Using Purchase Intent to Generate Leads and Sales

Your marketing team hits its MQL targets. But the sales team complains. They say the leads are low-quality and waste their time on prospects who aren’t ready to buy. Studies show that sales reps ignore as many as 50% of marketing leads. Only 9.1% of sales professionals believe the leads they receive are of very high quality.

This disconnect is more than frustrating. It’s expensive. Misalignment between sales and marketing costs businesses an estimated $1 trillion annually in lost productivity and wasted marketing spend. It creates friction between teams. It leads to 60-70% of B2B content that goes unused. Up to 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. All that budget and effort result in a strained sales team, a high customer acquisition cost and missed revenue goals.

What if you could stop focusing on quantity and start delivering leads with proven buying intent? Purchase intent data cuts through the noise. It allows you to identify accounts that are actively researching solutions like yours right now. You can focus your efforts on these high-intent prospects. You can align your sales and marketing teams. You can improve conversion rates by up to 67%. You can drive higher marketing ROI.

📌 Reminder: According to HockeyStack, it takes an average of 71 touchpoints just to generate an MQL, with cold leads requiring 20-50 touches versus 5-12 for warm leads. A Gartner survey conducted in late 2024 found that 61% of B2B buyers prefer an overall rep-free buying experience, with 73% actively avoiding suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. Additionally, according to a 2024 report from 6sense, B2B buyers consistently complete approximately 70% of their buying journey before ever engaging with a vendor’s sales team, with 81% having already selected a preferred vendor by first contact. If you don’t have the luxury of time, target warmer leads. Try UpLead and get 5 free validated B2B emails first!

Quick Links:

1. What is Purchase Intent in a B2B Context?
2. Why Is Purchase Intent Crucial for Modern B2B Sales and Marketing?
3. B2B vs. B2C Purchase Intent: 5 Key Differences You Must Know
4. The 4 Types of B2B Purchase Intent and Their Stages
5. Key Factors That Influence B2B Purchase Intent
6. How to Gather and Measure Purchase Intent Data
7. 6 Actionable Strategies to Capitalize on Purchase Intent
8. Common Challenges in Purchase Intent Analysis
9. FAQs About Purchase Intent
10. Activating Purchase Intent: From Data to Revenue

What is Purchase Intent in a B2B Context?

Purchase intent is the probability that a consumer will buy a product or service. You evaluate it with predictive models. You use historical data to forecast future buying actions. In B2B marketing, purchase intent represents the likelihood of your target audience buying a product or service from your company. It’s based on their observable behavior and engagement signals.

You need data on previous buyer behavior to evaluate purchase intent. Computer models are used for quantitative analysis to predict near-future consumer outcomes. These computer models use demographics, customer engagement, buyer behavior and even seminar attendance to analyze B2B marketing strategies.

You collect data for analyzing purchase intent by evaluating online activities. These include webinars and other customer engagement strategies, downloads, website traffic and clicked paid ads. B2B marketers should assess the purchase intentions of their clients by analyzing these factors. They should also review demographic information, keywords used, email open rates, engagement rates and human behavior data.

These analytics will help you understand your clients. You can develop a marketing strategy based on your target client’s intent to purchase your product or service. You can use the data to create a marketing funnel that connects with your audience. It gives them the information they need to trigger a sale.

Why Is Purchase Intent Crucial for Modern B2B Sales and Marketing?

If a customer shows strong intention, they will likely purchase a product soon. You need to recognize when customers have reached the point where a sale is possible. The right marketing strategy with purchase intent can increase sales.

A focused intent marketing strategy can help you build a funnel to increase consumer conversions and revenue as fast as possible. When you leverage purchase intent data, you know which customer segments are most likely to buy. This information can help you boost sales through cost-efficient methods.

B2B organizations that leverage intent data report a 50% increase in qualified leads. They can achieve up to a 208% higher marketing revenue contribution by aligning sales and marketing around intent signals. Here are the core benefits:

Hyper-Efficient Prioritization: Intent data allows sales and marketing teams to focus their resources on accounts that are actively researching solutions. These accounts show genuine purchase signals. You analyze the strength of these signals, such as content downloads or pricing page visits. Teams can prioritize leads that are most likely to convert. This maximizes efficiency and avoids wasted effort on cold prospects.

