Welcome to our Q&A session with Ellie Cary, Unreal Digital Group’s Head of Revenue Operations (RevOps). Ellie shares valuable insights on the world of intent data and its impact on modern marketing strategies. Grab a cup of coffee and join us as we dive into the fascinating world of data-driven marketing!
Q: What do you think is the most important benefit intent data can deliver to marketers?
Ellie: Intent data hits you at the right time, right place, and the right audience organically in a less-invasive and more informative way than cookies. To me, the most important benefit is what it can do for your bottom line. It increases the chance of closing deals, so new revenue, and sets you up to increase a customer’s long-term value with tactics like upselling. It also helps reduce operational costs.
Q: How can first, second, and third-party intent data best work together?
Ellie: Well… have you heard of zero party data? It’s data shared with a company or brand intentionally or voluntarily by the user. It’s explicit and declared versus first-party data, meaning the customer trusts a brand enough to provide really meaningful personal data about themselves. First-party data, on the other hand, makes assumptions about users based on their activity on a brand’s proprietary sites and platforms.
Your source of truth should be zero and first-party data. Second and third-party data augment and support your data sources of truth, but you really need to know what data sets you are going after with second and third-party data and understand how “good” those data sets are.
Q: What trends or changes have you seen in how marketers use intent data in the past year?
Ellie: Google’s shift to a cookieless world is definitely driving the need for intent data. And with economic shifts, layoffs, et cetera, pipelines are drier than previous years, and teams are needing to adapt, prioritize their efforts, and close more and more deals. Intent data is almost the silver bullet for feeding your pipeline. Clients are using it as a multi-pronged approach to help target net new in-market buyers and keep the customers they have.
I see it used more to support demand gen/pipeline and ABM tactics and less on supporting content and brand awareness–but it can certainly do that.
Q: What should marketers look for when choosing intent data solution providers or partners? What questions should they ask potential solution providers?
Ellie: Make sure they integrate and are easy to use. And have clear definitions of how they leverage data for contacts and accounts. Platforms sometimes struggle with the anonymity of contact data, which makes it hard to begin tracking contacts, so understanding how intent data is leveraged at both levels is important.
Q: What are the biggest mistakes you see marketers making when it comes to using intent data?
Ellie: Intent data needs a data strategy behind it. Tech is only as powerful as the people or strategies behind it, and if you don’t prioritize your key objectives for what you’re using intent data for, you may become overwhelmed and to the point that you aren’t able to effectively execute on intent data.
The other big thing is not spamming prospects and customers. Market how you’d like to be marketed to. If a customer is looking at a competitor site, sending an email saying hey, I see you’re interested in leaving us to xyz customer, here’s why it’s a big mistake – that’s invasive or sending them a bunch of emails about random products slightly related to the one they noted interest in is not a good customer/buyer experience.
As we move into an increasingly data-driven world, understanding the nuances of intent data and using it strategically can set your marketing efforts on a path to success.
If you’d like to learn more about our RevOps services please contact us for a discovery call at hello@unrealdigitalgroup.com