All glossary terms

Intent Data

Intent data is behavioral signal that indicates a person's likelihood to buy. In visitor identification it includes the pages a visitor viewed, how long they stayed, how deep they scrolled, and whether they came back. It is what separates a researcher from a tire kicker.

How it works in practice

Each session is scored on the behaviors that correlate with purchase intent. A visitor who read your pricing page twice and returned the next day scores higher than one who bounced from the homepage in five seconds. The score is attached to the contact record and delivered to your CRM so your team knows who to call first and what to talk about, based on what the person actually researched.

What it is commonly confused with

It is commonly confused with analytics engagement metrics, which measure activity but not purchase likelihood. Time on site is not intent. A visitor who spent ten minutes on your careers page is not a prospect. Intent data combines multiple signals into a rating that predicts who is close to buying, which is what a sales team actually needs to prioritize its calls.

Why it matters to a business owner

Without intent data, every identified visitor looks the same, so your team calls a list in random order and the hottest prospects go cold. With it, your team calls the highest-intent visitors first, while they are still on your site or just left it, which is what turns identification into closed business instead of a longer to-do list that never gets worked.

Related terms

Anonymous Website Traffic

Anonymous website traffic is the portion of your visitors who arrive, browse, and leave without identifying themselves through a form fill, a login, or a purchase. For most sites that is the large majority, often 97% or more, of every session you paid to acquire.

First-Party Data

First-party data is data you collect directly from your own audience through your own site, forms, and interactions. A visitor identification tool that runs on your website produces first-party contacts, because the visitors came to you and the match happens on your traffic.

Reverse IP Lookup

Reverse IP lookup is an older identification method that takes a visitor's IP address and looks up the company that owns it. It returns a business name, not a person. It is not what LeadSpyder relies on, because it cannot identify individual consumers.

Buying Intent

Buying intent is the demonstrated likelihood that a person is close to making a purchase, inferred from their behavior rather than their stated interest. A visitor who reads your pricing page twice and returns the next day shows higher buying intent than one who bounces from the homepage.