Intent data

Kinds of intent data

• First-party intent comes from things you own: visits to your site, and replies and clicks on what you sent. The buying signals entry covers it.
• Second-party intent is another company's first-party data, shared with you, such as a review site reporting which companies read pages in your category.
• Third-party intent is research on sites neither of you owns, collected by a data provider across many publishers.

This entry is about the third kind.

How third-party intent data is collected

1. Reading is recorded. Publishers in a provider's network carry its tag, which logs each page view and the topic of the page. Some providers add data from ad auctions.
2. Visits are tied to companies. The provider matches each visit to a company by the IP address it came from, or by a cookie linked to a business domain.
3. Topics are scored. A company's reading on a topic this week is compared with its usual level, and a clear rise is reported as a surge.

What you get is a list of companies, topics and scores. It names accounts, seldom people, and it says a company read about a subject without saying who read it or why.

Consent and personal data

The GDPR names IP addresses and cookie identifiers as online identifiers whose traces, combined with other information, can be used to profile and identify people.1 In the UK, the ICO says storage and access technologies used to analyse or predict people's preferences, behaviour and attitudes need consent.2 Before you buy intent data, ask the provider how the reading was collected and what consent it rests on.

How to use intent data

• Check fit first. A surge at a company outside your profile is still a company you would not sell to.
• Find the buying group. The data names the account, so you pick the people in the roles that buy.
• Look for a first-party signal. A surge and a visit to your pricing page in the same week give you a reason to write that either alone would not.
• Keep the research out of the message. Write about the problem the topic points to. Never tell someone you saw what they read.

Signals in GetSales does not track topic intent. It works from first-party signals: on your site, visits, key pages, forms and the events you track. On LinkedIn, an accepted invitation, a reply, a reaction to your message, a new follower, an invitation to you, a job change and a new post a workflow reads. By email, a reply, and an open or a click where tracked.

Related

• Signals: plays for website visits, posts and job changes.
• Buying signals: the first-party kind, with examples and how to respond.
• Website visitor identification: which company you wrote to came back.

Sources

1. European Parliament and Council of the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation, recital 30, 27 April 2016. Read 28 October 2026.
2. Information Commissioner's Office, How do the rules apply to online advertising?, in Guidance on the use of storage and access technologies, last updated 29 April 2026. Read 28 October 2026.