One of the biggest barriers to ABM for Canadian SaaS is CASL compliance. You cannot email prospects without consent. But identifying and reaching prospects with consent is slow. It requires lead magnets, webinars, and landing page forms that build consent over weeks.
B2B intent data in 2026 is no longer a single category: co-op signals (Bombora), first-party platform intent (G2, TechTarget), AI-inferred behavioral intent, and bundled intent in full ABM platforms are all viable, with varying signal quality, coverage, and cost.
Most B2B teams buy intent data and then do very little with it. The platform gets connected, signals start flowing, and then someone has to figure out what to do next. Without a defined workflow, intent data becomes an expensive source of noise that SDRs ignore after the first two weeks.
Buying an intent data platform is easy. Getting it to actually drive outreach and campaigns is where most teams get stuck.
Most B2B teams inherit an account scoring model they did not design. It was built by a previous ops person, it runs on outdated criteria, and nobody is quite sure why certain weights are set the way they are. When it produces a list, sales ignores it because the top-scored accounts are wrong-fit companies.
A buyer intent signal is a measurable indicator that a prospect or account is actively researching, evaluating, or planning to purchase a solution in your product category - such as downloading a guide, requesting a demo, visiting competitor websites, or publishing job listings for related roles. Intent signals help sales and marketing teams identify the best time to reach out because the prospect is already thinking about the problem you solve.
Most B2B sales and marketing teams operate with a significant blind spot. They can see who has filled out a form on their website. They can see who opened an email or attended a webinar. But for every buyer who identifies themselves to you directly, there are dozens of buyers doing research about your category right now, on other websites, in Slack communities, on review platforms, and through peer conversations.
Most B2B teams buy intent data and then do very little with it. The platform gets connected, signals start flowing, and then someone has to figure out what to do next. Without a defined workflow, intent data becomes an expensive source of noise that SDRs ignore after the first two weeks.
Buying an intent data platform is easy. Getting it to actually drive outreach and campaigns is where most teams get stuck.
Most B2B teams inherit an account scoring model they did not design. It was built by a previous ops person, it runs on outdated criteria, and nobody is quite sure why certain weights are set the way they are. When it produces a list, sales ignores it because the top-scored accounts are wrong-fit companies.
A buyer intent signal is a measurable indicator that a prospect or account is actively researching, evaluating, or planning to purchase a solution in your product category - such as downloading a guide, requesting a demo, visiting competitor websites, or publishing job listings for related roles. Intent signals help sales and marketing teams identify the best time to reach out because the prospect is already thinking about the problem you solve.
Most B2B sales and marketing teams operate with a significant blind spot. They can see who has filled out a form on their website. They can see who opened an email or attended a webinar. But for every buyer who identifies themselves to you directly, there are dozens of buyers doing research about your category right now, on other websites, in Slack communities, on review platforms, and through peer conversations.