, but that might not quite be enough. We don’t want to come into their inbox on the 3rd day of their new job and ask what are their priorities, and can we meet. That shows a lack of empathy and understanding. Starting a new job means a lot of things, meeting with salespeople is pretty low on the agenda in the first few weeks at any job.

 

How can we help the rubber hit the road here? Involve another trigger event, to increase the relevancy. 

 

For example, find if the company they’ve moved to is using a competing tool. This could be done via a Chrome Plugin (varying accuracy), searching on G2 for reviews by their colleagues, a LinkedIn Sales Navigator search for technologies used within the account. 

 

Now when you go to reach out, you’ve got the trigger event that they’re in a new position. You’ve got the empathy to say “I know you just landed there, but maybe in a few weeks when you’re settled we should talk”. And the best part, you have a second reason for that conversation. Not just relying on your prior relationship to book that call. You’ve found the contextual, account-level trigger event too which merits the discussion for them in this current role and at this company. Without that, you’re much less likely to get the call.” 

Tim Davidson – Sr. Director, Marketing @ Directive

Signal: POC’s Moving to Another Company

“We have very high response rates and close rates with customer POC’s moving to another company. Right now, monitoring this signal is a manual process. The only company I know that does this at scale is Usergems, who we’re looking into now.

The audience size for these people isn’t huge so we can’t do anything on the advertisement side but we do have AE’s that reach out to these people via Linkedin to get the conversation started.” 

What Signals are You Missing Out On?  

What signals will you be tracking next? No one can do it all, so take what resonates and leave what doesn’t.

Let us know what signal intrigued you the most!

5 Questions to Ask Data Vendors Before You Buy

5 Questions to Ask Data Vendors Before You Buy

You wouldn’t buy a car without asking a few questions first. What’s the mileage like? When did it last pass inspection? Treat buying data with the same care and concern. 

 

In 2022, data is king. Good luck selling anything without it. However, not everyone can be a data expert, so we made this list of questions to ask potential data vendors so you can be confident the data you’re paying for is squeaky clean. 

 

Why do you need to ask your data vendor these questions? Because in a world where data regulations are always changing, it’s important to be sure the data you’re using won’t get you in trouble or alienate your customers. 

 “When target audiences lose faith in our ability to safeguard their interest, they’re far less likely to interact with our marketing engagement efforts, much less do business with our companies.”

– David Crane, Intentsify 

These questions are in reference to The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) released by the European Union. That being said, if you aren’t impacted by GDPR, if you’re dealing with data, regulations exist or are moving in quickly. With more and more countries, states, and regions enacting their own data regulations similar to our friends across the pond, it’s important to be forward-thinking when it comes to data quality. Don’t wait until it’s too late to get the best data available. Good data hygiene is always a solid investment. 

Want the bigger picture of how the GDPR is affecting the B2B marketing landscape?  We consulted marketing experts on how you can market and sell while remaining compliant.

1. Are they collecting and sharing personal data with you? 

Personal data is anything that is traceable back to an individual. So things like first and last names, email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, social IDs and more all count as personal data. 

2. Where is the personal data collected from? 

For example, LeadSift scrapes the public web. Personal data from the public web would include first and last names, which most people choose to provide on their social media profiles. Intent vendors, LeadSift included, may have relationships with publishers and content providers where members can opt-in to have their personal data processed. 

Data compliance is a spectrum, and there are a lot of grey areas. 

 “Some data providers will get your names and email addresses among intent-identified accounts using their own contact databases. This, however, is a gray area of compliance (and I’m being lenient here), because you don’t know if or how exactly these contacts opted into providing their information.”David Crane 

3. What is the lawful basis for collecting and processing the data? 

In total there are six lawful bases for collecting and processing personal data in the EU. However, for marketers and sales reps, the two you need to focus on are consent and legitimate interest

4. Do they have explicit consent and how do they get it?

GDPR outlines explicit consent as “Any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.”

 

The individual has to be made aware of how their information will be used and given a clear opportunity to approve or disapprove of the processing. The data subject can’t be cornered or required to opt-in their data as a condition of using the service. “Silence, pre-ticked/checked boxes, or inactivity does not, therefore, constitute consent. That said, if you or any vendors you work with ensures that all contact-level data was acquired through such compliant means (typically by a clear opt-in or double opt-in process), you should be able to contact them via the normal marketing channels, as long as such uses were clearly stated when the individual opted in”, Says Crane. 

