First-, second-, and third-party intent data come from different places, but they all have one thing in common: they can help close deals by giving you information about potential leads’ interest. So how do you find this information, and which type is most worth your while? Join the party of informed sales pros and discover […]
First-, second-, and third-party intent data come from different places, but they all have one thing in common: they can help close deals by giving you information about potential leads’ interest. So how do you find this information, and which type is most worth your while? Join the party of informed sales pros and discover which party of intent data is right for you.
First-party intent data
First, let’s define “intent data”, which is information about a prospect’s actions (otherwise known as intent signals), that indicate their level of interest in becoming your customer. As you’ll see, there are many types of intent signals. Marketers and salespeople categorize them by using intent classification techniques to figure out how to leverage them. This helps you direct your attention (and time) to prospects with a high level of purchasing intent – making the marketing and sales process more efficient.
What is 1st-party intent data?
First-party intent data is information about your audience generated by your own marketing and sales assets. Each time that a prospect engages with one of your digital properties it could mean that they want to buy your product (but it could also mean they’re just looking). The downside to first-party intent data is that you can only learn about the prospects who are on your site – not about potential buyers elsewhere online.
Examples of 1st-party intent data
- Browsing a website page
- Downloading a white paper
- Signing up for a webinar
- Reading a blog
Some of these intent signals are stronger than others. A person who happens by your website and looks at one page might not have a lot of purchasing potential. But when someone spends time reading your how-to content and viewing the pricing page, they are clearly investing effort in discovering more about your product. This more serious approach can be interpreted as a buying signal, and your go-to-market team should have an intent-based targeting strategy in place to take advantage of it.
Second-party intent data
While first- and third-party intent data are the most talked about, second-party intent is sometimes left out of the conversation. Basically, second-party intent data is a monetized version of another company’s first-party intent data. Don’t worry, we’ll explain what that means.
What is 2nd-party intent data?
This type of information is created whenever your product is publicized in some way on another company’s platform. Comments, reviews, and content sharing that occur on sites other than your own are all considered to be intent signals. Most of these organizations collect and segment the data for their own uses (and for yours).
Examples of 2nd-party intent data
- Mentions on product review sites like G2.com and TrustRadius
- Inclusion on search platforms such as Glassdoor.com (companies) and Amazon (products)
- Sharing your content on social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram
Thankfully, you don’t have to read every single review or retweet to gauge someone’s interest or gain insights from reviews. Many platforms are perfectly happy to sell that data to you, and it’s often worth the price. If someone is looking up reviews about you (or your competitors), then that’s a lower-funnel intent signal that can be super valuable.
Second-party intent data also helps you understand what users like and don’t like. If a certain piece of content or product feature gets a lot of positive mentions, that’s a sign that your company should try to repeat that success. And even negative comments can be helpful. They’re a great basis for improving all kinds of operations from product design to your customer support strategy.
Third-party intent data
This last source is in the business of providing intent data about business. Through massive collections of information, intent data providers take a broad view of the market to reveal interests around topics across the internet.
What is 3rd-party intent data?
Third-party intent data is gathered from all over the internet. With a variety of sources, it gives a broader overall picture of a prospect’s intent to buy. This kind of data provides hints about what kinds of products the listed companies might want to buy. For example, technographic data looks at the sorts of technology that an organization purchases. So if someone recently bought a CRM, they might be interested in a B2B data enrichment platform that provides accurate contact details for its CRM entries.
You can also get third-party intent data that gives insights into topics that a prospect company might be actively interested in. For example, companies like Lusha offer intent data based on “topics.” Interest in these topics is gauged based on a bunch of factors – not just Google searches. Sales and marketing teams can look for companies with trending intent – that is, a high score based on those factors – in topics related to their offering.
Examples of 3rd-party intent data
- Firmographic – details about a company like industry, company size, revenue, and number of employees
- Technographic – information about a company’s tech stack, like what kind of software they use
- Hiring – recent recruitment efforts, including the types of positions that the prospect is looking for
- Research – the subjects of online product and company research gathered from various sites
What are the differences between first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data?
A useful way to understand how each type of intent data serves a particular purpose is to look at them in relation to the stages of the sales funnel.
Third-party intent data connects most with the top of the funnel, which is wide but far away from the end stage of conversion. That means that the prospects you get from third-party intent data are possibly still in the awareness stage, where they’ve just become aware of their problem and are looking into a solution. Relatively few of these prospects will be aware of your product or brand, so use this data to jump-start some nurture campaigns alongside demand generation activities and educational content that will move them further down the funnel.
Second-party providers are in the middle of the funnel – the leads will be fewer in number, but are further along in their decision-making stage. The data that you receive from them is usually linked to a mention of your organization’s name, so at least the contacts here know about your brand. But do they have purchasing intent, or are they just browsing? An intent-based marketing campaign might push them closer to conversion.
First-party data is closer to the bottom of the funnel. Prospects here are directly engaging with your assets, so they know about your brand. With the right strategy, you can build on their growing level of intent and lead them to conversion.
Key takeaways
- First-party intent data is information generated by the marketing and sales assets of your own organization.
- Second-party intent data comes from the comments, reviews, and content sharing that occur on sites other than your own.
- Third-party intent data comes from a broad variety of sources across the internet that show a prospect company’s potential interest in a variety of topics based on their activity or characteristics.
