Third-party intent data offers a powerful advantage in the competitive B2B landscape by providing insights into the research behaviors of potential customers before they even visit your website. By understanding which companies are actively exploring topics related to your products, you can move beyond traditional demographic targeting and focus your advertising budget on accounts that are demonstrating real-time interest. Platforms like SixSense capture these digital footprints across the web, allowing you to create highly-targeted, dynamic audiences. Integrating this intelligence into your paid advertising strategy on platforms like Google and LinkedIn enables you to deliver more relevant messaging, improve campaign efficiency, and ultimately drive more predictable revenue growth by engaging the right accounts at the right time.
Third-party intent data is information collected from external digital sources that reveals a potential customer's interests and buying intentions. Unlike first-party data, which you collect from your own website or CRM, third-party data is aggregated by providers like SixSense from a vast network of B2B websites, forums, and online publications. It tracks the "digital footprints" of companies, such as the content they consume, the topics they research, and the keywords they search for across the web. This gives you a broader view of account-level interest, even for companies that have never interacted with your brand directly.
This data dramatically improves ad targeting in several ways:
Effectively using SixSense audiences in Google Ads and LinkedIn involves a process of building dynamic segments in SixSense and then syncing them to the ad platforms for targeting.
First, you build your audience segments within the SixSense platform. These segments are dynamic, meaning they automatically update as account behavior changes. You can create segments based on a variety of powerful criteria:
Once built, you can push these segments to the ad platforms:
SixSense integrates directly with LinkedIn Campaign Manager. You can sync your dynamic segments, which then appear as a Matched Audience in LinkedIn. From there, you can apply this audience to your campaigns. This allows you to use SixSense's powerful account intelligence for any LinkedIn ad format, including Sponsored Content and video ads. This is highly effective for account-based marketing (ABM), ensuring your budget is spent only on your most valuable target accounts.
The process often involves Google Analytics as an intermediary. You can pass SixSense data (like buying stage or segment name) into Google Analytics as custom dimensions. From there, you build audiences in Google Analytics based on these dimensions (e.g., all users from accounts in the 'Decision' buying stage). These audiences can then be imported into Google Ads for targeting or bid adjustments in your search, display, and YouTube campaigns. This allows you to tailor ad copy and bids based on an account's known intent.
The difference between a SixSense 'middle of funnel' (MoFu) and 'bottom of funnel' (BoFu) audience lies in the type and intensity of intent signals they exhibit, which indicates where they are in the buying journey.
A MoFu audience consists of accounts that have moved beyond initial problem awareness and are now actively evaluating potential solutions. Their behavior indicates they are trying to understand their options and determine which approach is best for them.
A BoFu audience is composed of accounts that are very close to making a purchase decision. They have narrowed down their options and are now looking for validation to make a final choice.
In summary, MoFu audiences are in a state of active evaluation, while BoFu audiences are preparing to commit to a purchase.
Yes, absolutely. Layering your own targeting on top of a SixSense audience is not only possible but is a recommended best practice for refining your campaigns, especially on platforms like LinkedIn.
Here’s how it works and why it’s effective:
When you sync a SixSense segment to LinkedIn, it creates a Matched Audience of companies. This list tells LinkedIn, "I only want to show my ads to people who work at these specific companies." However, this list includes everyone at those companies with a LinkedIn profile, from interns to the CEO.
To ensure your message reaches the actual decision-makers and influencers, you should use LinkedIn's native targeting filters to further refine this audience. You can layer on criteria such as:
This two-layered approach combines the strengths of both platforms. SixSense provides the crucial "who" at the account level (i.e., which companies are in-market), while LinkedIn provides the "who" at the individual level (i.e., which people at those companies matter to you). This ensures you are spending your budget efficiently by reaching only the most relevant individuals within accounts that are already demonstrating purchase intent. Without this layering, you risk wasting impressions on employees who have no influence on the buying decision.
Using SixSense data to inform your keyword strategy for search campaigns is a sophisticated tactic, but it should be approached with nuance. It's less about direct expansion and more about strategic refinement and bidding.
Here’s how to think about it:
SixSense can uncover the specific topics and keywords that your target accounts are researching across the B2B web. If you notice that a significant number of in-market accounts are searching for a particular set of related terms that aren't already in your campaigns, it could signal an opportunity. This can help you identify new keyword themes or long-tail variations that are relevant to active buyers. For example, if you sell "project management software," SixSense might reveal that your target accounts are also heavily researching "agile workflow automation tools," suggesting a new keyword cluster to target.
Perhaps the most powerful application is in your bidding strategy. By creating audiences in Google Ads from your SixSense segments (e.g., accounts in the 'Decision' stage), you can apply these audiences to your existing search campaigns with a "Targeting" or "Observation" setting.
You can also use SixSense data in reverse. If you find that certain keywords in your portfolio are driving clicks but are not associated with accounts that ever progress to a sale or show intent, you might consider reducing bids or deactivating them. This helps ensure your search spend is aligned with keywords that attract your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Yes, experiencing a match rate for SixSense audiences on LinkedIn that seems low is quite normal and expected. It's a common observation across the industry when using third-party data for account-based advertising.
Here are the primary reasons for this:
Based on internal discussions, a match rate of around 50% is not unusual and can be considered a decent starting point. For example, a list of 1,000 accounts from SixSense might only result in a targetable audience of a few hundred thousand individuals on LinkedIn after the matching process. While it may seem low, the value lies in the high quality and relevance of the matched audience. You are trading a large, untargeted audience for a smaller, much more precise group of individuals who work at companies actively showing intent.
