Is Intent Data the future of B2B Marketing in EMEA?

It’s never been more important for B2B companies to become data driven. There’s an enormous amount of pressure for Sales and Marketing teams to stay ahead of the game and by becoming data-driven, it certainly gives you the advantage of gaining much clearer insights into your customer’s buying patterns.

Knowing the intent of customers is one of the most powerful weapons sales and marketing teams can use. Yet, according to the 2019 State of IT Marketing report by Spiceworks, only 26% of European companies were adopting purchase intent targeting in 2018 and 19% were planning to implement it in 2019. Not many other sources provide insights into the current state of B2B intent data in EMEA, although we can safely estimate that 2/3 of EMEA-based tech companies are not using it or executing it to its full potential.

EMEA B2B marketing is complex, so why add Intent Data to your mix? Because it helps you personalise your messaging making campaigns timely and relevant to what buyers are researching. This not only can give you an edge over your competitors but also creates a better journey for your customers.

Customer-centric marketing or “customer obsession” is one of the most widely discussed topics in B2B marketing nowadays.

However, without good internal and external data, it is hard, if not impossible, to become customer obsessed. Instead, you will more likely end up with a typical marketing funnel strategy, generating leads for a sales-created ABM list without any real insight into who you are marketing to and why.

There is no doubt that when intent-based targeting is implemented into your strategy, prospects will begin to make more informed decisions and will notice your product/service at the right time, increasing their intent to buy and your company ROI. It’ll become easier to learn client and prospect behaviours and help your Sales and Marketing teams discover ready-to-buy signals.

What is changing and what you need to know.

Cookies. They have been essential for online ad targeting and collecting consumer information to aid marketing campaigns, but with scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica, it’s forced companies to look at how personal data is collected and utilised. As a result, Google has recently announced the death of third-party cookies to be actioned within the next two years.

This will see a dramatic shift from third-party to first-party data.

However, collecting first party data is difficult because you need to have registered members that have opted-in to your sites. In fact, there aren’t many B2B Intent Data providers in EMEA that have first party data. Of those listed on datarade.ai, we could count less than 10 that collect intent from their registered users and operate outside US. These include TechTarget, IDG, ZiffDaviesB2B and some software comparison websites like G2 Crowd.

Their EMEA databases aren’t huge and are difficult to grow, which could mean that this type of data can possibly become overbought and the majority will market to the same people. You will lose the ability to capture the whole market if you’re waiting for buyers to visit you first or are late in accessing their data.

Google isn’t completely killing Adtech though. Clicks and metrics are still to be stored in its browser instead of being broadcast to third parties, which will no doubt mean repositioning for Adtech companies. Intent providers that gather data from their closed network and database, will be at an advantage having not used third party cookies.

Our conclusion

Implementing Intent Data with other buyer signals makes sales and marketing teams more effective. As data grows more relevant in the competitive world of B2B Marketing in EMEA, this strategy becomes a valuable tool allowing marketers to efficiently target the right customers at the right time. It gives us the information we need to create personalised marketing strategies and provide the best customer journey experience.

There is no doubt that Intent Data is shaping the future of EMEA B2B Marketing, but does it go hand in hand with the future of Data Privacy? We think so. Buyers increasingly want a personalised experience but are equally more reluctant to share information about their needs. Only by avoiding data scandals, the industry will regain trust from buyers, and, their intent data.

If you’d like to know more about how data is collected and how an Intent Data strategy could rapidly increase your ROI, then please do not hesitate to get in touch. We’re happy to explain how we could help and how future changes to search engines and data collection could impact your current marketing efforts.