Buyer intent is the stage where a potential customer shifts from just researching to being ready to make a purchase.
Understanding the right type of intent data is important for your marketing and sales success.
This is the “strike while the iron is hot” moment. It’s the best time to use your sales intelligence to turn a hot lead into a sale.
In this blog, we will explore third-party intent data comprehensively. But let’s start with the basics first.
What is Buyer Intent Data?
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Buyer intent data is the behavioral trail that potential buyers leave as they search for products or services online.
These behaviors include visiting websites, downloading content, typing search queries, and engaging with marketing materials.
By analyzing this data, businesses can spot people who are actively thinking about buying. This allows for better-timed and more targeted marketing and sales actions—these are the signals that actually lead to conversions.
First vs. Second vs. Third-Party Intent Data
Intent data provides great insights into customer behavior, improving your sales and marketing. By layering multiple data sets, you get a comprehensive picture of the prospect or customer.
But how do you use intent data effectively? This requires understanding the differences between types of intent data. Each has its own advantages. Let’s take a brief look:
First-Party Intent Data:
This is data you collect from your own digital platforms. It shows how people engage with your brand directly.
Advantages:
- High accuracy since it comes from your audience.
- Real-time access to user actions.
- Full control, helping you stay GDPR-compliant.
Example: A lead who visits your pricing page, downloads your whitepaper, and clicks on your emails.
Second-Party Intent Data:
This is someone else’s first-party data that they share with you. It provides insight into user behavior on platforms other than your own.
Advantages:
- Gives you access to valuable data without needing to build your own tracking system.
- Helps in co-marketing or shared audience insights.
- Broadens your understanding of buyer behavior.
Example: A partner company shares data from users who joined your joint webinar or viewed a comparison between your product and a competitor’s.
Third-Party Intent Data:
Collected from external providers across many websites, forums, and platforms. It helps you find people interested in your industry, even if they’ve never visited your website.
Advantages:
- Shows you buyers before they ever touch your site.
- Helps you reach new in-market leads before competitors do.
- Great for account-based marketing (ABM) by surfacing intent from your ideal customers.
Example: A potential customer comparing products like yours across review platforms and tech blogs.
Is First-Party Data Enough?
While first-party data is valuable, it has its limits. According to recent research, only 2–5% of your total market is actively looking to buy. That means 95% of potential buyers are researching silently without engaging with your brand.
But relying solely on first-party data could mean missing these potential researchers. Layer second- and third-party intent data. This is how you discover and reach these early-stage prospects.
Best Practices for Using Third-Party Intent Data
Two-thirds of B2Bs marketers report using a combination of both first-party and third-party data. But to do that effectively, here are best practices you need to follow:
Combine It with First-Party Data
When you layer third-party insights over your own data, you get a full picture of your prospect’s journey. This significantly improves the accuracy of your targeting.
Ensure the Data Is Accurate
Work only with trustworthy data providers. That’s because the quality of your targeting depends entirely on the quality of the data.
If your data is accurate, you target the highest potential spending customers. This also means you need fewer conversions to significantly improve your ROI and overall bottom line.
Align Sales and Marketing
Make sure both sales and marketing teams use the same intent data. This helps align strategies and messaging.
In fact, 50% of leaders report that intent data helps align sales and marketing efforts.
When you bring alignment, you can form closer working relationships across multiple areas of campaigns.
Focus on High-Intent Leads
Use lead scoring to prioritize hot prospects showing strong buying signals. This improves your conversion rate and shortens your sales cycle.
Keep Testing and Optimizing
Intent data is not static; it needs regular updates. Regularly analyze how well it’s working, and optimize your approach accordingly.
Choosing the Right Third-Party Intent Data Provider
Now that you’re ready to enhance your strategy with third-party data, how do you pick the right provider?
Here’s what to check before making a decision:
- Data Source Transparency: Know where the data comes from. How is it collected? Is it modeled or validated? Is the provider compliant with privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA? Also, make sure the provider isn’t over-reliant on soon-to-be-retired third-party cookies.
- Scale and Reach: You want data at scale—especially if you’re targeting global or niche audiences. Make sure the provider covers the markets and industries relevant to your goals.
- Integration: Can the provider’s data easily plug into your existing CRM or marketing automation tools? If not, that could be a problem.
- Reputation and References: Look into the provider’s client list, case studies, and customer reviews. Have they worked with B2B tech companies like yours? Do they have success stories to back their claims?
- Pricing and Value: Understand how pricing works—usually on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis. But more importantly, consider ROI. Is the cost of data justified by the quality and results it brings?
- Data Quality: Even more than volume, focus on precision. Are you getting intent signals from people who fit your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)? That’s what matters.
Using Third-Party Intent Data at Only B2B
Let’s say you’re a B2B cybersecurity SaaS company targeting CISOs at mid-sized US tech firms.
You’re running demand gen campaigns, but conversions are low. That’s because most of your first-party traffic is from researchers, not decision-makers.
Here’s what we do at Only B2B:
- We leverage both proprietary and third-party intent data (Bombora, G2, ZoomInfo etc.) to identify decision-makers actively researching cybersecurity solutions across review sites, niche publications, and forums.
- We match these leads with your ICP—mid-sized tech companies, 200–5000 employees, US-based.
- Once matched, we enrich the data with contact-level details (job role, firmographics, tech stack).
- The leads are then filtered by mesh intent and prioritized using our predictive models.
- Finally, we hand off a qualified list of hot prospects ready for outreach—at a fraction of the cost and time it would take using in-house methods alone.
This is how we reach buyers while they’re still researching, helping you receive high-intent prospects most likely to convert.
Activate Your Data Strategy with Only B2B
We don’t just give you raw intent data—we deliver precision.
We combine first-, second-, and third-party signals to create a complete, real-time view of each buyer’s journey.
- ✔ Want to uncover early-stage buying intent?
- ✔ Need to scale your outreach without losing targeting precision?
- ✔ Looking to cut wasted ad spend and boost conversions?
If you’re looking for a trustworthy intent provider, we are here to help you.
Vikas Bhatt is the Co-Founder of ONLY B2B, a premium B2B lead generation company that specializes in helping businesses achieve their growth objectives through targeted marketing & sales campaigns. With 10+ years of experience in the industry, Vikas has a deep understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today and has developed a unique approach to lead generation that has helped clients across a range of industries around the globe. As a thought leader in the B2B marketing community, ONLY B2B specializes in demand generation, content syndication, database services and more.
