Focusing on sales-ready leads is one of the best ways to improve revenue. Buying intent lets you identify sales-ready leads from the get-go, even while they scroll through your site. Learning buying intent lets you skip past lukewarm leads and head straight for the hottest ones.
What is Buying Intent?
Buying intent gauges how likely someone is to purchase, not just whether they’re interested. It's driven by actions like requesting a demo, downloading content, or asking about pricing.
But buying intent is also a spectrum. Some leads could be window-shopping, while others are ready for a new solution to a pain point.
Recognizing where leads are on this spectrum helps sales teams focus on prospects more likely to convert instead of chasing leads who are weeks or months away from making a decision.
How to Measure Buying Intent: Tools & Strategies
Buying intent should be an integral part of any sales operation planning. Here’s where you can leverage buying intent in your sales process, the strategies, and tools you’d need:
Website Visitor Tracking
Website visitor identification helps businesses determine how interested someone is in buying their product. For example, if someone visits your site and checks out the pricing page, that’s a strong signal they’re curious about costs and might be ready to buy.
Tools like Instantly Website Visitor Identification track these behaviors, so companies know who’s serious and who’s just browsing. We’ll get more into this later.
Let’s say a visitor spends a lot of time on a product demo page or downloads a whitepaper about your services. That’s like raising their hand and saying, “I want to learn more!” Companies can use this information to target these visitors with personalized emails or offers.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring assigns a number to each lead based on their actions, demographics, or where they are in the sales funnel. You can combine lead scoring with methods like site tracking.
For example, leads that engage with your website can be scored as follows:
- Visiting your website = 5 points.
- Checking the pricing page = 10 points.
- Downloading a case study or requesting a demo = 20 points.
You can also do lead scoring based on demographics. You might give more points to leads from specific industries, companies of a certain size, or decision-makers like CEOs or managers.
- A manager at a company earning $1M+ ARR might get 15 points.
- A student browsing your site might get 0 points.
CRM Marketing
CRMs collect data from multiple touchpoints, including email activity, social media engagement, and website interactions. CRMs then consolidate data into actionable insights for sales teams.
Modern CRMs use AI and predictive analytics to forecast buying intent. If a lead’s activity mirrors previous customers who purchased, the CRM can flag them as high-priority.
Cold Email Marketing
Cold email marketing can gauge buying intent by tracking how leads engage with your outreach. Positive replies are already a sign of intent. But replies aren’t the only metric to consider.
Leads who don’t reply but click on a link or open your email multiple times can also show signs of buying intent. The critical thing to do is follow up.
Tools like Instantly ensure that you don’t miss these leads. Let’s examine how this works.
Gauging Buying Intent With Instantly + Cold Email Marketing
One of the best indicators of buying intent is cold email marketing. That’s because leads tell you whether they’re interested in your offer.
But you’ll miss out on potential hot leads if you rely on replies alone. Instantly changes that. Here’s a look at how you can incorporate Instantly to gauge buying intent through cold email.
Set Up Instantly Website Visitor Identification & Segment
Instantly lets you identify leads with high buying intent as they scroll through your site. You’ll learn who your warm leads are, their contact details, and how to personalize outreach for each.
Instantly users also get 250 credits for free each month. Installation is simple. Copy the code into your site's HTML header to install the tracking pixel.
Once installed, you can set up the website visitor identification tool to filter out leads who match your buyer persona or ICPs. For example, you can create a segment of decision-makers in B2B companies who have visited your demo page twice within a week.
Sync Data with Instantly CRM
Instantly CRM integrates with visitor and lead data, consolidating everything into one. Use the CRM to view enriched profiles, including browsing behavior, contact details, and lead scores.
You can also assign custom statuses, such as “High Intent” or “Needs Nurturing,” to track each lead's progress in the buyer journey. With Instantly CRM, you also gain access to Salesflow.
If a lead responds positively to an email, clicks a link, or opens your email multiple times, Salesflow can automate a follow-up.
Launch a Cold Email Campaign with Instantly.ai
When you’ve collected enough leads, run outreach campaigns. Leads from Instantly’s Website Visitor Identification tool are warm leads since they already know your product and are actively engaging with your content. These are the leads that show high buying intent.
When doing outreach, ensure that each email is tailored to the recipient's interests and behavior. For example, you could reference the product page they viewed or highlight a solution to their pain point.
How they engage with your email is also an indication of buying intent. Positive replies mean high buying intent. You can keep leads who don’t reply to a nurturing campaign. But be sure to clean your lists if they still don’t reply after 3 or 4 follow-ups.
Monitor Engagement to Assess Buying Intent
Track metrics like email opens, link clicks, and replies. A prospect who clicks a demo link or replies with specific questions demonstrates higher buying intent. Use automated follow-ups to engage leads who opened or clicked but didn’t respond.
With Instantly, you can enable real-time notifications via Slack for leads who meet high-intent criteria, such as revisiting key pages or engaging with multiple emails. Your sales team can act immediately to connect with these leads while their interest is fresh.
Key Takeaways
Understanding buying intent helps you focus on sales-ready leads by analyzing actions like demo requests or visits to pricing pages.
Strategies like website visitor tracking, lead scoring, and CRM analytics make it easier to identify where leads are in their buying journey and prioritize the most likely to convert.
If you’re looking to gauge buying intent through cold email marketing, Instantly is the tool for you. It can measure buying intent by:
- Tracking website activity
- Determining if leads fit ICPs and buyer personas
- Analyzing how leads engage with outreach
Ready to unmask your hottest leads?
