There's a pattern that plays out so often it's almost a rite of passage. RevOps buys an intent data platform (not cheap, as anyone who's been in that procurement meeting knows). Marketing pulls a list of accounts spiking on relevant topics. They hand it to sales as a priority list. Sales works the list. Conversion is flat. Everyone blames the data.
But the platform didn't fail. The team skipped the foundation.
That's the thread that ran through the entire first episode of Intent, Decoded - our new podcast series where we get into the mechanics of what's actually happening inside GTM teams right now. Our host Brendan Hughes sat down with Nick Bennett, a B2B marketing consultant who's built over $6 million in pipeline through LinkedIn organic, and Niall O'Gorman, co-founder of MarketSizer and someone who spends a concerning amount of time thinking about purchase intent signals. (I say that with affection. It's also kind of the whole business.)
The conversation surfaced something that's obvious in retrospect but easy to ignore when you're under pressure to show pipeline: intent data only works when it layers on top of existing account context. Not as a reason to reach out. As confirmation that it's already time.
The Signal Is Not the Starting Gun
Nick put it plainly: an account that's never engaged with you, has no ICP fit validation, and no existing relationship - even if it's spiking on a relevant keyword - is just a reason to send a bad cold email faster.
Intent data on a cold account is noise dressed up as signal.
What a legitimate trigger looks like is different. An account that's been in your nurture sequence, visited your pricing page twice, and is now spiking on a competitive comparison keyword - that's worth moving on. The intent signal confirms what the other data was already suggesting. But you need the other data first, which means you need the foundational work done before you ever open the intent platform.
The uncomfortable implication here is that most teams buying intent tools haven't done that work. They're reaching for a shortcut before they've built the road. It's the same dynamic we've written about elsewhere - outreach doesn't break because of bad copy, it breaks because the timing was wrong before the first word was written.
Intent Data as a Filter, Not a List Builder
One of the sharper observations from Nick was about how ABM teams are using intent tools to build bigger lists rather than tighter ones. The logic sounds reasonable - more data means more coverage, more coverage means more opportunities. But ABM isn't supposed to scale like that. If you're running 2,000 accounts in your "ABM programme," you're not doing ABM. You're doing targeted marketing with extra steps.
The framework he keeps coming back to is three inputs for account selection: fit, engagement, intent. All three need to be high before you run a coordinated play - and by coordinated, he means sales and marketing moving on the same account at the same time with messaging built around what the signals are actually suggesting. Not an email sequence. A play.
There's also an underused application on the field marketing and events side. Intent signals should be informing invite lists for executive dinners and regional events - not just who fits the ICP, but who's actively showing signs of pain or pressure right now. An account spiking on topics relevant to your product three weeks before your event is worth getting in the room. Most teams are building invite lists off CRM filters and rep suggestions, with no signal layer underneath any of it. (We've made the broader case for this approach in our piece on signal-led ABX.)
The Data Foundation Problem
Niall's framing from the episode is worth sitting with. He drew a parallel to ecommerce: getting a listing up on a marketplace is the easy part. Making it convert is the hard part, and the foundation of that is master data quality. Bad data in, bad outcomes out.
The same logic applies to intent infrastructure. Most of the rich data that teams need is already sitting inside their CRM or marketing automation platform - but extracting the right signal at the right time, in the right context, is where things fall apart. The promise of AI and GTM intelligence tools isn't to replace that foundation. It's to help you do more with what you've already built, if you've built it properly.
And if you haven't - if your CRM is a graveyard of stale contacts and inconsistent firmographic data - then no intent platform is going to save you. You're just running more volume against a broken foundation. We've gone deeper on this in why CRM data is inaccurate - the short version is that the missing layer is rarely more contacts and almost always sharper signal.
Why This Keeps Happening
There's a structural reason GTM teams keep making this mistake, and it's not that they're bad at their jobs. Niall and Nick both touched on it: people are burnt out. Marketing teams are doing the job of three people. Budgets have compressed. The pressure to show pipeline activity - any activity - is relentless.
So teams lean into whatever's fastest. Intent data platforms sell on the promise of finding buyers who are ready now, which is exactly what a time-starved marketing team wants to hear. The result is that the tool gets used as a starting gun rather than a confirmation signal, and when the conversion numbers come back flat, the vendor gets the blame.
It's a pattern that cheap VC capital made worse - it was easy to fund spray-and-pray outreach when money was free. Now that unit economics matter again, the feedback loop is closing. The teams that figure out how to use intent data properly will have a genuine structural advantage over those still treating it as a list builder. (For the broader argument, see why timing beats volume.)
The One Thing to Take Away
Nick's closing line from the episode is worth writing on a sticky note:
"Stop using intent data to decide when to reach out. Start using it to decide what changed and whether you have something worth saying because of it."
If you can't answer what changed in that account and why it matters to them right now, the signal isn't a reason to act. It's a reason to watch. The outreach comes when you have something relevant to say - not because the platform told you the account is hot.
That distinction - between a reason to act and a reason to watch - is probably the clearest line between GTM teams that are using intent data well and those who are still pouring lighter fluid on a dead pipeline.
Intent, Decoded is MarketSizer's podcast series on the mechanics of purchase intent and what it actually takes to use it well. Listen to Episode 1 on Spotify, watch on YouTube, or catch the full LinkedIn Live recording here. Follow the show on Spotify or YouTube to catch future episodes, or visit the podcast hub for everything in one place.