Increased Deal Velocity: You identify prospects early in their buying journey. This often happens before they contact a vendor. Companies can engage them sooner and accelerate the sales cycle. This early visibility allows sales reps to have more context-aware conversations from the first interaction. Deals move from opportunity to close more fast.

Meaningful Personalization at Scale: Intent data provides granular insights into a prospect’s specific interests, pain points and research topics. This enables teams to tailor messaging, content and offers that resonate with the buyer’s immediate needs. You deliver hyper-personalized experiences across thousands of accounts. It happens on autopilot.

Significant Competitive Advantage: With intent data, businesses can identify and engage potential buyers before their competitors even know they are in the market. It also offers competitive intelligence. You monitor when prospects research rival solutions. This allows teams to time their outreach well and position their offerings with strategy.

Higher Marketing ROI: You focus marketing spend and sales efforts on in-market accounts. This reduces wasted resources and lowers customer acquisition costs. This targeted approach leads to higher engagement, better conversion rates and a more efficient marketing engine that delivers a measurable return on investment. In fact, 50% of sales leaders use intent data for improved account prioritization. 55% saw an increase in lead conversions after implementing it.

What Are the Key Differences Between B2B and B2C Purchase Intent?

The key differences between B2B and B2C purchase intent lie in the buyer unit, sales cycle, motivation, signal source and risk factor. You need to understand these distinctions to develop effective B2B marketing strategies.

Buyer Unit: Individual vs. Buying Committee

B2C buyers are individuals or small, informal groups who make personal purchases. B2B purchases are made by a formal buying committee or decision-making unit. This consists of 6 to 11 or more stakeholders from various departments and seniority levels. It includes users, technical evaluators and financial approvers.

Sales Cycle Length: Short and Simple vs. Long and Complex

B2C sales cycles are short. Sometimes they’re impulsive. They can be completed in minutes or hours. B2B sales cycles are much longer and more complex. They often span several months due to internal reviews, multiple layers of approval, budget constraints and risk assessments. According to Forrester, 86% of B2B purchases experience delays at some point.

Driving Motivation: Emotional Need vs. Rational ROI

B2C purchasing decisions are influenced by emotional factors. These include desire, brand perception, social status and personal satisfaction. B2B decisions are driven by rational and logical factors. Buyers need to justify choices based on metrics like ROI, efficiency gains, cost savings and business objectives.

Signal Source: Individual Actions vs. Account-Level Activity

B2C intent signals are individual. They come from a single user’s direct actions like clicking an ad or visiting a pricing page. B2B intent signals are aggregated at the account level. They’re gauged by collective online activities of multiple individuals within the same company.

Risk Factor: Low Personal Risk vs. High Career and Financial Risk

B2C risk is personal and financial with a small scale. B2B risk is higher and multifaceted. It involves financial, operational and personal career implications. A poor B2B purchasing decision can impact company-wide productivity. It can waste substantial budget. It can damage professional reputations.

What Are the 4 Types of B2B Purchase Intent?

The 4 types of B2B purchase intent are Informational Intent, Navigational Intent, Commercial Intent and Transactional Intent. Each type corresponds to a specific stage in the buyer’s journey. Each requires a different marketing approach.

Informational Intent: The Awareness Stage

Informational intent occurs when the user is looking for information to understand a problem, topic or question. This aligns with the Awareness Stage of the B2B buyer’s journey. The user is not yet considering specific solutions. They’re trying to educate themselves about a pain point. Examples include searching “what is account-based marketing”, “how to improve sales pipeline”, “benefits of CRM software” or “content organization best practices”.

Navigational Intent: The Consideration Stage

Navigational intent means the user wants to find a specific website or page. They already know the brand or company they are looking for. Examples include searching “Salesforce login”, “UpLead pricing page”, “HubSpot blog” or “IBM website”.

Commercial Intent: The Comparison Stage

Commercial intent indicates the user is investigating and comparing different solutions, products or services to solve their defined problem. This aligns with the Consideration Stage of the buyer’s journey. Examples include searching “best CRM for small business”, “UpLead vs ZoomInfo”, “Salesforce alternatives”, “project management software reviews” or “enterprise security platform comparison”.

Transactional Intent: The Decision Stage

Transactional intent shows the user is ready to take a specific action. This could be making a purchase, signing up for a trial or requesting a demo. This aligns with the Decision Stage of the B2B buyer’s journey. Examples include searching “UpLead free trial”, “buy Salesforce license”, “schedule a CRM demo” or “enterprise project management software pricing”.

