Over the previous 12 months, a lot of my analysis targeted on the most important challenges B2B advertising and gross sales groups are going through when utilizing intent information. In blogs, I’ve helped corporations perceive tips on how to select an intent supplier and lined the greatest errors we’ve seen when leveraging intent information. For Forrester Selections shoppers, my colleagues and I supplied an introduction to the market, described the supplier panorama, and produced our first Forrester Wave™ analysis devoted to intent.

The most recent report within the collection approaches these questions from a special angle, asking finish customers how intent is definitely being deployed by their B2B advertising and gross sales groups — and what sort of outcomes practitioners are seeing. The report, accessible to each Forrester Selections for Income Operations and Forrester Selections for Demand & ABM shoppers, breaks down the findings of Forrester’s Q1 2023 World B2B Intent Information Survey and presents suggestions for tips on how to improve the affect of your intent spend.

The survey outcomes confirmed robust adoption of intent information throughout numerous frequent use circumstances. Additionally they confirmed constant advantages whereas exposing a couple of gaps between expectation and actuality. Highlights from the report embrace the next:

• Over 85% of corporations utilizing intent information have achieved enterprise advantages. The most typical advantages reported amongst respondents embrace elevated response charges from outbound advertising and extra profitable gross sales prospecting.
• Over 70% of corporations utilizing intent information are actually leveraging a number of suppliers. Most organizations leveraging intent information are pursuing a mix-and-match strategy, combining information from a number of suppliers with totally different assortment methodologies or protection areas. Virtually half are presently receiving information from three or extra sources.
• 30% of corporations investing in intent information plan to extend their spend. On the flip aspect, solely 10% have plans to cut back their funding.
• Most corporations utilizing intent information have utilized it to solely a handful of use circumstances. One of many key alternatives for intent customers to seize some low-hanging fruit from their funding is to start leveraging the information they’re already buying to be used circumstances past account focusing on and demand era, reminiscent of pipeline acceleration and buyer retention. Solely half of the businesses in our survey are leveraging their intent funding for pipeline acceleration and fewer than a 3rd for any buyer use case.
• When requested about specifics, extra corporations anticipated advantages than achieved them. Whereas we noticed spectacular information on corporations reaching enterprise advantages, there have been additionally gaps between the variety of corporations anticipating particular advantages and those who achieved these outcomes. This was true throughout all advantages surveyed and particularly in relation to gross sales use circumstances and total income progress. Whereas the report discusses a number of causes for these gaps, one frequent challenge I’ve seen amongst Forrester shoppers is a scarcity of reporting capabilities to trace the affect of intent information investments deeper into the B2B Income Waterfall™.
• Most respondents report issue in figuring out acceptable decision-makers. Not surprisingly, figuring out particular contacts to focus on inside accounts demonstrating intent was cited as the highest execution problem going through intent customers, as few intent suppliers are in a position to ship alerts from identified contacts.

For a extra in-depth breakdown of the survey outcomes and insights into finest practices for leveraging intent, Forrester shoppers can learn the complete report right here or attain out to your account crew to schedule a steering session with myself or one other analyst in your service.