 

There are a few exceptions when it comes to data that is necessary for the provision of service. For example, credit card information and shipping addresses can be required for processing payments and product deliveries (GDPR.EU) 

 

If a vendor doesn’t have explicit consent, then they are likely using legitimate interest as the lawful basis to collect the data, which is why the next question is incredibly important to ask.

5. Can you see a copy of a legitimate interest assessment?  

When you receive a copy of a legitimate interest assessment (LIA) from a vendor, that’s a good sign. They are aligning themselves with data accountability and data hygiene. Two fantastic traits to look for in a vendor.  As a result, you can be confident you’re putting your budget in the right place. 

 

So what does a proper LIA look like? 

 

A good LIA will be specific and clear. The length of the assessment will be determined by specific circumstances surrounding the data collection practices and therefore will vary from vendor to vendor. The EU does not lay out specifics on how a legitimate interest assessment should be carried out. The UK’s data authority, the information commissioner’s office (ICO), suggests a three-part test that can help data processors determine their legitimate interest: 

  1. Purpose test (is there legitimate interest behind the processing?)
  2. Necessity test (is the processing necessary?) 
  3. Balancing test (does the individual’s interests and rights and freedoms override your legitimate interests.)

Want to see how LeadSift stays compliant with GDPR? Meet with us and ask all these questions, and more! Go ahead and grill us, we can take it. 

Building Intent Into Your MarTech Tool to Add Customer Value

Building Intent Into Your MarTech Tool to Add Customer Value

Why add intent data?

In 2011 there were just 150 MarTech companies. Today there are over 8,000 companies competing for our attention. So how do you stand out in an ever-growing crowd? 

You innovate. You provide more value for your clients. Here’s RevOptimal Founder, Will McCartney’s take.

“We define success as providing valuable solutions for our customers. With the LeadSift Intent API integration, we’re able to maintain a reliable and consistent intent input into our scoring models to maximize the value for our users.”

So how do you make sure you’re ahead of the curve while not only adding these benefits for the end-user but ensuring the quality matches the value you hope to provide?

This is where intent fits in. MarTech vendors are adding intent data directly into their tools to differentiate themselves from competitors. Intent data helps their customers identify, prioritize, target, and tailor messaging, directly to the prospects that are actually looking for help with a problem they solve. Here are just a few ways intent is being leveraged in MarTech tools:

  1. Intelligent personalization: sales enablement and marketing automation tools add personalization tokens based on a prospect’s specific intent triggers. If your customer knows a lead is engaging with sales OKRs, they can automatically tailor messaging with a surrounding value prop.
  2. Seamless enrichment: CRMs, conversational intelligence tools, and contact databases can enrich their customers’ prospect and customer data with their relevant intent data so a deeper understanding of the buyer’s journey and added actionability.
  3. Real-time prioritization: MarTech tools (like RevOptimal) allow customers to dynamically prioritize their leads based on their buying signals. This means prioritization alerts that adapt alongside the buyer’s journey for the most effective prioritization and targeting.

We sat down with Will to learn about the state of RevOptimal pre-intent features, how that evaluation process went, what implementation looked like, and the results customers are getting today. So you can make sure you’re in the A-class among nearly 10,000 other MarTech tools.

Before the integration

Before adding intent to their platform, the team at RevOptimal would work with each customer to identify their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), build a target account list based on that definition, and then the customer could prioritize their outreach based on the ICP fit score. 

They needed a solution to elevate the prioritization solution. In-market buying signals provide actionable, real-time data so their customers can prioritize the accounts that matter most.

If you know who’s a fit, how do you determine who’s actually looking for you, so you can reach them ahead of your competition? This is where intent fits in.

When evaluating an intent vendor, three key factors played a role.

First, is data quality. “Compared to other providers, the coverage and quality for B2B SaaS companies is really strong. That, paired with contact-level data is a key differentiator” says Will.

Second, the API needed to be reliable, and performant. The cost of things moving too slowly or being error-ridden from the start is too high to risk an API they couldn’t trust. “This allowed us to service our clients quickly, and accurately”.

And I might be biased but saving the best for last was the team behind it. “We enjoy working with the team at LeadSift. We’ve found them to be great partners and helpful in supporting our mission to help our clients generate revenue”.