What Are the Key Factors That Influence B2B Purchase Intent?

The key factors that influence B2B purchase intent include the buying committee dynamics, budget constraints, tech stack integration, vendor reputation, data-driven decision making and total cost of ownership. You need to understand these factors to anticipate and address buyer concerns.

Buying Committee and Multiple Stakeholders

Unlike B2C, B2B decisions are rarely made by one person. A buying committee is typical. It can consist of 6 to 13 or more individuals. This group includes roles like users, influencers, deciders and gatekeepers. Each has different priorities.

Budget Constraints and Return on Investment

B2B purchases are significant investments. This makes ROI a critical factor. Decision-makers need a clear, data-backed value proposition. It should show how the product or service will save money, increase efficiency or generate revenue. Many buyers expect to see a positive ROI within just three months of a software purchase.

Tech Stack and Integration Capabilities

B2B buyers require solutions that integrate with their existing systems. Poor technology integration is considered a major threat to B2B eCommerce success. Can the solution connect with leading platforms like Salesforce? Salesforce holds a 20.7% share of the global CRM market as of 2024. What about HubSpot? HubSpot serves over 238,000 customers in more than 135 countries.

Vendor Reputation and Trust

B2B purchases involve long-term partnerships and significant cost. Trust is paramount. Buyers rely on social proof. This includes peer recommendations, case studies and testimonials from platforms like G2 and Capterra. G2 is used by over 100 million professionals annually. Capterra is part of Gartner Digital Markets with over 2 million verified reviews. Vendor expertise validates claims.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Modern B2B buyers use data, analytics and AI-driven insights to make purchasing decisions. They don’t rely solely on relationships or intuition. Vendors must provide data-backed proof of value and performance to be considered.

Total Cost of Ownership and Pricing

Beyond the initial purchase price, B2B buyers evaluate the total cost of ownership. This includes implementation, maintenance, training and potential downtime. They also consider the transparency of the pricing model. They look at the availability of flexible options like free trials or discounts.

How Can You Gather and Measure Purchase Intent Data?

You can gather and measure purchase intent data through first-party sources, third-party providers, behavioral analytics and lead scoring systems. You can mine purchase intent data from your existing customer base through different marketing activities and strategies. You can also get it from third parties.

First-Party Intent Data: Your Internal Goldmine

First-party intent data is gathered through website traffic, engagement activities, sales and marketing efforts. This internal data comes from direct interaction with leads and customers. Examples include visitor comments, email open rates and social media engagement. Tracking tools, customer relationship management systems, email marketing software and website analytics help companies collect internal intent data.

Google Analytics evaluates your website traffic. It’s a rich source of intent data that you can leverage for all your lead generation and marketing strategies. You can track visitors’ journeys from your landing page. This helps answer questions such as: What link do they click next? What leads them to purchase something from the product page? What can you do to keep visitors from clicking away from your website?

First-party intent data is crucial to analyze your leads’ actions when they interact with your brand online, read your emails or sign up for a marketing event. Their participation and engagement increase their purchase intentions. Intent data helps you analyze why and how effective your marketing approaches are.

Third-Party Intent Data: Seeing the Bigger Picture

Related data that does not come from your organization is third-party intent data. Many companies use third-party software for data collection and analytics that meet compliance standards for gathering information.

Third-party data saves time. It frees up your marketing team to accomplish the more complex task of analyzing purchase intent data. You’ll already know the kind of customers intent on purchasing your product or service. You can accelerate lead generation. Work on formulating a strategy that responds to your potential customers’ actions and signals.

UpLead’s Intent Data feature can help you generate lists of engaged leads. You can segment and prioritize them. You can approach them at the right moment with the right message. You can learn what potential customers want to know before purchasing. You can use that information to improve your marketing efforts.

Third-party intent data can help B2B marketers determine their target audience’s most effective customized marketing approach. You can optimize your sales cycle. You can improve your marketing strategies for focused and account-based marketing or advertising campaigns.

Leveraging intent data means streamlining your marketing efforts. You give each account the personalization it needs. You can engage your leads with the appropriate marketing push they need to complete their buying journey. It’s that simple.

How Can You Measure Purchase Intent?

