Table of Contents
- What Is a High-Intent User?
- What Is Intent-Based Targeting?
- How Does Intent-Based Targeting Work?
- Current Challenges in Performance Marketing with Targeting High Intent Users
- 5 Ways Intent-Based Targeting Will Resolve Targeting Challenges for Performance Marketers
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When someone visits your website, what’s the likelihood that visit will turn into a sale? The answer hinges heavily on your marketing efforts, and how effectively you’re able to target high-intent users with digital advertising. High-intent users are those coveted customers who drop in with plans to take action, so let’s take a look at how to track down those consumers and bring them over to your website. This exploration will reveal how intent-based targeting emerges as an increasingly vital and effective solution for performance marketers navigating the evolving challenges of reaching and converting their most promising prospects.
What Is a High-Intent User?
A high-intent user is someone actively looking for a product or service. This status is usually signaled by the search terms that bring someone to your site. A person who searches, “buy Medeo T9 e-bike,” for example, is more likely to convert to a sale than someone who simply searches “best ebikes for commuting.”
Search terms are only one way a consumer signals high intent, though. Other signs include:
- Sorting through product reviews.
- Reading comparison articles.
- Adding an item to a shopping cart but not checking out.
- Requesting a demo.
- Signing up for a free trial.
- Clicking on high-intent search ads with keywords like “buy now” and “best price.”
“In my experience, targeting high-intent users is the most cost-effective way to maximize return on ad spend (ROAS),” says Rodrigo Cesar, founder and CEO of SSInvent. “These are the people who are closest to making a purchase, so the likelihood of them converting is much higher than someone who’s just exploring. I always tell small business owners that if they have a limited budget, prioritizing high-intent audiences ensures their marketing dollars are spent on users who are already primed to take action.”
What Is Intent-Based Targeting?
Intent-Based Targeting is a marketing strategy that focuses on identifying and reaching potential customers based on their demonstrated intent to purchase a specific product or service. This approach moves beyond traditional demographic or firmographic targeting by analyzing online behaviors and signals that indicate a buyer’s active research and consideration.
How Does Intent-Based Targeting Work?
Intent-based targeting uses specific mechanisms, often leveraging sophisticated technologies, to gather data from sources like search queries, website activity (pages visited, content consumed), social media engagement, content consumption (webinars, e-books), past purchase history, as well as both third-party data aggregating online behavior across the web and first-party data collected directly from a company’s own digital interactions (website, email, apps, CRM). Some examples of these mechanisms include natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI).
By focusing on these high-intent signals, marketers can pinpoint individuals and businesses that are actively seeking solutions, rather than relying on broader demographic or firmographic targeting. This allows for the delivery of highly relevant and personalized marketing messages, advertisements, and offers precisely when a user’s need is most pressing. Consequently, this targeted approach improves marketing efficiency and return on investment by concentrating resources on those most likely to convert, ultimately shortening the sales cycle and driving higher conversion rates.
Current Challenges in Performance Marketing with Targeting High Intent Users
Marketers have become increasingly aware of the value of focusing on high-intent users. However, performance marketers still face challenges in reaching those consumers. Here are some of the biggest reasons why:
Creative Fatigue and Ad Blindness
Ad fatigue is an ongoing problem for brands. While showing a consumer the same ad multiple times can be effective, unless that consumer is motivated to take action, the ad becomes white noise or, worse, an active annoyance. This lowers engagement, increasing your cost per acquisition.
“Showing the same ads too often can make people lose interest,” confirms Ron R. Browning, founder and CEO at Intellibright. “Targeting high-intent users lets you serve them more relevant ads based on where they are in their journey, keeping things fresh.”
Signal Loss Due to Privacy Regulations
Privacy changes like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, or Google enhancing its user-based cookie controls, have made things tougher for advertisers. With a reduced ability to track customer behaviors, marketers are forced to rely on other ways to target and convert customers.
“Since third-party tracking is becoming less reliable, I focus on targeting users who are showing clear intent through their behavior — like searching for specific products, visiting pricing pages, or abandoning carts,” Cesar says.
Ad Relevance
Technology makes it easy to target audiences that are most likely to be interested in your offerings. But this also makes it tougher to launch broad campaigns, since most of your competition is likely targeting them, too.
“Broad targeting can result in ads reaching people who aren’t interested,” Browning says. “High-intent targeting ensures your ads reach users already looking for what you offer, making them more effective.”
