How Intent Data Has Evolved and What It Means for B2B Marketers, with Putney Cloos

Speaker A: If you are challenged with the intent data that you're using, pick one or two use cases that are aligned with your strategic goals as a company or where you think you can be very successful because you know you have a great relationship with the, uh, cross functional team that you need to collaborate with and prove out that it works and that you know how to make it work in small areas first and, and then, uh, add um on from there.

Speaker B: Hi and welcome back to SaaS Half Full, the only show serving B2B SaaS marketers. I'm Lindsay Groper, EVP at Pan Blast, and I will be both your host and bartender. Today I had an awesome conversation with Patny Klus, who is the CMO at Bombora, and we are talking all things intent data. What did it used to look like? What does it look like today? And how AI is impacting what you need to look for when it comes to signals. If you care to grab a drink and join me as I speak with Patni. Hi, Patni. Welcome to Sas Half Full.

Speaker A: Hey, how are you? Nice to be here.

Speaker B: Nice to meet you. I'm actually shocked that you and I have not crossed paths before. Um, this world that we live in is not all that small in terms of SaaS and data and intent and AI. Um, but we haven't actually physically rubbed elbows or even at the same virtual table, which is pretty insane. So I'm glad to meet you. Glad to have you here today. Were we able to get you a cocktail kit for the show?

Speaker A: You, in fact were, and I have it right over here off screen, which is typically where one keeps cocktails, but I think that we get to bring it on screen, um, during this conversation.

Speaker B: We definitely do. I have mixed up classic. I have a screwdriver that is a daytime drink for me. It is for both of us. It is midday on a Wednesday. So. Honey, I appreciate you participating in this because, I mean, no judgment, if this is a typical drinking hour for you. It's not for me, but appreciate it.

Speaker A: So I'm going to, I'm going to go one further on that one. Not only is it not a typical drinking moment, um, but I'm not really a cocktail drinker, so I have my blueberry bourbon highball, which I'm mixed in some form. I'm going to pour it in. Um, I'm usually drinking wine, so if things go sideways, we're going to, we're going to. We'll know why. We're going to talk about the bourbon.

Speaker B: Well, like the bourbon. Well, cheers. Thank you for Joining me, uh, before we dive into our topic, uh, which I'm excited about because we actually haven't talked too deeply about the changing world of intent. Um, I do want to give our listeners a brief understanding of who you are, Putney. Um, so want to understand your background and then certainly an opportunity to talk about why Bombor exists, which you all do. But something struck my attention is that you are a history major.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Where did a love of history come from? And do you have some history knowledge? That would surprise the heck out of us. We could learn something about history today.

Speaker A: I think history, I mean, maybe it's more. Why does marketing come from? Studying history, I think would be the way I'd sort of frame the question. Because, you know, I was a lot younger when I studied, uh, history back in the day. And I think it's really about storytelling. Right. That is what history is. And the way that I was taught and I can remember this was a seminal moment, was that it really is not just facts. It is the construction of the narrative and argument that is being made. And that's really what we do as marketers. And I think that that is what I have relied on. I think the ability to write, um, and think critically about storytelling is essential to be a marketer. You know, I'm going to be at a loss for some great fact. I will tell you that my senior history thesis, which is on the shelf up there, was written about the bubonic plague in West Africa. So.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Yeah. And how it actually influenced urban development, um, and kind of like early zoning, um, laws in West Africa. So there you go.

Speaker B: Wow. Okay.

Speaker A: Not something we spent a lot of time on at Bombora. No, not at all.

Speaker B: Some from bubonic to Bombora. Love it. You pivoted, um, tell us your, I guess, journey because you came from the land of B2B SaaS prior to your roll up on board. So just walk us briefly through that, um, before you go into your current role up on board and what you all do.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I actually started my career sort of traditional CPG marketing. Started, um, at Kraft Foods. Went, ah, up through the brand manager track for a bit. Um, it's actually really where I fell in love, um, with sales organizations and really understanding how marketing and sales work together. Fast forward. Spent some time, um, at McKinsey, at American Express, always doing B2B marketing, and then was the CMO of Cision, which is a leader in media intelligence, has a significant set of SaaS platforms delivering media intelligence, and then came to Bombora. I Think you know, Bombora is a classic story of a client who was in love with the solution. And finally Bombora called me and said, you know, our CMO role is open, would you be interested? And I said, my goodness, I thought you guys would never call. And I've been here about two years and I really believe that we have a within reason, life changing solution. Um, when I brought it into American Express, the quality of the data and what we could do from a marketing and sales perspective was transformative. Um, and it's been a real pleasure to be a part of the organization over the last two years.

