Incorporating B2B Intent data into your digital advertising strategies

Intent data has become a must-have in digital advertising, but knowing where to start isn’t always clear. When used effectively, Intent can drive serious performance gains, with marketing teams using Intent data seeing up to 70% higher conversion rates.

But if you feel like using Intent seems overwhelming, you’re not alone. The good news is that getting started is simpler than you might think. You don’t need to rebuild your entire media strategy to see results. By following a few practical steps, you can identify in-market accounts, align creative to what buyers actually care about, and make smarter decisions with your budget.

This post walks you through exactly how to do that, whether you’re building on an existing ABM strategy or activating Intent audiences for the first time.

Crawl: Identify and activate in-market accounts

If you’re new to Intent data, the first step is building the foundation.

To get started, you’ll need to answer a few simple questions:

• What signals indicate interest in your product or solution?
• Who do you want to see those signals from?
• How do you build and activate a campaign based on that insight?

This stage is about learning how to recognize buying signals, map them to the right accounts, and take action.

Start with the right topics

Intent signals are based on the topics your audience is actively researching online. Bombora tracks behavior across more than 18,000 topics, but you don’t need to use all of them. Start with five to 15 that reflect your core products, key pain points, or campaign themes.

Not sure which topics to pick?

Use Bombora’s taxonomy to search for your company name, competitors, or category-level keywords. This helps you quickly identify relevant terms your buyers are engaging with. You can also work with the Bombora team to narrow your list based on your vertical, product positioning, or go-to-market strategy.

Activate Intent from any starting point

Once you’ve selected your topics, there are two ways to move forward. If you already have a target account list—like your ABM or ICP list—you can use Intent to prioritize the accounts showing the strongest buying signals. If you don’t have a list, Intent can help you build one by identifying net-new accounts that are actively researching your solution area.

Prioritize in-market accounts within your ICP or ABM list

Apply Company Surge^® to your existing account list to see which businesses are actively researching your selected topics. These accounts are scored based on recency, frequency, and intensity of research, giving you a clearer picture of which high-fit accounts are likely to be in-market now.

Expand your addressable market with net-new in-market accounts

Intent data doesn’t just validate your existing list—it helps you discover new accounts showing interest in your category that may not be on your radar. Using the topics you’ve selected, you can also apply basic filters like company size, industry, region or revenue to narrow that list to accounts that still fall within your ICP. These net-new in-market accounts can become valuable additions to your outreach strategy, helping you scale faster and grow beyond your current TAM.

Build and activate your campaign

Once you’ve selected your Intent topics and built your audience, the next step is reaching those in-market accounts through the channels your buyers already use.

Activation with Bombora is simple:

• DSPs:  Bombora delivers custom-built audiences based on your selected Intent topics and filters directly into platforms like The Trade Desk, LiveRamp, and others for seamless activation. Through these DSPs you can ship Intent-based audiences to hundreds of destinations including programmatic, Reddit, CTV, and more.

• LinkedIn: Activate Company Surge^® audiences using Bombora’s custom-built reports. These are automatically sent to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager as matched audiences based on active research behavior.

• Meta: Build custom audiences from Intent-qualified accounts that automatically ship to your Meta ad account for activation. 

With streamlined integrations, you can act on Intent insights quickly and confidently without overhauling your existing media strategy.

What success looks like at this stage

In the crawl stage, you’re validating Intent’s impact with minimal lift. Early indicators of traction include:

• Higher CTRs and lower CPCs
• Stronger engagement than static ABM lists
• Increased levels of Intent across key accounts

Walk: Align Intent to the buyer’s journey

Once you’ve validated that Intent drives performance, it’s time to move from reactive to proactive. This phase is about turning behavioral signals into audience strategies, while refining creative to match where buyers are in their journey.

Segment audiences by research topics and use cases

With over 18,000 Intent topics, you can build audiences aligned to specific product areas, use cases, or value props. For example, an e-commerce platform might identify one group of accounts surging on merchandise planning while another focuses on buy now, pay later. Both are high-fit, but each signals a different set of challenges—and calls for a different message.

Align creative to buying stage

Intent reveals not only what accounts are researching, but how deep they are into the process. Adjust your creative accordingly:

• Early Research:  Look for accounts performing early research on broad topics and lead with educational or thought leadership content.

• Mid-Stage Research: Identify increased activity in solution areas and deliver messaging that highlights value and differentiation.

• Late-Stage Research: When Intent peaks on high-priority topics, prompt action with proof points and clear calls to engage with your sales team. 

This keeps your message relevant, not generic—and helps move buyers forward naturally.

What success looks like at this stage:

• Higher engagement rates from stage-specific messaging
• Increased conversion efficiency as content aligns to real-time needs
• Shorter time between first impression and meaningful action (e.g., site visits, demo requests)

Run: use Intent to optimize bidding and delivery

At this stage, Intent data guides not just the who, what, and when, but how you prioritize spend, adjust pacing, and measure impact.

Let Intent guide media investment

Use Company Surge^® signals to inform how aggressively to bid, where to allocate budget, and which segments to scale or pause. Set audience and bid logic at the start of your campaign based on Company Surge^® scores so your budget automatically adjusts to real-time buying behavior.

For example, in platforms like Google Ad Manager, you can define audience groups that meet a specific Company Surge^® threshold (such as accounts scoring 75 or higher on your selected topics) and set higher bids for those audiences from the outset. That way, you’re prioritizing media investment where buying signals are strongest without constant monitoring or manual changes.

This approach allows your campaigns to:

• Allocate more spend to high-Intent accounts from the beginning
• Maintain efficiency by de-prioritizing lower-scoring segments
• Stay responsive to changing buyer behavior without changing the plan mid-campaign

By building smarter logic into your setup, Intent becomes a strategic layer in how and where your media dollars are spent.

Use contextual targeting to expand reach

Intent data helps you identify the right accounts, but it can also inform where your ads should appear. With contextual advertising partners like Simpli.fi, you can serve ads on websites and content that match the topics your audience is actively researching. This allows you to reach potential buyers in relevant environments, increasing your chances of engagement at the right moment.

Enhance performance with dynamic creative

Use Intent topics to power dynamic content optimization (DCO), tailoring ad copy, imagery, or offers based on topic-level interest. This makes your creative more relevant without requiring 1:1 personalization.

What success looks like at this stage

In the run phase, success is defined by strategic clarity and efficiency. You’re not just reaching the right accounts. You’re prioritizing the right moments, investing at the right levels, and making confident, data-driven decisions at every step.

Look for signs like:

• Improved return on ad spend (ROAS) and cost-per-opportunity
• Increased conversion rates among top-Intent cohorts
• Faster campaign pivots based on live market behavior

The payoff: smarter advertising, better outcomes

Intent data gives you a direct line into buyer behavior—so you can make smarter decisions, faster. Whether you’re identifying in-market accounts, tailoring creative to where they are in their journey, or optimizing spend in real time, Bombora makes it easy to put Intent into action.

Start with off-the-shelf segments or collaborate with our audience experts to build custom strategies around your ICP and goals. However you begin, you’ll be turning research behavior into measurable results.