Let’s be honest: most B2B funnels are a mess of half-interested leads, dead-end accounts, and a handful of real opportunities buried somewhere in the pile. If your sales team is tired of chasing ghosts, or your marketing team keeps passing along “hot” accounts that never close, this guide is for you.
This is a hands-on, no-nonsense walkthrough for using Akountify—a tool that promises to help you cut the guesswork and focus on accounts that are actually interested. I’ll show you how to set it up, what to watch for, and how to avoid wasting time on the wrong signals.
Step 1: Get Clear on What “High Intent” Actually Means for You
Before you even log in to Akountify, do a gut check: What does “high intent” mean to your team? Some companies treat any website visit as intent. Others only care about demo requests, pricing page views, or specific product signals.
- Sit down with sales and marketing for 30 minutes. Make a short list of the real buying signals you’ve seen lead to revenue.
- Examples: visited pricing page, attended a webinar, requested a demo, opened a contract.
- Ignore: random blog readers, people who download eBooks and vanish, or generic newsletter signups.
- Be picky. If you treat every action as “intent,” you’ll end up chasing your tail.
Pro tip: Your “high intent” signals will change over time. Start simple; you can always tweak later.
Step 2: Connect Akountify to Your Data Sources
Akountify is only as good as the data you feed it. Out of the box, it connects to most of the usual suspects: CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), marketing automation (Marketo, Pardot), website analytics, and sometimes third-party intent providers.
- Make a list of your core tools. Prioritize CRM, marketing automation, and website analytics. If you have intent data subscriptions (Bombora, 6sense), include those.
- Follow Akountify’s integration guides. Most are point-and-click, but you’ll need admin access. Don’t skip the CRM step—without it, you’re flying blind.
- Map your fields. Decide which fields matter (e.g., “engaged score,” “last activity date,” “product interest”) and make sure they sync correctly.
Honest take: If your data is a mess—duplicate accounts, junk leads, missing activity—Akountify won’t magically fix it. Clean up what you can before connecting.
Step 3: Set Up Intent Signals and Scoring
Here’s where Akountify starts to earn its keep. The platform lets you define what counts as a buying signal and how much it matters.
- Start with a handful of clear, simple signals. For example:
- Visited pricing page (10 points)
- Requested demo (25 points)
- Attended a webinar (15 points)
- Opened 3+ marketing emails in a week (5 points)
- Assign weights that reflect reality. If demo requests are pure gold, they should be worth more than a webinar attendance.
- Don’t get lost in the weeds. Avoid the temptation to track every tiny action (“clicked on case study,” “watched 20% of a video,” etc.). More data isn’t always better—focus on what actually correlates with buying.
What to ignore: Vanity metrics. Lots of page views or whitepaper downloads? Not a buying signal, unless you’ve seen those actions lead to real conversations.
Pro tip: Ask your best sales reps what really moves the needle, and base your initial scoring on those insights—not what the vendor’s “best practice” guide says.
Step 4: Build Account Views and Segments
Once Akountify is pulling in your data and scoring intent, it’s time to actually see which accounts matter.
- Set up a “High Intent Accounts” view. Filter for accounts above a certain score threshold. Don’t be afraid to start high—better to miss a few than to overwhelm your team with noise.
- Break down by segment. You might want separate lists for new prospects, open opportunities, and existing customers showing new interest.
- Add context columns. Show recent activities that drove their score. This lets sales see why an account is flagged—not just a number.
- Share the view with sales and marketing. Make sure there’s a single source of truth. No more “where did this lead come from?” drama.
Honest take: The first time you build these segments, you’ll probably find a few surprises—accounts you thought were dead suddenly lighting up, or “hot” leads that never actually engaged.
Step 5: Operationalize—Get Sales Using the Data
A list of high-intent accounts is only useful if someone actually does something with it. This is where most companies drop the ball.
- Set up alerts or Slack notifications. Don’t just expect reps to log in and check a dashboard. Akountify can send real-time alerts when an account crosses your intent threshold or takes a key action.
- Create clear follow-up playbooks. Don’t leave it to chance. Decide what happens when an account lights up:
- Who reaches out first—sales or an SDR?
- What do they say? (Hint: reference the actual behavior—“I saw you checked out our pricing page…”)
- How quickly should they follow up?
- Track outcomes. Which accounts actually respond or convert? Feed this info back into your scoring model.
What doesn’t work: Blasting every “interested” account with the same old sales email. If you don’t tailor your outreach to the actual signal, you’ll sound like a robot.
Step 6: Tune and Iterate
No intent model is perfect on day one. Expect to make mistakes. The real value comes from refining over time.
- Review closed-won and closed-lost deals. Which signals did the winners show? Which did you miss?
- Meet with sales every month. Are they finding the flagged accounts useful, or are you surfacing junk?
- Adjust scoring. If you keep seeing the same low-value accounts, lower the weight of that signal—or drop it altogether.
- Don’t be afraid to delete. If a signal isn’t helping, cut it. Less is often more.
Pro tip: Every six months, gut-check your model against reality. If it’s not helping sales focus where it counts, rethink the whole setup.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Ignore
Works well: - Syncing with CRM and marketing automation to get a full picture. - Clear, simple scoring models tied to real buying actions. - Real-time alerts that actually get used by sales.
Doesn’t work: - Overcomplicating with dozens of signals or trying to “game” the intent score. - Treating every form fill or blog visit as intent. - Setting and forgetting—this is an ongoing process.
Ignore the hype: - No tool, including Akountify, will magically find “ready to buy” accounts if your data is garbage or your team isn’t following up. - Don’t get distracted by shiny add-ons or “AI” features unless they actually help you focus.
Wrapping Up: Keep It Simple, Iterate Fast
If you’re using Akountify to spot high intent accounts, remember: It’s just a tool. The real magic is in how you define intent, how clean your data is, and whether your team actually acts on what you find. Start simple, focus on the signals that actually matter, and keep tweaking as you learn. Don’t wait for perfection—just get started, and improve as you go.