Speaker B: Love that. Thank you so much. Well, what we're talking about today is what your buyers do when you're not looking, which turns out is a lot. And despite the fact that marketers by and larger probably have access to more data than they ever have, you feel that they're still making gut decisions when it comes to who to target and when. So unpack this for us.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think that it is, um, I think that the world of uh, B2B marketing is fairly knowledgeable about the concept of intent data. I mean Bombora actually created the original intent data solution more than 10 years ago. I think most B2B marketers know about it. I think the challenges in how you actually apply it and bring it into go to market motions, um, and do so in a way that actually makes it effective and get adoption across different teams. And I think that's really where the challenge is. And because that can be challenging, I think what we sometimes see, and obviously as a company that specializes in intent along with other things, is that you'll have someone saying, well, I have intent data, but they'll, they're still relying on sort of non data based ways of making decisions about, you know, who on the lead list. They prioritize, how they're building their targeting audiences, how they're building retargeting audiences, et cetera. And I think it's because it is sometimes really hard to apply data even if you know it's the right approach.

Speaker B: Yeah, to your point, I mean most people, folks that are listening are going to have experience with intent data, um, or at least feel like they can define it. But uh, to level set, can you talk to us about intent even just three years ago versus intent today and how those signals have changed?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, so what I would say is intent data at its core, at least at Bombora. And I want to talk to you about where our intent data comes from. Hasn't changed that Materially over the last few years. Again at its core. So we run a one of a kind data cooperative. It's the only one in the industry. We have more than 6,000 different websites that we have a proprietary tag on page and we're collecting the data and from that we derive intent. That has always been our methodology. The data co op has grown and we've diversified it over the last 10 years, over the last three years. So I would say it's gotten stronger, but that core is the same. I think what has changed is we've been able to create more clarity and give more specifics that are valuable to users of intent. And I'll give you a specific example. When we started, it was really about accountability level intent. So it's Boeing or it's Pfizer or it's what we have now been able to do, which is exceedingly helpful, is drill down into the buying group and be able to not only show you which accounts are doing what sort of research, but who and when in the buyer journey is doing that research. And that's an additional set of layers of intelligence that's really helpful because, for example, we all know in our own lives as go to market experts, how frustrating it is when you've just missed a key decision maker in the conversation or uh, the discovery path of you're trying to sell your own solution. Well now with the intelligence that we're able to provide about when, you know, it might be involved or procurement or you know, a technology manager, now we're able to help people really drill down into who, what, where, when and why the intent is happening.

Speaker B: Okay, M. What are you seeing today as the highest intent signals that maybe are a little bit different than what they used to be?

Speaker A: You know, I would say I. We really look at a, like a amalgamation of signals and so buyer behavior has changed. But I wouldn't say that one for from our perspective that one signal is stronger than the other. Because I think the strength of our signal has always been we haven't relied on one thing. So we have, you know, both gated and ungated content. We have form fills, we have events, we have all of these different touch points that are derived that we derive from our data co. Op. Um, and we're bringing those together in order to give an intense signal that we think is at strength. I will say that we all know that there is a potential disruption by the LLMs and the agents that are starting to help with discovery and that is changing kind of the order in which we're Seeing some of these uh, signals and I think is changing the priority of, for marketers as they think about their own go to market motions. But I would say the signals that we are able to derive, which are still quite strong because of the diversity of our data co, op, um, I wouldn't say that one signal is stronger than the other.

Speaker B: Okay, and you bring up a good point with the LLM searches. That was something I was going to talk about as well. You said it's sort of rearranging the order of things. Is your data showing that uh, that a buyer that's coming directly from an LLM is showing higher intent? Does that seem to be a more ready to buy audience if they're coming directly from an LLM or are you still just waiting that the same as the other signals and using that to paint a big picture?

