Every seller has been sold “intent data” at some point. A dashboard lights up because someone at a company read an article or visited a pricing page, and you are told to call. Most of the time, nobody on the other end is ready to talk.
Intent data measures behavior
Intent data is built from vague online behavior: page views, content downloads, searches. Behavior is noisy. One person’s curiosity is not a company’s decision, and it is not precise enough to show who is actually in the market for what you sell.
In-market measures timing
in-market, adjective: said of a company where a myriad of data points, read across many platforms and weighed together by algorithms tuned to your industry, show it is in the market for your services. So the timing to reach out is real.
The difference is what you can do with it. In-market does not hand you everyone who might be interested. It sorts your market by action:
- Reach out now: the few companies where the timing is real.
- Run an awareness campaign: the ones getting closer, so you are the name they know when the time comes.
- Keep warm: the companies that fit your ideal client persona (ICP) but are not in-market yet.
Why timing matters more than ever
AI made it nearly free to send. Everyone sent more, and buyers stopped answering. Published research shows that even the best generic cold email gets a 3 to 5% reply rate, while outreach timed to a real reason gets several times that. See the research and sources.
What to do with it
Reach the few that are in-market, through a warm introduction where you have one, with a message about what matters to them now. Keep the rest warm. That is the whole idea behind Sam.