How Does Intent Data Add Relevance To The Marketing Funnel?
The concept of intent-based marketing isn't new; it has been discussed to the grave. From historical insights to real-time ones, the way marketers use intent data has rapidly evolved.
With rapidly changing consumer preferences, intent data underscores a pivotal shift in modern marketing and sales strategies for effective targeting. Imagine knowing the consumers before they know themselves and offering them the best suggestions to combat their choice paralysis. Add to that, getting higher Return on Ads Spend (ROAS). Looks like the perfect example of intent-based marketing.
For instance, a study from Foundry revealed that campaigns that used intent-based targeting were 2.5x more efficient than those using standard targeting dimensions.
What is intent data and how are global marketers using it?
Intent data refers to behavioural insights that indicate a buyer’s intention to purchase or engage with a product or service. This data can be collected from various sources, including web browsing activities, social media interactions, historical and real-time data from CRM and CDPs, and more.
Use Cases of Intent-based Marketing
Intent data has been playing an essential role in account-based marketing (ABM) strategies. Enlisted below is a quick roundabout to some common use cases:
- Unveils a nuanced understanding of consumer behaviour, enhancing targeting precision.
- Increases conversion rates and customer loyalty via intent-data-powered analysis.
- Helps businesses gain a competitive edge by identifying buyer intent prior to the decision-making process.
- Deepens customer engagement and satisfaction for personalised experiences.
For example, 8X8 used intent-based data metrics in its B2B marketing strategy to double its ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). By leveraging the capabilities of programmatic algorithms, the organisation cross-sells or upsells its subscription-based offerings through hyper-personalised recommendations.
Challenges in Intent-based Targeting
Although several robust technologies have disrupted the targeted marketing landscape, CX-focused companies still have a few concerns. Scott Voigt, CEO at Fullstory, said, “We’re seeing companies that have viewed themselves as customer-centric realise that they have significant blind spots when it comes to actually understanding their customers.”
One of the core reasons behind this blind spot is changing consumer concerns towards the data they share online. While customers have witnessed relief with brands being privacy compliant, the markets still contemplate their next step in the effective usage of tools like privacy sandbox, CDPs, and more. Other challenges that continue to persist include:
- Overexposure, where frequent targeting leads to ad fatigue and annoyance, prompting customers to switch to a competitor brand.
- Attribution hurdles, where multi-touch attribution models are usually complex instead of being precise.
- Information silos, which continue to exist between the sales and the marketing teams.
How are global innovations driving buying intents?
When it comes to marketing, good timing isn’t enough to convince target audiences that a product is worth buying. With rapidly increasing competition, embracing advanced technologies that use first-party data from real-time user insights can be a game changer.
For instance, let’s look at the following brand stories;
Sonder’s LinkedIn Campaign Automation with HubSpot
Sonder automated its LinkedIn company targeting by leveraging HubSpot’s first-party intent data capabilities to personalise its targeting filters based on size, industry, and buyer persona. As a consequence, the integration helped the company achieve 278% YoY growth for marketing-generated sales-qualified leads, and a compounding annual growth of 288% for marketing-qualified leads.
HubSpot’s technology helped the company achieve 121.38% YoY growth, allowing its marketing team to integrate over 10 different tool sets. Utilising these data points, the company executed multichannel account-based marketing demand generation campaigns to its ideal customer profile..
This created a continuous intelligence loop, helping Sonder prevent infomation silos for streamlined growth and revenue operations.
Singapore-based Wootag’s partnership with L’Oreal surged audience attention by 76%
Wootag’s Intent platform partnered with L’Oreal Professional and Wavemaker on its Scalp Advance campaign in India. L’Oreal Professional focuses on personalised solutions for diverse scalp and hair concerns across India’s varied geographical and cultural landscape.
Utilising a data-driven advertising (DAD) strategy with advanced genAI algorithms, the campaign navigated through the complexities of consumer behaviours, employing strategic audience segmentation and ad sizing. As a result, the campaign achieved success with a threefold uplift in engagement, increased brand awareness, and a 76% surge in audience attention.
