Latest Research: How Marketers Identify In-Market Buyers

B2B marketing teams struggle to consistently identify excellent prospects to be worked by their sales teams. A recent 6sense Research survey of B2B marketers sought to uncover how marketers understand prospect behavior and use buying signals.

Over half (55%) of respondents do not think their buying signal mix is even close to ideal.

Our survey took a deep dive into the types of buying signals marketers are using, where they are allocating budget, and whether organizations weigh the difference between the signals of individual users and the signals of buying groups.

Get the Ebook: ‘How Are Marketers Really Identifying Buyers?’

Key Findings

• 61% said they respond differently to accounts with more than one lead, yet buyer-intent signal acquisition doesn’t reflect this priority
• Group-level signals, such as third-party intent and de-anonymized web traffic, lag behind traditional individual-level signals such as form-fills
• Most marketers have not adopted deeper signals, such as how much time a visitor spends with a piece of content, or how deeply they have scrolled through an asset

Visibility into buyer attributes and buying group activity is becoming increasingly important for B2B teams. While most marketers understand this, they’re still using traditional methods to gather information. To more effectively engage buyers within key accounts, marketers should use tools that identify buying signals and provide critical intent data.

Common Shortcomings

• 65% of marketers use five or fewer of the 18 buying signals we identified in the survey
• Only 26% of B2B revenue teams de-anonymize buyer web activity to find those with a higher level of interest
• Just 31% of marketers tag content topics and keywords to assets and use them to understand visitor interest

Implications

Based on the survey results, marketers should collect more than contact email addresses and job titles to engage in-market accounts. And it takes advanced tools to do so.

This survey data shows us that B2B marketers know that it’s important to consider new and emerging signals that demonstrate intent — but they are still heavily reliant on traditional signals. Download our latest ebook, “Tracking Intent Signals: How Are Marketers Really Identifying Their In-Market Buyers?”, for more insights from this survey.

Get the Ebook: ‘How Are Marketers Really Identifying Buyers?’