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<\/a><\/p>\nWith that in mind, intent-based marketing is an optimal strategy for marketers who want to ensure they are reaching audiences who have a genuine interest in what their business has to offer.<\/p>\n
But what is intent-based marketing and how is it different from traditional or account-based marketing. Let’s dive in.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Intent-based marketing (IBM) is a strategy that focuses on delivering targeted messages to consumers based on their online behavior and preferences.<\/p>\n Intent-based marketing differs from account-based marketing (ABM) in that ABM targets specific high-value accounts while IBM targets accounts that are actively searching for solutions.<\/p>\n For intent-based marketing, you’ll want a Smart CRM<\/a> like HubSpot that utilizes AI automation to identify prospects who are actively showing interest and exhibiting buying signals, allowing you to prioritize and engage at the perfect time.<\/p>\n Furthermore, you\u2018ll need a CRM that unifies and enriches your data, with key features such as custom reporting, which will turn data insights into manageable reports that track everything from the start of the buyer\u2019s journey to revenue attribution.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n In an era of rising data breaches and growing distrust in how companies manage their data, consumers are understandably becoming more cautious with their personal information.<\/p>\n As a result, consumers are beefing up the security around their personal data by using privacy tools and deciding which companies they want to purchase from based on their data practices.<\/p>\n With that in mind, intent-based marketing is an excellent strategy for engaging prospects while respecting their privacy, as it relies heavily on first-party data collected from user interactions on your website, as opposed to mostly third-party sources. But what are third-party sources, and why are consumers wary of them?<\/p>\n Have you ever visited a website and been bombarded with pop-ups asking you to \u201caccept or manage cookies\u201d? Well, those website cookies and tracking scripts are third-party sources.<\/p>\n In addition to annoyingly interrupting your internet browsing, they also track your activity. They are owned by external entities, raising concerns about the level of control consumers have over the collection and use of their data.<\/p>\n These third-party sources are under even greater scrutiny thanks to regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which both impose restrictions on how third-party data can be collected and used.<\/p>\n Another great benefit of intent-based marketing is that it enables marketers to create highly personalized experiences for website visitors by tracking their behavior and actions on the site.<\/p>\n For example, let\u2018s say you\u2019re an online clothing store, and a website visitor spent a significant amount of time clicking through your fall lookbook before subscribing to your email list.<\/p>\n You could then follow up with personalized emails recommending fall attire and or a personalized digital fall lookbook, rather than a generic email of general sales and deals.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Start by clearly identifying who you’re targeting and what behaviors indicate purchase intent.<\/p>\n Map out the specific actions that suggest someone is actively researching solutions in your category\u2014like visiting pricing pages, downloading whitepapers, or searching for competitor comparisons.<\/p>\n The more precise you are about these signals, the more effective your targeting will be.<\/p>\n This aligns perfectly with the Express stage of HubSpot’s Loop Marketing framework<\/strong>, where you define your brand identity and ideal customer profile before leveraging AI to create targeted campaigns.<\/p>\n By establishing clear buyer personas and intent signals upfront, you set the foundation for AI-powered personalization throughout the entire loop.<\/p>\n Select the right combination of first-party, second-party, and third-party intent data for your needs. First-party data from your website and CRM shows direct engagement with your brand.<\/p>\n Third-party providers reveal when prospects are researching topics related to your solution across the web. Consider your budget and identify the sources that align best with your target accounts.<\/p>\n Remember, most consumers are not fans of third-party sourcing, so be cautious when collecting and using third-party data and ensure you follow the guidelines set by the GDPR and\/or CCPA.<\/p>\n Connect your intent data sources to your CRM, marketing automation platform, and advertising tools to streamline your marketing efforts. This integration ensures intent signals flow seamlessly into your existing workflows and can trigger appropriate actions.<\/p>\n Platforms like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub<\/a> offer native integrations with major intent data providers, making it easier to centralize your intent signals alongside your contact data, email campaigns, and analytics\u2014giving you a unified view of prospect behavior.<\/p>\n Develop tailored content that speaks directly to prospects at different stages of their buying journey. Prospects demonstrating early research intent require educational content, while high-intent prospects closer to making a purchase need case studies, demos, and competitive comparisons.<\/p>\n Match your message to the urgency and specificity of their signals.<\/p>\n In the Tailor stage of Loop Marketing<\/a>, you can use AI to personalize this messaging at scale, leveraging unified CRM data to create experiences that feel individually crafted based on each prospect’s specific intent signals and stage in the buying journey.<\/p>\n Set up rules-based workflows that automatically respond when prospects hit certain intent thresholds. This might include adding high-intent contacts to nurture sequences, alerting sales representatives to leads, or launching targeted ad campaigns to accounts that show buying signals.<\/p>\n Automation ensures that you act on intent data quickly while it remains relevant.<\/p>\n Track which intent signals correlate most strongly with actual conversions and adjust your strategy accordingly.<\/p>\n Monitor key metrics, including time-to-conversion, campaign engagement rates, and ROI, by intent source. Regularly review which topics and behaviors are most predictive of purchases in your specific market, and continuously refine your targeting criteria based on what’s working.<\/p>\n This continuous optimization mirrors the Evolve stage of Loop Marketing<\/a>, where AI helps you measure, predict, and adapt in real-time rather than waiting for quarterly reviews \u2014 making each campaign cycle smarter and more effective than the last.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Not sure what intent signals you should track? No problem. I’ve got you covered with 5 intent signals you can track with Smart CRM<\/a>.