Right in the feels.

Intent implementation

Getting the ball rolling was relatively simple. Once the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed, RevOptimal and LeadSift’s Tech and Customer Success teams jumped in to do a technical onboarding. This helps us understand how the data will be integrated, and how we can support them along the implementation process. 

Following that comes a few weeks of API testing and ironing out parameters to make everything connect the way it needs to based on the use case. Then, connecting LeadSift intent with other analytics and data points to build the product that is now in customer hands (and pipelines), it only took 8 weeks to establish the minimum viable product (MVP).

“Implementation was easy due to the consistency and quick support. There was a time where we had trouble passing parameters, and within an hour we were on a call with the Head of Product to help us figure it out and get things running smoothly for our client”.

From a developer’s perspective, they let us know that the implementation structure was intuitive and straightforward. The ability to control pagination parameters meant they could pull intent signals with greater granularity while controlling costs. The cost structure that grows as you grow gave them the flexibility to build while saving costs, and scale as they add customers.

“That’s something that is awesome for us, being able to pull intent data as we need it, not just on an automated recurring basis”.

If you’re wondering about the endless possibilities with this data, you can see the API documentation here.

“With intent data built-in, we’re now able to inform our customers not only which prospects fit their ICP, but also which ones are likely in-market for their solutions”. 

Here’s what that workflow looks like:

The RevOptimal team works with the customer to build a training data set for their ML-based ICP scoring model. This data can include anything from CRM data, to target account lists. 

Next, they build the intent profile. This is made up of a set of signals relevant to the customer’s business solution including competitors, event attendance, hiring, and custom keywords that each play a role in the buyer’s journey.

Now that the foundation is built, RevOptimal monitors for intent signals then scores them based on fit.

From here, on any given day, customers can log into the platform and see ICP fit accounts that are showing intent in real-time, then pull the leads within those accounts to fuel their ad targeting, ABM campaigns, and outbound sales.

At the forefront, RevOptimal helps customers with account prioritization, intent data plays a key role in the machine learning models that determined when one prospect should be prioritized over another. LeadSift intent data is used as an important piece of the puzzle in uncovering revenue opportunities and prioritizing prospects for their clients. 


“ICP analytics and intent combined means our customers not only know who they want but also who wants them. That overlap is the key we’re able to uncover for our clients”.

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If you’re looking to add actionable insights for your customers, stay a step ahead of competitors, or ideally, both, what’s holding you back?

LeadSift Acquired by IDGC

Today we are announcing that LeadSift has agreed to be acquired by IDG Communications, the leader in tech media, data and marketing services. We are beyond excited to join this family.

We started LeadSift in 2012 with the hypothesis that there is a massive amount of buying intent generated across billions of public web documents every day. We quickly realized that this data, if delivered in a timely manner, could be a game changer for businesses trying to connect with their customers. (P.S. we were talking about buying intent way before it was cool.) And over the last 9 years – across multiple product pivots and 100s of customers – we have always focused (almost obsessed) over the mission of “mining information from public web sources to help businesses identify and engage their customers in the buying journey.  

Being one of the leading B2B intent data providers and working with some of the savviest marketers, we got to see how big a role intent data was playing across the entire B2B demand generation process. From identifying buyers across the buying journey to engaging with the right message across multiple channels.

Since the inception of LeadSift and our pivot to a B2B intent data platform, we have had many champions and supporters of our mission who understood the power of intent data for B2B marketers, but few have understood as quickly and succinctly as Andre Yee, Chief Product Officer of IDG Communications. (N.B. When you start discussing a product roadmap in the middle of a corp-dev call with half a dozen executives, you know you have found your kindred spirit!) Right after our first meeting, we realized the incredibly powerful future for B2B marketers we could be building together with the IDG’s proprietary first-party and the marketing tech stack they were building (acquiring Triblio and KickFire is not a coincidence).

If you’re a LeadSift customer, partner or one of our prospective customers (P.S. we should chat now seriously!) here are 3 reasons why we are super excited about the future:

1. Data is King: It is obvious the company that has the most depth and breadth of data wins the B2B demand generation space. IDG.com being the #1 Tech Media company with troves of proprietary first-party intent-data across event attendance, engagement with editorial articles, branded conversations and human verified insights has a massive head start. Imagine how scalable and actionable our intent signals will be once we integrate our 3rd-party realtime web based intent signals with this proprietary first-party intent data stream.

