What is intent data?

Intent data is evidence that a person or company is paying attention to a topic right now, such as engaging with a post, hiring for a role or asking for a demo. First party intent comes from your own channels. Third party intent is collected elsewhere. For outbound, the best signals are specific, recent and tied to your offer.

What does intent data mean in plain terms?

Most outbound starts from a static list: people who match a job title and a company size. A static list tells you who could buy. Intent data tells you who might be thinking about it today. The difference is timing. A message that arrives while a person is already looking at the topic reads as relevant. The same message a month earlier reads as an interruption.

The term covers a wide range, from a single public action (someone commented on a post about outbound automation) to a score computed from browsing behavior across many websites. Vendors use the word for both, which is why two products that both claim intent data can have almost nothing in common. Our glossary has short definitions of intent data and buying signals.

What is first party intent data?

First party intent is behavior you can see in your own channels. Examples:

• Someone replies to your message, even to say "not now".
• Someone asks for a demo or a price.
• Someone opens a conversation on your live chat or writes to your inbox first.
• Someone attends your webinar or answers your survey.

First party intent is the most reliable kind, because the person came to you and you know exactly what they did. The limit is reach. It only covers people who already found you, so it cannot fill the top of a pipeline on its own.

Inbound conversations are the clearest case. At Hotel Pirin, a hotel owned by a Sellinger co founder, guests who write to ask for a price are showing intent in the strongest possible way, and the agent's job is to answer fast with a real quote. We describe that in Quote, don't stall.

What is third party intent data?

Third party intent is behavior observed outside your channels and passed to you. It comes in two main forms.

• Public activity. Posts, comments, job changes, hiring and company news that anyone can see. You observe it directly or use a tool that does.
• Collected and scored feeds. Providers aggregate browsing or content consumption across many sites and tell you which companies are researching a topic. You usually get a company level score, not a named person.

Public activity is specific and checkable. A scored feed gives scale, but you often cannot see what the company actually did, and company level interest does not tell you which person to contact. Check how a provider collects and shares data before you rely on it. If personal data about people in the EU reaches you indirectly, the GDPR says you must inform them at the latest at your first communication with them (GDPR Article 14). This is a general note and not legal advice.

Which seven signals work for outbound?

We reason from what a signal says about the person, not from what a vendor claims. A signal works when it is recent, specific, and connected to what you sell. These seven usually pass that test.

1. Engaging with a post about your topic. A like or comment on a post about the problem you solve is a small, public statement of interest. It also gives your first message a natural opener. This is the signal behind our own LinkedIn outbound: people who engaged with posts from AI SDR vendors and automation creators were the audience that booked best (Sellinger case study).
2. A new role. Someone who started a job in the last few months is building their plan and looking at tools. The change is public and dated.
3. Hiring for the job you replace or support. A company hiring a sales development rep may be open to automating part of it.
4. A company event. A funding round, a launch, an expansion into a new country. These change what a company needs.
5. Asking a question in public. "Does anyone know a good tool for X?" is as clear as intent gets.
6. Attending or speaking at a relevant event. It gives you shared context and a reason to write.
7. A reply or a visit to your own channels. The first party signals above. Someone who replied to an earlier message and went quiet may be worth a second look.

Each of these answers the question "why this person, why now". If you cannot write that sentence for a signal, it is not working for you.

Which three signals do not work well?

These are often sold as intent. We think they are weak for outbound, for reasons we can explain.

1. A topic surge with no named person. A company level score that says "this account is researching your category" gives you nobody to write to. You still need to find the right person, and by then the moment may have passed.
2. Following your page or visiting a profile. One profile view says little. People look at profiles for many reasons, including idle curiosity. Treat it as a hint, not a trigger.
3. Engagement with content that is only loosely related. A like on a general post about "leadership" or "growth" is too far from your offer. Our data points the same way: audience choice moved results more than any other change, and people who engaged with enterprise sales voices booked far less than people who engaged with automation creators (Sellinger case study).

The pattern is the same in all three: the signal is vague, or it is not connected to a person, or it is not connected to your offer.

How should you use a signal in a message?

A signal earns the first line, not the whole message. Mention what you saw, in one sentence, without making it feel like surveillance, then say why you are writing. Compare two openers:

• Weak: "I saw you are interested in sales automation." This is vague and a little creepy.
• Better: "Your comment on the post about AI SDR follow ups made me curious how you handle replies at night." This is specific, human and about their view.

Then keep the rest short. One question is enough. We cover the rest of the sequence in what is an AI SDR.

What does Sellinger offer for intent?

Sellinger offers intent signals on LinkedIn. There are 26 ready made signal templates in 8 categories, and they are included with every bundle. You pick a template that matches the people you want to reach, and the people it finds become leads for an agent to contact. The intent signals page describes the product, and the signal based outreach use case shows how teams use it.

Keep one rule in mind with any automation on LinkedIn: LinkedIn's help pages say that third party tools that automate activity on the site violate its User Agreement, and members who use them risk restrictions (LinkedIn Help). No tool can promise that LinkedIn will not restrict an account, so go gently and read our notes on LinkedIn safety.

How do you start with intent data this week?

• Write the problem your offer solves in the buyer's words.
• Pick one signal from the seven above that you can observe today.
• Build a list of fifty to one hundred people who showed it in the last month.
• Write one opener per signal that says what you saw and why you are writing.
• Count results by signal, so you can see which one books meetings and which only gets replies.

Intent data does not replace a good offer. It gives a good offer a better moment to arrive. Combine it with a clean list (how to build a B2B lead list) and you start from people who both fit and care.