You can measure purchase intent through behavioral analytics and lead scoring. High-intent behavioral signals include visiting pricing pages, requesting demos, downloading product comparisons and multiple stakeholders from one company who engage with content. Low-intent signals include general blog reads or social media clicks. A robust lead scoring model combines these behavioral signals with firmographic data to determine a lead’s sales-readiness.

This method involves analyzing the digital breadcrumbs that prospects leave across the internet. You track their online behavior to identify actions that signal buying intent. Lead scoring is a methodology used to rank prospects based on their perceived value to the organization. It works by assigning points to leads based on a combination of their profile and their behaviors.

Marketers also use a scale to measure purchase intent through customer surveys. There are two purchase intent scales: the Likert and Juster scales. The Likert scale for buying intent uses 5 points. 5 indicates “will purchase” and 1 indicates “definitely will not purchase”. The Juster scale uses 11 points to identify the respondent’s intent. Each number represents an even more specific response.

Top B2B Intent Data Platforms and Tools

Bombora: A leading B2B intent data provider with its proprietary B2B Data Co-op of over 5,000 websites. It offers Company Surge data that identifies businesses showing increased research activity on specific topics.

6sense: A comprehensive Revenue AI platform that unifies data, channels and teams. It uses AI to identify which accounts are ready to buy. It analyzes over 1 trillion signals monthly.

Demandbase: Provider of Demandbase One, a unified Go-To-Market platform focused on Account-Based Experience. It combines ABM, advertising, sales intelligence and data.

ZoomInfo: A B2B intelligence platform that combines a vast, verified database with real-time intent signals. It offers products like SalesOS and MarketingOS with pricing that starts around $14,995 per year.

UpLead: UpLead is a B2B data provider and sales intelligence platform founded in 2017. It offers a database of over 180 million verified B2B contacts and 19 million global company profiles. The platform’s core value proposition is its 95% data accuracy guarantee. This is supported by real-time email verification performed at the moment of download. A significant feature for acting on intent is its Buyer Intent Data, powered by Bombora. This identifies companies that actively research topics relevant to your product or service. UpLead’s pricing is credit-based with a 7-day Free Trial (5 credits), Essentials plan at $99/month ($74/mo annually) for 170 credits, Plus plan at $199/month ($149/mo annually) for 400 credits and Professional plan with custom pricing that includes Buyer Intent Data and API access.

What Are 6 Actionable Strategies to Capitalize on Purchase Intent?

The 6 actionable strategies to capitalize on purchase intent are enhancing account-based marketing, mapping intent signals to your sales funnel, optimizing programmatic advertising, targeting high-intent keywords, refining predictive lead scoring and personalizing content marketing. Now that you’ve collected the data you need and have ways of determining purchase intent, here’s how you can use this data for long-term success.

Enhance Account-Based Marketing

You can use purchase intent data for your account-based marketing campaigns and strategies. This can shorten your sales cycle. It can improve your retention rates with B2B clients. Whenever possible, your team should apply marketing and sales strategies to each individual account. This allows for greater customization and personalization that suits your clients.

Using purchase intent data for account-based campaigns can lead to higher retention rates. Clients are more loyal when you provide excellent service and the exact solution they need. Account-based strategies help build stronger brand-customer relationships that can last for years.

Map Intent Signals to Your Sales Funnel

Analyze your sales funnel to determine which leads exhibit a higher purchase intent that could lead to a sale. Different types of leads may show either informational or transactional intent.

Informational intent means your leads are looking for content that will educate them on the solutions your brand can provide. Transactional intent is behavior that indicates they are actively seeking to make a purchase. This could include activities such as looking at rates on your pricing page, using a highly-specific keyword or putting items into a shopping cart.

Use purchase intent data to determine where your leads are in your marketing funnel. Are they at the awareness stage, consideration, decision or purchase point? Knowing their stage in the buying process will help you build a marketing funnel that will generate revenue in the short and long term.

Optimize Programmatic Advertising

Knowing your audience’s buying intent allows you to create marketing strategies that are intent-based as well. You can optimize your advertising campaign and generate higher conversions with intent-based ads.

Intent-based advertising is cost-efficient. It ensures that more ads will likely reach their intended targets. Whether you use programmatic advertising, email marketing, social media marketing or paid ads, your marketing messages will resonate with your prospects. They will increase response and engagement rates.

You don’t need to create ads from scratch. You can retarget your existing ads. Determine the right audience based on their browsing behavior and buying intent. Use their online activity to deliver relevant content that will encourage them to move forward on their customer journey.

