This week’s intent data gives us an important reminder: Content is still king! “Demand generation” and “content marketing” remain strong areas of interest for brands, continuing their upward trajectory since January, as measured by Bombora Company Surge. Recent research from B2B International corroborates this point, revealing that demand generation is the top marketing focus for B2B organizations.

As we consider the best way to show up in our customers’ lives wherever they are in the buying process, intent data for retargeting – in this case, “social retargeting” – also consistently ranks among brands’ top 10. With more choice than ever before, compounded by an “always-on” environment, it can be challenging for brands to pinpoint exactly which buyers are purchase-ready. 

For the first time this year, intent data for “direct response” (DR) has experienced a significant spike. It is defined in this instance as a “type of marketing that elicits a specific, measured response resulting from a consumer’s direct response to a marketer.” With growing emphasis being placed on ROI and outcomes, it’s quickly becoming marketing’s imperative to implement strategies that drive response. Done right, direct response neatly combines the value proposition with a call to action, taking a prospect from consideration to decision faster. That helps marketers waste less time, effort and resources on low-quality leads.

Interestingly, brands and agencies are misaligned on “social analytics” — that is, the collection and analysis of statistical data on how users interface with an organization, particularly online. Consumption habits based on data for May 9th indicate this topic holds little to no interest for agencies, relative to their brand counterparts. By now we know how many organizations claim they have plenty of data to inform their marketing efforts, while lacking the people needed to analyze it properly. Herein lies a golden opportunity for brands to work with their agency partners on mastering rapidly changing approaches to the acquisition, management, and mining of valuable data that informs customer experiences – in real time and in a privacy-safe manner.