Intent Data

What it actually means

Intent data comes from behavior a buyer takes when they don't know you're watching. Someone searches "best contract management software" on Google. A visitor reads six pricing pages on G2 in one afternoon. A company's employees start hitting a competitor's comparison page repeatedly. None of that happens on LinkedIn, and none of it happens because of anything you did. That's what makes it intent data instead of engagement data: it's a signal collected from third-party behavior, usually aggregated and sold by a vendor who has visibility into search and content consumption across the web.

Why it matters for B2B sellers

Intent data is supposed to solve a real problem: most of your prospects are doing research long before they ever talk to you or fill out a form. If you can see that research happening, you can reach out while the problem is top of mind instead of cold, months before they've settled on a shortlist. That's the pitch, and it's why so many sales orgs buy intent data tools and plug them into outbound sequences.

The misconception

The mistake is treating anything that happens on your own LinkedIn content as intent data. A profile view is not intent data. A post like is not intent data. A comment on your carousel is not intent data. Those are engagement signals: they tell you someone is paying attention to you specifically, which is valuable, but it says nothing about whether they're actively evaluating a purchase. Someone can like your post because they agree with it, respect you, or are being polite. None of that means they're in-market. Conflating the two leads to sellers reaching out to warm-feeling but cold prospects with a pitch that assumes buying readiness that isn't there.

How it's really used

Real intent data is typically bought from third-party providers who track keyword research and content consumption across a network of publisher sites, then map that activity back to a company (rarely an individual, because most of it is anonymized at the account level). It's used to prioritize accounts for outbound, not individuals. Good use of it pairs the signal with a reason to reach out that references the actual topic being researched, not a generic "noticed you were checking us out" line, because in most tools you can't even see the individual, only the account.