Speaker A: So we are looking at waiting. What I would say is that we actually, I'm going to take a step back for a second. So in our data co op we actually, we've like monitored it for years. So funny because now we get this question that's like, oh, you know, where, where's traffic going and you know, where are buyers spending time? This is a question we've looked at for you know, 10 plus years. We see that there's greater disruption in traffic on the big um, sort of broad scale publishers and brand sites and much less so. And in fact we've actually seen an uptick when we've done some comparative statistics recently in the narrow vertical publishers and brand sites. And so when we take a step back from this, what we think is happening is that earlier on in discovery or when one is just starting to get, um, sort of build a foundation of knowledge on a topic, buyers or anyone doing discovery is using the LLM. And then once they built that basis of knowledge, then they're saying, you know what, I want to go right to the source. And, and that typically, not always, but typically is more of a specialty publisher, a vertical industry specialist. And so we would say that that is higher intent, but not because they came from an LLM, it's because they've already done a set of research just in a different place than they used to do it. And so then if they're taking that next step to go deep on a subject or really get to know a solution, yes, by definition it is higher intent, but because they've already done a whole bunch of work that now folks are seeing less of.

Speaker B: Okay, and on the flip side, if we're thinking about more classic signals which would not include LLM Search. Are there any classic signals that are losing steam that don't matter as much anymore that. That marketers should start to maybe eject or deprioritize in their playbooks?

Speaker A: You know, this is, this is the answer everyone's going to give you. I think we've all got to get over our love for the form, Phil. And that is, you know, something that we've all trained ourselves, right? We trained our CEOs, we've trained our CFOs on the importance of the form fill. And it's not that it's. I mean, it's perhaps stronger than ever if you actually get one, but we're just seeing them so, so much less frequently. And I think that that is something that. I'll be honest with you, I still love to track a good form fill. Um, it's just kind of ingrained in who we are, if you spend any time in demand. But those days are going away where we can really say that's going to be a primary metric of our business. Because we all know that the way buyers with LLMs or otherwise, um, the way they want to engage is just changing. Yeah.

Speaker B: There are marketers that are going to be listening to this episode and going to maybe take it to their CEO and say, see, I told you.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they should. And this is coming from a woman who spent years in American Express testing every last little bit of a credit card application, which is essentially a form fill. We loved them, but the days are changing.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we have marketers, um, sort of all shapes and sizes of all levels that listen to this show. So we're going to have some that are CMOs, some that are going to be, um, more of that, you know, individual contributor. So I do want to make sure that we're, we're trying to cover all. I want to talk a little bit about maybe if you're a little bit earlier in this journey as a marketer, of how they can tell the difference between an account that is actively in market that you definitely want to be focusing on or prioritizing, uh, maybe one that is just researching or browsing, or you maybe continually comes up but never takes any action. What's the best way to distinguish between those?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it really is about sort of the depth and breadth of the intent actions that you're seeing. And it links to some of what we talked about earlier with now our ability, Bombora and others, um, intent providers to be able to show you not just the account level which could be one person demonstrating our intent, could be 10 people. But really understanding how many individuals, like how many members of the buying committee are demonstrating intent and are they following the pattern that you would expect based on what you know of your ICP and how the buyer's journey actually unfolds? Um, and I think that's the difference. So we're able to show not just who in the buying group is demonstrating intent, but we actually do for our clients, map it across the buyer's journey on like a longitudinal timeline. Right. And then you can say, like, wow, that that's an account that's just showing early intent. And if they never progress and you never see more of the buying group starting to get involved and you never see the roles start to change and some of the actions start to change, then you'd say, like, wow, they're interested in the topic, but they're not actually progressing through what we would be to be the true buyer journey of really moving through, understanding requirements, narrowing the short list, all those things. And so I think it's going to that level deeper. And it takes patience. Right. It's super tempting for all of us to be like, oh, they're doing research on me. I want to give you a call and see what we talk about. But really, um, you know, for most of us in B2B, it is a long, multi pronged, multi participant buyer journey. And I think being able to patiently watch it and make sure it's unfolding the way you would expect it to. And in that, you're also going to know the right moments to reach out, when it's most effective through various motions. Um, and that's how you can really understand what, when someone's truly doing research and when they're just, you know, educating themselves broadly on a topic.

Speaker B: Sure. Okay, that's really helpful. Uh, I'm going to take it now. Um, maybe up a level to maybe those more sophisticated marketers. There's this idea of using intent data for confirmation bias. So there's using intent data to make smarter decisions, and then there's using the data to almost like justify the decisions that they already wanted to make or maybe that the assumption that they had already made. Talk to us about, about this, this idea of confirmation bias.

