If you’re in B2B sales or marketing, you’ve probably heard the pitch: “Intent data will revolutionize your pipeline!” Yeah, well—maybe. Most intent signals are noisy, and platforms can drown you in dashboards. But if you use them right, tools like Terminus can help you actually spot accounts that are ready for a real sales conversation.
This guide is for sales teams (and the marketers who support them) who want to cut through the noise, focus on the high-value signals, and actually put intent data to work. If you want to stop chasing ghosts and start spending more time with prospects who give a damn, read on.
Step 1: Get Your Data House in Order
Before you even log into Terminus, take a minute. If your CRM is a mess, or if your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is just “anyone with a budget,” you’re setting yourself up for frustration. No tool, Terminus included, can fix bad foundations.
Checklist before you start:
- Have a clear, documented ICP—industry, company size, key roles, tech stack, pain points.
- Clean up your CRM: remove duplicates, update old contacts, and make sure you’re tracking the basics.
- Decide who on your team owns intent data. Sales? Marketing? Both? Don’t let it fall through the cracks.
Pro tip: If your team’s still arguing about what “good fit” means, pause here. Get aligned now, or you’ll just waste time later.
Step 2: Set Up Intent Data in Terminus
Once your basics are sorted, it’s time to get Terminus tuned for your team.
2.1: Connect Your Data Sources
Terminus pulls in data from a bunch of places—your website, email campaigns, third-party data vendors, CRM, and sometimes ad platforms. The more you connect, the better the signals—up to a point.
Do:
- Connect your CRM and marketing automation (HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, whatever you use).
- Turn on website visitor tracking.
- Integrate with your ad accounts if you plan to run Terminus ads.
Don’t:
- Overload Terminus with junky data sources. Only connect platforms you actually use.
- Ignore privacy—make sure you’re clear on what data is being collected and how.
2.2: Define Your Intent Topics
Here’s where most teams go wrong: they track too many topics, or the wrong ones. Terminus lets you pick intent topics—keywords, product names, competitor names, industry buzzwords—that signal interest.
How to pick intent topics: - Start with 5–10 specific, high-impact topics. Think pain points, solutions, or direct competitors. - Avoid vague keywords (“cloud,” “innovation”). Get granular (“SOC 2 compliance automation” beats “security”). - Check Terminus’ topic library, but don’t just pick what’s trending.
What to ignore:
Vanity topics and broad industry jargon. If everyone in your market is searching “AI,” that won’t help you find buyers who actually need your solution.
Step 3: Build Account Lists That Actually Matter
Intent is only useful if it’s tied to accounts you care about. Terminus can slice and dice account lists, but it’s up to you to make them count.
How to build your lists:
- Start with your ICP. No exceptions.
- Layer in historical data: which accounts have engaged with your content, opened emails, or visited your site recently.
- Exclude existing customers and junk leads (students, resellers, tire-kickers).
- Use filters: company size, revenue, geography, industry.
Pro tip:
Don’t make your lists too big. A list of 200 real prospects beats 2,000 random logos any day.
Step 4: Spot the Real Intent Signals
Now for the part most people rush: separating the signals from the noise. Terminus will spit out all kinds of intent data—website visits, ad clicks, content downloads, and third-party research signals. Not all signals are created equal.
4.1: Focus on Buying Team Activity
Terminus tracks activity at the account level, but what you care about is whether multiple people from an account are poking around. One person reading a blog post? Mildly interesting. Three people from the same company downloading your whitepapers and checking pricing? That’s a real signal.
Look for: - Spike in activity from multiple people at the same account in a short window. - Visits to high-intent pages (pricing, case studies, product comparisons). - Repeated engagement over a few days or weeks.
Skip: - Single clickers who bounce after five seconds. - Anonymous traffic with no firmographic data. - Random one-off visits to your careers page.
4.2: Score and Prioritize
Terminus lets you set up scoring models, but don’t get fancy out of the gate. Start simple:
- Assign more points to actions that matter (pricing page > blog post).
- Weight recent activity more heavily.
- Set a threshold—when an account crosses X points, it’s worth a call.
Update your scoring as you learn what actually predicts real opportunities.
Step 5: Make Intent Data Actionable for Sales
None of this matters if your sales team ignores the signals. Here’s how to make sure the data leads to conversations, not just more reports.
5.1: Deliver Signals Where Sales Lives
Don’t make reps log into Terminus every day. Use integrations to push intent data into your CRM, Slack, or sales engagement tool.
Best practices: - Send a weekly (or even daily) list of “hot” accounts, with context. - Highlight why the account is showing intent (“3 people from Acme Corp visited the pricing page and downloaded the security checklist”). - Keep it concise. Nobody reads a 30-row spreadsheet at 8 a.m.
5.2: Align on Follow-Up
Decide, as a team, what happens when a hot intent signal comes in. Is it an immediate call? A personalized email? A coordinated outreach from sales and marketing?
- Set SLAs (service level agreements) for follow-up.
- Track what happens next: Did the rep connect? Did the account go quiet?
- Share wins and misses so everyone learns what’s working.
Pro tip:
Celebrate when intent signals actually lead to pipeline. Nothing builds buy-in like a closed deal that started with a hot signal.
Step 6: Cut the Crap—What to Ignore
Terminus, like every ABM platform, will try to dazzle you with dashboards. Here’s what you can safely ignore, at least at first:
- Vanity metrics: Total impressions, generic engagement scores, random traffic spikes.
- Overly complicated attribution models: If you can’t explain it to your CRO in 30 seconds, it’s probably not helping.
- Automated “personalization” that’s just mail merge: Real intent is about real interest, not just inserting someone’s name in an email.
Stick to the basics until you see results. Fancy features can come later.
Step 7: Review, Refine, Repeat
Intent data isn’t fire-and-forget. Set a cadence (monthly works for most) to review what’s actually working.
- Which topics drive real pipeline?
- Are some signals false positives?
- What feedback are reps giving?
- Should you adjust your scoring or list criteria?
Don’t be afraid to cut what’s not working. The goal is fewer, better signals—not more noise.
Keep It Simple, Ship, and Iterate
Intent data is only as good as what you do with it. Don’t get caught up in dashboards, buzzwords, or analysis paralysis. Start small, focus on the accounts and signals that matter, and keep tightening your process. The best teams make intent data a habit—not a side project.
Now, go find the buyers who are actually raising their hands. And if you’re not sure what to do next, just pick up the phone and ask. Sometimes, that’s the best signal of all.