<\/p>\n Repeated visits to high-value pages, such as pricing, product comparisons, case studies, or demo request pages, indicate a serious level of consideration. Multiple sessions over a short timeframe, especially from the same company domain, suggest active evaluation.<\/p>\n Downloading gated content, such as whitepapers, industry reports, implementation guides, or ROI calculators, shows that prospects are investing time in understanding your solution. The more in-depth the content, the stronger the signal.<\/p>\n If a prospect is actively searching for solution-specific keywords, competitor comparisons, or \u201cbest [product category]\u201d terms, then they’re in active buying mode. Third-party intent data can reveal when companies are researching these topics across the web.<\/p>\n Watching product demos, attending webinars, requesting trials, or engaging with chatbots about implementation or pricing questions all signal high purchase intent and readiness for sales conversations.<\/p>\n Changes in a company\u2018s tech stack, recent funding rounds, leadership hires, office expansions, or posted job openings for roles that would use your solution can indicate timing windows when they\u2019re likely to invest in new tools.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n So, we’ve been talking about data and patterns to observe when building an intent-based marketing strategy, but what do you actually do with that information? And how do you implement it across channels? Here are four ways to do so:<\/p>\n Monitor and target users based on their search behavior and the specific keywords they use. Search behavior and specific keyword searches reveal active intent as people search for solutions to their problems. You can bid on relevant search terms or use search data to inform advertising across platforms.<\/p>\n Identify and target users who are actively researching or comparing products in your category. Platforms like Google and Facebook offer in-market audience segments based on browsing behavior, site visits, and engagement patterns that signal purchase intent.<\/p>\n Tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub<\/a> can help you analyze and segment these audiences based on their behavior and engagement data.<\/p>\n Create campaigns that target users who have demonstrated specific intent signals, such as visiting product pages, adding items to their cart, downloading resources, or spending a significant amount of time on comparison content.<\/p>\n Layer these audiences with recency and frequency data to prioritize high-intent users.<\/p>\n This multi-channel retargeting approach is essential in the Amplify stage of Loop Marketing<\/a>, where you diversify distribution to meet buyers across the scattered channels where they actually spend time \u2014 from social platforms to AI-powered search engines \u2014 rather than waiting for them to return to your website.<\/p>\n Target users based on their engagement with specific content types that indicate intent, such as viewing pricing pages, accessing product demos, reading buying guides, or engaging with customer reviews.<\/p>\n You can also utilize lead scoring systems that trigger advertising when users reach specific engagement thresholds.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n If I\u2018ve said it in one blog post, I\u2019ve said it in a million others: When it comes to gathering and analyzing data, you want AI in your corner.<\/p>\n Artificial intelligence simplifies data scoring, clustering, and purchase prediction. AI algorithms seamlessly analyze vast amounts of data points in real-time and assign scores to each lead based on digital behavior.<\/p>\n For behavioral scoring, AI assesses actions such as visits to pricing pages, subscriptions to newsletters, or downloading case studies. AI then groups prospects and visitors together to gain a deeper understanding of their intent.<\/p>\n From there, AI uses machine learning and predictive analytics to predict which leads are most likely to make a purchase.<\/p>\n Tools like HubSpot’s Breeze AI<\/a> can help marketers operationalize these insights by automatically scoring leads, identifying high-intent prospects, and triggering targeted campaigns at the optimal moment in the buyer’s journey.<\/p>\n This human-AI collaboration is the foundation of Loop Marketing<\/a>, where AI handles execution and optimization while marketers focus on strategy and creativity \u2014 allowing you to launch campaigns in days instead of months while continuously improving results with each cycle.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n To successfully launch an intent-driven marketing strategy, you must match message intensity to buyer readiness, so start by segmenting all your metrics by intent stage (awareness, consideration, decision).<\/p>\n The core measurement is intent conversion rate \u2014 track how many high-intent signals convert within at least 30 days\u00a0\u2014 and optimize monthly by auditing which signals actually drive revenue, testing message-intent fit, and reallocating budget toward decision-intent channels with lower customer acquisition cost (CAC).<\/p>\n Implement quick wins like intent-based scoring, keyword-to-close tracking, and intent-specific landing pages. Tools like HubSpot’s AEO Grader<\/a> can help you assess how well your content aligns with search intent and identify optimization opportunities to better capture high-intent traffic.<\/p>\n If you\u2018re seeing high traffic but weak pipeline contribution or unqualified leads, you\u2019ll want to recalibrate your strategy to ensure you\u2018re not wasting time and money on awareness-stage audiences who\u2019ll never buy.<\/p>\n Here are some additional metrics to track to optimize your intent-based marketing strategy:<\/p>\n\n
What is intent-based marketing, and how is it different from ABM?<\/h2>\n
Why Intent-based Marketing Matters Now<\/h2>\n
How to Start Intent-based Marketing<\/h2>\n
1. Define your ideal customer profile and buying signals.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. Choose your intent data sources.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Integrate intent data with your marketing tech stack.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. Create intent-specific content and messaging.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. Build automated workflows and trigger campaigns.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
6. Measure, optimize, and refine your approach.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Intent Signals to Gather and Track<\/h2>\n
1. Website Behavior Patterns<\/h3>\n
2. Content Consumption Activity<\/h3>\n
3. Search Intent and Keyword Research<\/h3>\n
4. Engagement with Sales or Support Content<\/h3>\n
5. Technographic and Firmographic Changes<\/h3>\n
How to Activate Intent-based Targeting Across Channels<\/h2>\n
1. Keyword and Search Query Targeting<\/h3>\n
2. In-market Audience Segmentation<\/h3>\n
3. Retargeting Based on Behavioral Signals<\/h3>\n
4. Content Engagement Triggers<\/h3>\n
AI in Intent-driven Marketing<\/h2>\n
How to Measure and Optimize Intent-driven Marketing<\/h2>\n
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