 

2. Incredible Reach: Let’s be honest, being a small startup from Halifax, N.S. we’ve always had challenges in scaling demand generation programs for really large enterprises. By merging with IDG, a company with offices across the globe, we will have a lot more resources to be able to provide global reach and support at a level that we could not previously imagine.

3. Full Cycle Demand Generation: 3rd-party intent data is one piece (albeit a very important one) of the overall B2B marketing and demand generation puzzle. But what if you could know all the information about your first-party web visitors (IDG | Kickfire), cross-reference and prioritize them with 3rd-party intent signals (LeadSift + IDG proprietary first-party data), activate them seamlessly across digital channels (IDG | Triblio) and run highly targeted lead generation programs, all from one single dashboard! This is what Kumaran Ramanathan, president of IDG Communications says: “IDG’s goal of moving to the intersection of media and MarTech is to help B2B marketers navigate the customer journey across a dynamic ecosystem by leveraging unmatched data sets. . LeadSift’s technology is further enhancing our unique intent data that drives ROI for our customers.”

What does this mean for you as a current customer and partner?

As a current customer and partner nothing changes in terms of your subscription, but you can look forward to more and better intent data that includes information from first-party websites and offline sources such as event attendance and telemarketing! Stay tuned for all the exciting product developments we have planned.

What does this mean for the LeadSift team?

We’re closer to building out the most comprehensive and actionable intent data as a service to serve the savviest B2B marketers – and we could not be happier (video/picture). Our entire team is excited to embark on this next chapter of the journey to continue to focus on our mission of “mining information from public web + proprietary data sources to help businesses identify and engage their customers in the buying journey.”

Thank you,

Tukan and Sreejata

LeadSift 360: Complete intent data. Many sources. One place.

LeadSift 360: Complete intent data. Many sources. One place.

We’ve all heard the terms “dark social” or “dark funnel” by now. Terms like this exist because so much of the buyer’s journey happens in places we can’t see. Most people aren’t waving a flag, shouting they’re in-market.

But intent data is meant to unveil those people right? 

The problem is, most intent data vendors are only providing intent signals from one source. This means you’re only getting one, small piece of the puzzle, and a few outliers could not only throw your messaging and timing for a loop, but cause you to miss the accounts that are actually in buying mode.

Introducing LeadSift 360

We’ve always had a multi-source perspective on intent, but we just took it to another level. LeadSift 360 layers more than five data sources, so you get the vastest data, scored like the stock market, so you have noise-free lead generation, directly in your sales and marketing teams’ hands.

LeadSift 360 mines the public web, including job postings, social networks, leadership changes, public forums, technographics, and any other signal on the public web, and layers it with research-based intent. This type of intent is sourced based on prospects researching and reading content on publisher websites that may signal they’re in-market.

Having more data sources means you get a 360-degree view of the buyer’s journey. The intent data essentially validates itself by being cross-referenced with multiple sources, and scored accordingly.

In practice, that means you can be confident in your timing and messaging, beat your competitors to the punch, and scale revenue.

No more black box intent data

A lot of the skepticism around intent comes (rightfully) from not knowing how it’s defined, what counts as a signal, and scoring that is only ever arbitrary secret sauce. 

So let’s break down how we’re doing things differently.

First things first, the intent data. 

Attached to every lead you get, we tell you the event that triggered the event signal. Whether that’s someone engaging with your competitor, a custom keyword, or hiring for a relevant role, you deserve to have that intel to power your messaging.

Next, scoring.

We revamped our scoring to mimic the stock market. This way, large accounts aren’t automatically, artificially inflated, and small accounts aren’t left behind if they’re truly in-market. Directly in the LeadSift platform, you can actually see why we’ve scored an account the way we have. [Note: in the platform, scores are labeled cold, warm, hot, but in the data deliveries, numbers are there for granular prioritization.]

Other research-based intent providers often send out a lot of noise. This is because the nature of that data is broad and high volume. But this can be a good thing when paired with a more narrow source. By layering research-based intent and public web signals, with trend-based scoring, you can filter out the noise and end up with clear, relevant, actionable intent leads at your fingertips. 

So, if you want to get started with noise-free intent data and scale revenue faster, you can try it free for 7 days.