Target High-Intent Keywords

Identify relevant keywords your target audience uses. Integrate them into your search engine optimization strategies. Once you have purchased intent data, you can also analyze the intent behind the keywords. You can create content that can translate into revenue.

When leads use high-intent keywords, their intent is largely transactional. This means they are very close to purchasing a specific product. Your SEO and marketing strategies should leverage these keywords to trigger a sale as fast as possible.

Focusing on high-intent keywords will help you generate SEO leads. It will boost your ROI. It will convert leads into repeat or loyal customers.

Refine Predictive Lead Scoring

Once you’ve generated your leads, you can create a lead scoring system to assess them. This can help you rank your leads. You can understand where they are in their customer journey.

Lead scoring may incorporate factors such as supplier, pricing and engagement. This depends on your niche. It’s best to develop a lead scoring system unique to your business. Use historical data to assess which strategies successfully boost conversions.

Purchase intent data will help you analyze your audience’s behavior on your company’s website. You can use this data to compare past and current consumer behavior. This will help you determine which leads are closer to making a purchase decision.

Personalize Content Marketing

Content marketing is effective. Consider the e-commerce boom and the slew of businesses that transition to the digital landscape. A robust content marketing strategy is vital to reach your target audience. It converts them into paying customers.

Create blog posts, infographics, videos and other high-end content that is relevant and valuable to your target audience. Provide specific information that will make you an authority in your industry. Use long-tail and high-intent keywords to capture leads very close to the purchase point of their customer journey.

Leverage market research to gain insight into content marketing channels. Speed up your return on investment by focusing on one or two platforms where you can get the most engagement. Tailor your content to perform well. Minor details such as photo choice, caption length, title and content angle can affect engagement numbers.

Well-researched, specific, useful content that addresses customer pain points will bring your target audience to your door. More organic traffic means more conversions and revenue.

What Are Common Challenges in Purchase Intent Analysis?

Common challenges in purchase intent analysis include data accuracy, privacy compliance, data integration and sales and marketing alignment. Understanding these pitfalls helps you build a more robust intent data strategy.

Data Accuracy and Quality

A primary issue is data accuracy. Third-party intent data can be outdated or incorrect. This is especially true when sourced from providers who are incentivized to sell lists. This leads to data decay, where information becomes irrelevant over time. Signals can also be misinterpreted. For example, a researcher who gathers information for a report might show similar online behavior to a potential buyer. This creates a false positive. Solution: Combine third-party data with first-party data (e.g., website interactions, CRM data) and zero-party data (e.g., survey responses) for a more holistic and accurate view.

Privacy and Compliance

Navigating data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA is a significant hurdle. These laws govern how personal data of EU and California residents is collected, processed and stored. Non-compliance can lead to severe fines. These can be up to 4% of global annual revenue or €20 million for GDPR and up to $7,500 per violation for CCPA.

Data Integration

Even with valuable data, many organizations struggle to integrate it into their existing tech stack. This includes CRM and Marketing Automation Platforms. Issues like data silos, incompatible formats and interoperability limitations can prevent teams from acting on insights fast. This leads to missed opportunities.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Misalignment between sales and marketing is a significant issue. It causes leads to fall through the cracks. Potential opportunities are missed. This disconnect leads to wasted resources, inconsistent customer messaging and decreased revenue. Demandbase notes that this can cost businesses 10% or more in annual revenue. It leads to confusion, lost deals and a bad reputation.

What Are FAQs About Purchase Intent?

Activating Purchase Intent: From Data to Revenue

Customer demographics are only one dimension businesses need to consider when they develop a sales strategy. Purchase intent is an important element. It’s one that can lead to long-term success for your business. Leveraging your target market’s buying intent can streamline marketing strategies. It can generate leads. It can increase conversion rates. It can boost revenue.

UpLead can be your partner in harnessing the power of purchase intent. We can help you get the most accurate intent data on the market. We can drive marketing strategies that will capture your target market fast.

📌 Reminder: According to HockeyStack, it takes an average of 71 touchpoints just to generate an MQL, with cold leads requiring 20-50 touches versus 5-12 for warm leads. A Gartner survey conducted in late 2024 found that 61% of B2B buyers prefer an overall rep-free buying experience, with 73% actively avoiding suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. If you don’t have the luxury of time, target warmer leads. Try UpLead and get 5 free validated B2B emails first!