Buying intent data gets a lot of hype. But after four years quality-checking sales data, I'm convinced the biggest problem isn't data quality—it's response speed. Most teams don't need more intent data; they need to follow up within hours, not days. That's the difference between a lead that's ready to buy and one that's gone cold. And until that's fixed, no intent platform—including ones like Unify GTM—will move your numbers.
If you can't respond within 24 hours, buying intent data is wasted money.
Why I'm Saying This
I manage quality compliance for a B2B sales automation company. My job is to review every data deliverable before it reaches customers—roughly 200 unique items a year. In that time, I've rejected about a third of first submissions because the intent flags were misleading or simply too old. One audit in Q1 2024 sticks with me: 3,000 leads flagged as "high intent"—but 41% had already been acted upon by another vendor or had changed jobs. The data wasn't wrong; it was just late.
When I first started in this role, I assumed better data was the answer to poor conversions. I was wrong. The answer was speed. People think expensive intent data causes conversions. Actually, it's the other way around: teams that already convert well are the ones who can use intent data to amplify what they do. The data isn't magic; it's a multiplier.
I'm not saying intent data is useless. It's not. But it's a tool for teams that are already fast, already consistent, and already following up systematically. If you're still sending quotes two days late, more data will only help you waste time faster. Fix your response time first. Then buy the data.
What Buying Intent Actually Is
Buying intent is a combination of behaviors that suggest a company is seriously evaluating a purchase. It's not mindreading. It's signals like visiting your pricing page repeatedly, downloading a competitor comparison, or searching for specific product requirements. Tools like Unify GTM try to pull these signals together—combining web intent, LinkedIn activity, and maybe even phone agent conversations. That's useful, but the term "intent" is often inflated. Visit a pricing page twice? That's not intent. That's curiosity.
In my experience, you need to separate three levels: reading, researching, and buying. Most vendors sell "reading" as "researching" and "researching" as "buying." Ask any quality inspector—we're trained to check spec against actual dimensions. Do the same for intent: what exactly makes a signal strong? If a vendor can't define it, that's a red flag.
Per FTC guidelines (ftc.gov/business-guidance/advertising-marketing), claims must be truthful and substantiated. When a vendor says "very high intent," ask them to substantiate that. What's the behavioral threshold? What recency? How many touchpoints? If they can't answer, they're guessing.
When to Use Buying Intent Data (and When Not To)
Use intent data when you have a genuine speed advantage. This is where it shines: a sales rep calls within minutes of a trigger event. I tested this once—same lead source, one group got contacted in under 4 hours, the other after 24 hours. The first group's reply rate was 3x higher. That's not a data effect. That's an execution effect.
When not to use it? If your sales cycle is short and transactional, by the time you ingest signals, the deal is closed elsewhere. If your outbound is already highly targeted, more data usually just adds noise. And if you don't have a clear follow-up playbook, skip the data and fix your responses first.
For long B2B cycles (6+ months), intent data is helpful for prioritizing accounts. But treat it like enrichment—you're building a better prospect list, not a list of hot buyers. One caveat: buying intent is about the account, not the person. A single employee searching doesn't mean the company is ready. Unless there are multiple signals across the buying committee, you're probably looking at one curious person.
Also beware of enrichment data. Enriching missing fields like job titles or company size is straightforward. But applying intent scores to those enriched records often lacks statistical rigor. I've seen vendors slam a "high intent" label on records just because the company did a general Google search. That's not intent, that's internet.
A Quality Inspector's Checklist Before Buying Intent Data
Here's what I'd check—because I check this for our own product:
- How is intent measured? (Source, recency, threshold)
- Can I see sample records before committing? (Look for false positives)
- What's the update frequency? (Daily? Real-time? If it's weekly, it's probably stale.)
- Does the data include negative intent? (e.g., a person laid off, or company went bankrupt)
- Can I integrate it with my existing CRM or enrichment pipeline? (Platforms like Unify GTM support this, but check their API limits.)
These are the same questions I ask our vendors. Most of the time, they can't answer all five. The ones that can—those are worth talking to.
One more thing: don't ignore the operational side. I can't count how often a user struggled with unify gtm login issues, or forgot to connect their outreach sequence, and then blamed the data. Unify GTM works well as automation software for growth engineering when it's configured properly. But it's still software—it needs someone to own the setup, define the workflows, and check the outputs. Garbage in, garbage out. That's true for printing, and it's true for sales.
So, when should a B2B sales team use buying intent?
- When you have a reliable follow-up process that starts within hours.
- When you're targeting strategic accounts with multiple decision-makers.
- When you can test the vendor's data against your own historical wins.
Otherwise, spend that money on response-time training or a good conversation-intelligence tool. But that's just my opinion—I've been burned enough to be skeptical. Not a bad thing, in my line of work.
