The amount of information online means the average B2B buyer is mostly finished the buyer journey before they contact a sales person. In fact, research shows that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, less than a fifth of that time is spent meeting with sales reps, which is further carved up if spread across multiple suppliers. Intent data allows marketers to get ahead of the B2B buyer journey.
ZoomInfo collects and aggregates online research activity from thousands of B2B websites, media publishers, and more. From this raw data, ZoomInfo generates “spike†data, which includes the amount and type of content consumed, number of consumers, time on page, and even scroll speed.
This information provides B2B vendors valuable insight into what buyers are actively searching, enabling vendors to produce lists of prospects who are specifically looking for what they have to offer. Vendors can now begin personalizing their pitches, which is the second most effective B2B marketing tactic, after only customer referral.
Signal vs Noise
Intent data providers track thousands of topics, which can be overwhelming, making it important to set criteria. ZoomInfo specialists can research keywords and offer custom topics to optimize research for target customers.
Users can filter companies by:
- Date Range: Which companies showed repeated interest in your topics over a specified time
- Signal Score: Which companies have been consuming an above average amount of information on a particular topic
- Audience Strength: Which companies are conducting a broad amount of research across multiple days and sites
Data Integrity
ZoomInfo’s propriety machine learning algorithm scans nearly 40 million online sources daily, including corporate websites, news articles, SEC filings, job postings, and more. Along with managing the algorithm, a 300-person research and verification team works to improve information about contacts, funding, and conferences, and discover inside information about companies.
ZoomInfo also uses five third-party sources to supplement automated data aggregation to help gather information from public companies, government data sources, merger and acquisition activity, and social media feeds.
It should come as no surprise then ads served with intent signals experience 40 per cent greater purchase intent lift and 30 per cent consideration lift. However, while these advantages seem self-evident, a recent report showed less than a third of marketers say they have a measurable intent data strategy in place.
Clearly, businesses have yet to fully tap the depth and breadth or intent data. Getting ahead of this trend in 2022 will be essential for vendors to get ahead of their competitors.
If you would like help integrating intent data into your sales and marketing strategy, please contact us today.