Ensuring the intent detected by SixSense is relevant to your products is a critical step for campaign success. It requires a strategic approach to setup and ongoing validation.
Here are key methods to ensure relevance:
The foundation of relevance lies in the keywords you provide to SixSense. Your list should be highly curated and directly aligned with your products, solutions, and the specific pain points they solve. It's crucial to work with your product marketing and sales teams to build this list. Include:
You should periodically review the performance of your intent keywords within SixSense. The platform can provide metrics on which keywords are associated with accounts that progress through the funnel and ultimately become closed-won deals. If certain keywords are generating a lot of intent signals but are never associated with pipeline or revenue, they may be irrelevant or too broad and should be re-evaluated or deactivated.
Maintain a feedback loop with your sales team. Are the accounts flagged by SixSense as "high intent" actually having relevant conversations with sales development representatives (SDRs)? If SDRs consistently report that the flagged accounts are confused or not interested, it's a strong sign that your intent topics may be misaligned with true buying signals.
Recognize that not all intent is created equal. A single employee at a large enterprise reading one article is a weak signal. Strong, relevant intent is characterized by multiple individuals from the same account researching a cluster of related topics with increasing frequency over time. SixSense helps identify these patterns, but it's important to set your segmentation thresholds to focus on these stronger, more reliable signals of true intent.
SixSense is a powerful tool for both prospecting and retargeting, and the best strategy often involves using it for both in a coordinated fashion. However, its primary strength lies in identifying net-new in-market accounts, making it exceptionally valuable for prospecting.
This is where SixSense truly shines. Its core value proposition is the ability to uncover anonymous buying signals from across the web, identifying companies that are in-market for your solution but may not have visited your website yet. This is the definition of high-value prospecting.
You can also use SixSense to enhance your retargeting efforts. By layering SixSense data onto your existing website visitor audiences, you can make your retargeting much more intelligent.
Conclusion: While both are valid strategies, the most unique and powerful capability of SixSense is its ability to identify and target net-new accounts that are showing intent. Therefore, it is arguably best used first and foremost as a prospecting tool to fill the top of your funnel with qualified accounts. From there, its data can be used to add a layer of sophisticated prioritization to your retargeting campaigns.
Measuring the performance of campaigns targeting a SixSense audience requires shifting from traditional lead-based metrics (like cost-per-lead) to more account-centric metrics that reflect the goal of account-based marketing (ABM).
Here’s a breakdown of how to measure performance effectively:
The first sign of success is whether you are reaching and engaging the right companies. Instead of just looking at clicks and impressions, focus on:
Ultimately, the goal is to generate revenue. The most important metrics connect campaign activity to business outcomes:
Use a combination of reporting from LinkedIn/Google and your own systems. While ad platforms provide campaign metrics like CTR and CPM, the true performance is seen when you connect this to your CRM and SixSense. A centralized dashboard in a tool like Salesforce, as discussed in internal syncs, is ideal for creating a single source of truth that the entire revenue team can use to track progress against pipeline and revenue goals.
Yes, you can see which specific companies are engaging, but the level of detail and the source of that information varies between platforms. This is a key benefit of using an account-based platform like SixSense.
This is the best place for detailed, account-level engagement data. SixSense is designed to provide this visibility. By using SixSense tracking tags on your campaigns, the platform can connect ad engagement back to specific accounts. In its reporting dashboards, you can typically see:
This allows you to go beyond aggregated metrics like CTR and see exactly which of your high-value target accounts are responding to your advertising efforts.
The native reporting within the ad platforms themselves is more limited and often anonymized to protect user privacy.
Conclusion: For granular, company-by-company engagement reporting, you must rely on the SixSense platform itself. It is specifically built to de-anonymize traffic and connect campaign activities to target accounts, providing the visibility that the native ad platforms lack.
A key feature of SixSense audiences is that they are dynamic, meaning they are designed to be continuously and automatically updated. This is a significant advantage over traditional, static list uploads.
The updates are based on real-time changes in account data and behavior. An account can be automatically added to or removed from a segment when its attributes change. The criteria that trigger these updates include:
This dynamic nature ensures that your campaigns are always targeting the most relevant accounts. When these segments are synced with ad platforms like LinkedIn, the corresponding Matched Audiences are also kept up-to-date automatically, eliminating the need for constant manual list uploads. This agility allows you to adapt your marketing efforts quickly as accounts move through their buying journey, ensuring your messaging remains timely and relevant.
Integrating intent data into a full-funnel strategy transforms marketing from a series of disconnected tactics into a cohesive, data-driven journey. It's about using intent signals to inform your actions at every stage.
At this stage, the goal is to build awareness and educate your market. Intent data helps you focus your efforts efficiently.
Here, prospects are evaluating solutions. Your goal is to build trust and demonstrate your value proposition.
At the bottom of the funnel, accounts are ready to make a purchase decision. The goal is to convert them.
By aligning your content and tactics with the intent signals at each stage, you create a seamless and relevant buyer's journey that nurtures accounts from initial curiosity to a final purchase decision.
While you don't necessarily need a completely separate, siloed budget, it is a highly recommended best practice to allocate and track spending for campaigns using third-party intent data distinctly. This approach provides clarity on performance and ensures strategic investment.
Here’s why earmarking a budget is beneficial:
In practice, this might mean creating separate line items in your marketing budget for "ABM/Intent-Based Advertising" or creating distinct campaigns within Google and LinkedIn Ads with their own budget allocations, allowing you to track spend and performance with precision.
