Intent Data vs Firmographic Data: What's the Difference?

Firmographic data describes the static, structural attributes of a company - industry, employee count, revenue, location, tech stack - the organisational equivalent of demographic data. It tells you whether an account fits your ideal customer profile at all.

Intent data describes signals that a company, or specific people within it, is actively researching a problem or solution right now - spikes in searches for relevant topics, content consumption on industry publications, or increased visits to comparison and competitor pages, usually aggregated from third-party data co-ops or observed directly in your own first-party site behaviour.

Firmographic data answers "should we target this account at all"; intent data answers "should we approach them right now, and about what." Account-based marketing programs that build the target account list on firmographic fit, then use intent signals to decide which of those accounts to prioritise and with what message, convert meaningfully better than programs that treat every fit account with the same urgency regardless of where it actually sits in a buying cycle.