Intent data explained: what it is, where it comes from and whether you need it

In short: Most small B2B teams in Singapore get more from their own enquiries and public trigger events than from paid third-party intent data, which usually names companies rather than buyers and is a probability, not a fact. Fix first-party signals, add one or two trigger events, then pilot intent data last.

Intent data is information about behaviour that suggests a company is researching, or getting ready to buy, a particular kind of product or service. It ranges from the very concrete, such as a known contact visiting your pricing page three times this week, to the statistical, such as a data provider reporting that a company is reading more about “warehouse automation” than usual.

Whether you need it depends on what you sell, how many target accounts you have and how much you already know about them. For many small B2B teams, especially in a market the size of Singapore, their own first-party signals plus public trigger events are a better starting point than a paid third-party intent subscription. This guide explains why.

What counts as intent data

Intent data is any signal of interest observed in research or engagement behaviour, rather than in a public event. That distinction matters.

• Intent data is about what people at a company are reading, viewing or clicking. “Someone at Company X compared three vendors in your category.”
• A trigger event is about something that has happened to the company. “Company X won a government contract”, “Company X opened a new plant”.

Both are kinds of buying signal. Intent data tells you what a company may be thinking about. Trigger events tell you what has changed.

First-party intent data

First-party intent data comes from your own channels. You collect it, you own it and only you can see it.

Common sources:

The strongest first-party signal is always an enquiry. Someone has told you directly that they are interested. The most common failure here is not a lack of data but a slow response. Our guide on responding to enquiries faster covers this, and our speed-to-lead service is built around it.

The limitation of first-party data is reach. It only tells you about people who already know you exist.

Third-party intent data

Third-party intent data is collected by another organisation across websites it can observe, then sold or licensed to you. It promises to show you companies researching your category before they ever visit your website.

Two common models:

Publisher networks and co-ops

Some providers gather content consumption data from a network of business websites and work out which companies are reading more than usual about particular topics. Bombora, for example, describes a data co-op of publishers, B2B brands and data providers, monitoring more than 25,300 topics and scoring each account by comparing the most recent three weeks of activity against a 12-week historical baseline.

Review and comparison sites

Software review sites can report which organisations are looking at your product profile, your category or comparisons with competitors. G2’s buyer intent documentation lists signal types including profile, pricing, alternatives, category and compare page activity.

This kind of data is narrower, because it only covers activity on that one site, but it is closer to a buying decision. Someone comparing two specific products is further along than someone reading a general article.

Other sources

Providers may also combine website visitor identification, advertising interactions and other behaviour. Ask each provider exactly what goes into its signals. The answers vary a great deal.

How accurate is intent data?

Accuracy is the most important question, and it is hard to answer in general. A few structural limits apply to most third-party intent data.

It usually identifies companies, not buyers

Much third-party intent is reported at account level: a company, not a person. Even where a provider adds role or seniority insight, you still need to work out who actually owns the problem and whether they are involved in a decision.

The research may not be a purchase

People read about topics for many reasons: a student doing a project, a consultant writing a report, a competitor researching the market, an employee curious about a trend. A spike in reading is a reason to look more closely, not proof of a buying project.

Company matching is imperfect

Linking web activity to a company typically relies on network and other technical signals. Remote work, shared offices, mobile networks and VPNs can make that matching harder. Ask providers how they handle this.

Coverage varies by market and size

A network that observes mostly English-language, US-focused business websites may see a lot of activity from large companies and much less from a 40-person Singapore distributor. Before buying, ask for a sample list of accounts in your target market and check how many you recognise.

Everyone with the same data sees the same signal

If several competitors subscribe to the same feed, the same company may receive several “relevant” messages in the same week. The data stops being an advantage and becomes noise for the buyer.

How to test accuracy before you commit

1. Give the provider a list of your recent customers and ask whether their data showed signals before those customers bought.
2. Ask for a sample of current signals in your market and check a handful by hand.
3. Run a short pilot with a clear measure, such as the share of flagged accounts that lead to a real conversation, and compare it with your trigger-event or list-based outreach over the same period.

Privacy and compliance considerations

Intent data raises fair questions about how information was collected and how you may use it. In Singapore, the main points to check are these.

• Personal data is covered by the PDPA. Data about identifiable individuals, such as a named person’s browsing behaviour, falls under the data protection provisions. PDPC’s Advisory Guidelines on Key Concepts in the PDPA set out the consent, notification and purpose obligations.
• Business contact information is excluded, but only for business purposes. The same guidelines say the data protection provisions do not apply to business contact information, such as a name, job title, business phone and business email, provided it was not given solely for personal purposes.
• Account-level data is different from personal data. Data that identifies only an organisation is generally treated differently from data about a named individual. Some providers state that their data is collected at organisation level. Ask exactly what is and is not personal data in what you receive.
• Outreach rules still apply. However you identify a company, the message you send must follow the Do Not Call provisions and the Spam Control Act where they apply. See B2B outreach in Singapore: what PDPA and the Do Not Call rules allow.
• Do not reveal surveillance in your message. “I noticed you were reading about forklift batteries” is uncomfortable for the recipient even when the data was lawfully obtained. Use intent data to decide who to contact and when, and write about something the recipient would expect you to know.

Ask any provider for its data collection and consent documentation, and have someone qualified review it if you plan to rely on it heavily. This is general information, not legal advice.

When trigger events are a better fit for small teams

For many small B2B teams, public trigger events give most of the value of intent data at a fraction of the cost and complexity.

Trigger events tend to fit better when:

• Your market is small or local. In Singapore, a list of a few hundred target accounts can be watched directly for awards, hires and expansions.
• You sell to companies that win public contracts. GeBIZ awards are published with supplier names and amounts in the Government Procurement via GeBIZ dataset. Our guide on using GeBIZ awards to find B2B leads explains how.
• You want to mention the reason in your message. A trigger event gives you an honest, specific opening line.
• You have limited time. A weekly check of two public sources is easier to sustain than tuning an intent platform.

Third-party intent data tends to be more useful when you sell software or services in a well-researched online category, your target market is large, and you already handle inbound leads and trigger events well. Our comparison of intent data and trigger events goes into the trade-offs in more detail.

A sensible order for most small teams

1. Fix first-party signals. Make sure every enquiry reaches the right person fast. This is the strongest intent data you have.
2. Add one or two trigger events. Choose the events that came before your past sales, and monitor them weekly.
3. Consider third-party intent last. Only after the first two are working, and only after a pilot that shows it surfaces accounts you would not otherwise have found.

This is the order FYAdvisers follows when setting up signal-based lead generation for a client: start with the signals you can verify, prove them, then add more. The step-by-step prospecting guide shows how to turn any of these signals into a message.