Speaker A: Yeah. I will tell you, when we were prepping for. This is actually the first time that I've sort of had this, um, come up. You know, I definitely think that our position is that intent data can be used for many, many use cases. Um, well, beyond sort of the classic sales prioritization. Use case where most people start. We see people use it for audience targeting, um, and actually building digital audiences. We see people, people or you know, customers using it for content strategy. Um, we see more and more particularly in our publisher community, intent data being used for event strategy, um, and really thinking about where, when and how to have events. So I think naturally in that there's going to be both, uh, I have a strategy in place and now I'm looking at intent data to make sure that I'm correct and also sort of starting from a green field and saying, you know what, I really want to more deeply understand a new segment of buyers or a new um, industry that we're going into. And I'm going to use intent to be forward looking on what my strategies should be.

Speaker B: Do I get into the uh, AI era and how it is impacting intent data. There are ways that it's making it better, more useful, more impactful. Um, and I would imagine that you've seen it makes it a bit more complicated. So if you could give us, in your opinion, uh, what are the pros, what are the cons, what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses, and specifically maybe where you've seen it be stronger and maybe areas where you've seen it become more complicated or fail would be great.

Speaker A: I think it's just different. Um, and we try to counsel ourselves on that as um, a player in the space that there have been other disruptions in media consumption, which is essentially what we're using in order to build intent data in the past. Um, and so I think that we feel like we're in a particular place of strength given this particular disruption because we have such a diversified source and not only do we have so many different, you know, brand sites and publisher sites that we're driving from, we're not, you know, relying on say just like a product review site or just a slim set of, you know, particular publishers. I think we feel like we're in a strong place or we know we're in a strong place because we have diversity of publishers and because of the depth of the data that we actually collect, which has allowed us to be thoughtful. For example, as things change, thinking about, waiting different events, differently, thinking about, you know, we collect dwell time and scroll velocity and lots of engagement metrics, not just you are on a page. And we've been able to use that depth of data to our advantage in order to ensure that our signal is durable as things change. So I think that's what I would say about it is that it's not again that one source is better or worse. I think you have to think about um, just the durability of your sources through this time. I mean we're definitely going to lose some visibility in some places depending on how the LLMs play. But I would also say that I don't think the agentic future is predetermined. I mean there's sort of this excitement to say like, oh, traffic is dropping off and everybody's allowing Claude to do all their research. Maybe, um, we actually, you know, we track referrals out of LLMs and you know, AI summaries and all that stuff really closely. And if you look at it week to week, month to month, it changes a lot. Which suggests that buyer behavior, consumer behavior is changing. And the other thing is, and I would not bet against this, publishers and brand sites or of where we collect our intent data, they're not gonna just let their audiences and their IP be taken out from underneath them. And so there's a lot of work being done to think about how do they really manage what data is being collected from their sites and making sure that they really protect their most important content. There's a lot of work being done to really engage their audiences and make sure there's stickiness there because first party data for a publisher is essentially your entire business. And so I think that there's a long road in front of us to see how this actually plays out. And again, if you're bombora, uh, and you have this really diversified set of sources and the depth of data that we're collecting, we feel pretty good about our ability to continue to deliver high quality signal that is useful to our customers over time.

Speaker B: I just read something someone passed on to me in Slack this morning and I know, I can't remember who the publisher was, wish I could give him credit but anyway, he was talking about this idea of a, of a two headed or uh, dual path Internet, like a world that we're heading that way where there's you know, one Internet head is for humans, the other Internet head is for bots. And from a content standpoint that's where it's where they said it was headed. So you're writing for bots or you're writing for humans or, and, or, and these are two totally different paths. Do you see that as a future?

Speaker A: I am considering that as a future and I will say as a marketer who leads a team that creates content, I feel that tension because I, I would say we are absolutely all in on experimenting to understand what creates visibility with agents. But I also will find myself. And I do feel, let's go back to the history sort of legacy here. I do want our content to be ripe for humans. I mean, that is ultimately, even if an agent is deeply involved in the evaluation and discovery, I'm going to bet on humans making the final decision. And so I do feel strongly that we have to have content that is right for humans. And so, you know what? I don't know, I don't think any of us know is, is it the two headed or can we actually get to a place where we are writing for both at the same time? And it's maybe a case where the LLMs actually come closer and closer to what is right for humans? I mean, yeah, uh, I don't think we know.