Limited Scalability and Rising Costs
Targeting the wrong consumers costs your business money. But with more brands using tech tools to target high-intent users, all that competition is driving up costs per click (CPC) and costs per acquisition (CPA). The more effectively you can narrow your audience to those high-acquisition customers, the more cost savings you can enjoy.
“Instead of spending money on people who may never convert, you’re focusing on those who are ready to take action,” Browning recommends. “This makes your ad budget work smarter.”
5 Ways Intent-Based Targeting Will Resolve Targeting Challenges for Performance Marketers
Overcoming these challenges takes some work, but with intent-based targeting, you can tackle them capably. Here are some of the ways this strategy will support your performance efforts:
1. Creative Fatigue and Ad Blindness
By targeting users based on their current intent (e.g., searching for a specific product), the ads they see are more likely to be relevant and helpful, reducing the feeling of repetitive and irrelevant advertising that leads to fatigue and blindness.
2. Signal Loss Due to Privacy Regulations
While privacy changes limit broad tracking, intent-based targeting leverages the explicit actions users do take (like specific searches or website interactions). This focuses on direct signals of interest, which are less reliant on pervasive third-party tracking.
3. Ad Relevance
Intent-based targeting inherently prioritizes ad relevance by showing users content directly related to their demonstrated needs and interests, making ads more effective than broad campaigns, and therefore optimization your marketing budget to satisfy your ROI.
4. Limited Scalability and Rising Costs
By focusing on users closest to conversion, intent-based targeting optimizes ad spend. While competition for high-intent users exists, the higher conversion rates and reduced waste on uninterested audiences can lead to a more cost-effective overall strategy, making your budget work smarter.
5. First-Party Data Utilization
By leveraging directly collected first-party data (like website behavior, email engagement, and CRM interactions), marketers gain valuable and privacy-compliant insights into user intent, allowing for more precise and effective targeting even with reduced third-party tracking.
Use the power of AI to target consumers ready to convert with realize:
Key Takeaways
In the competitive landscape of performance marketing, the ability to identify and engage high-intent users is paramount. By analyzing digital signals that reveal a consumer’s active pursuit of a product or service, intent-based targeting offers a powerful alternative to broad, less efficient approaches. This strategy not only helps overcome challenges like ad fatigue, signal loss due to privacy changes, and issues with ad relevance but also optimizes marketing spend by focusing on those most likely to convert. Ultimately, by understanding and acting on user intent, businesses can significantly enhance their marketing effectiveness, shorten sales cycles, and cultivate a more profitable customer base.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are high-intent vs low-intent users?
A low-intent user is someone who isn’t close to making a purchase. This person may be doing preliminary research into buying or may simply be clicking out of curiosity.
High-intent users, on the other hand, are close to making a purchase. They might have visited your site multiple times, paying close attention to reviews and pricing. High-intent users typically indicate clear buying signals in their online searches.
“When I talk about intent in digital advertising, I think of it as a spectrum,” Cesar says. “High-intent users are those who are actively looking to make a purchase or take a specific action — they’re searching for solutions, comparing products and often using transactional keywords like ‘best price for’ or ‘where to buy.’ On the other hand, low-intent users are more passive. They might be browsing, researching, or simply scrolling through social media with no immediate need.”
How is AI powering targeting?
AI thrives at analyzing patterns and learning from those patterns over time. The technology can be used to fine-tune targeting in ways never seen before, making adjustments in real time to ensure every user is delivered the most relevant ad possible.
“AI helps identify user-behavior patterns, as it can analyze things like search activity, website visits, past purchases, and more to predict users who are more likely to convert,” Browning says. “This also helps with real-time bidding, audience segmentation, and personalized ad delivery, so ads reach the right audience at the right time.”
How can marketers diversify their channels to reach high-intent users?
It’s important to expand your marketing beyond just one channel. As Cesar explains, high-intent users tend to engage across multiple channels, making it important to take an omnichannel approach to your marketing.
“While search ads are a great starting point, I also invest in retargeting ads on social media, email campaigns for abandoned carts, and even SMS marketing for time-sensitive offers,” Cesar says. “Video content, especially on platforms like YouTube, also plays a role — I’ve seen great success running video ads targeting users who have watched competitor reviews or product demos. The key is to meet high-intent users where they already are, rather than forcing them into one specific channel.”