Speaker B: Ah, we don't know. But I feel like they have to. You know, it just reminds me of like the early days of SEO where a lot of this like, really entry level, listicle type, you know, content is being written and it's like, you know, we did it, we did it ourselves. You know, just to say, like, okay, this seems to be what the LLMs are deeming as authoritative and pulling. We tried it, but I mean, literally like gagging, writing it. I was like, this is horrible because it's, it says nothing, right? It is just, it's like, seemed like very old school SEO stuff. But you know what, it worked. And like, you're like, oh, ah, that, but it worked. Uh, but to your point, it's like that might, that might bring the human in, but then it doesn't tell you, it doesn't give you what you need, right? So, you know, it's, there's got to be that, that balance of it. But it makes it so hard right now. I mean, I feel for all marketers, um, it's the wild.

Speaker A: I definitely had a piece the other day that I looked at and someone had stuck a whole lot of, um, you know, headlines and headers. You can't have a sentence and header and a sentence and header. Like, that's, that's actually not how things are done. And you know, and then after I sort of edited the piece, then I was like, okay, like, way to stand on principle there. Like, maybe I'm wrong. Um, but I do think it's a tension that we're all feeling right now and we've just got to test and learn our way into it. And I think also acknowledge that the pace of change is going to be so rapid, so much more rapid than anything we've experienced before that what works two weeks ago may not work in three weeks. And that's terrifying and exciting at the same time.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree, I agree it is definitely not a dull time to be a marketer, but holy cow, is it challenging. I want to end on a couple, um, practical areas for our listeners. Um, one would be, are there one or two things that you would advise that marketing teams do in the short term in the next 30 days to get better at acting on intent?

Speaker A: If you are challenged with the intent data that you're using, I would go back to kind of first principles. Pick one or two use cases that are aligned with your strategic goals as a company or where you think you can be very successful because you know, you have a great relationship with the, uh, cross functional team that you need to collaborate with and prove out that it works and that you know how to make it work in small areas first and then add on from there. I think there's a real bias towards, you know, roi and we would be the first to say intent data has, you know, a zillion use cases and you can really get a lot out of it, but you need to build up to that. And so if you're struggling, just go back to where do I think I can get some quick wins? Um, it's often a sales prioritization use case, but then you've got to work with your sales organization. That can be challenging sometimes. It's outside of your own team often. So maybe you think about content strategy and you look at some segments of your audience and really deeply use intent to deeply understand what content it is that the various members of that buying group are digesting and then move your content strategy that way in a relevant way. And that's all within your own team. Um, so there are various ways you can come at it. There are so many different use cases. It's a blessing and a curse sometimes.

Speaker B: That's really good advice. Take a step back, don't try to keep adding more and more on. Um, sort of get back to the basics and simplify. It's really good advice. Um, is there anything else about on this topic that we didn't have a chance to tackle today that you want to make sure that we discuss?

Speaker A: You know, there's probably, um, a use case that we haven't talked about as often. Um, that I think also, you know, going back to the idea of things that are in particularly a marketer's area of responsibility is really using intent for audience targeting. Um, and that is often a place that I suggest people start. So, you know, pull an intent audience, deploy it in programmatic, see how it performs. You can test it against another audience, a non intent based audience, um, to see how your engagement performs versus the other. And it's often an easy way to get your feet wet and to, um, prove to others in the organization or demonstrate to the others, other groups in the organization, um, the power of intent.

Speaker B: Awesome. Well, uh, Putney, this has been a really good conversation. Uh, hopefully our listeners took a couple things away today. I'm sure that they did. I end my episode the same way with all of my guests, which is I asked them if they have a signature or favorite toast to send us out. I asked this and I will tell you that mine is. Mine is simply cheers. So it's. This isn't rooted in some, like, awesome toast that I have. So no pressure to say anything else other than cheers.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think I would say to your audience, um, wherever you are in your day, have a good one. Love that.

Speaker B: I will drink to that. Cheers. Thanks again to Putney for joining me on SAS Half Full. That was a great conversation. We had not tackled intent data in quite some time and boy, have things changed. Really appreciate the listen and until next time, bottoms up.