Configure buyer intent

Please note: buyer intent can be used with either purchased credits OR a seat plan that includes credits. It does not have to be both.

Before using buyer intent, set up your target markets and intent criteria. You can also configure additional features such as auto-add to automatically add companies from your saved views to your CRM, static segments, and workflows, set up email digests, and confirm that your HubSpot tracking code has been installed and is successfully firing on your website.

Before you get started

Before getting started with buyer intent, please note the following:

• To use buyer intent, you must install the HubSpot tracking code.
• To edit within buyer intent, you must have Edit permissions.
• It is recommended you add the site domains for the websites that you would like to track visitors on. It is also recommended to limit tracking to these specific domains when using buyer intent. 
• To comply with data protection laws, you may need to install a cookie consent banner on your own website.

Please note: if HubSpot Credits usage has been paused, learn how to turn it on for Buyer Intent.

Manage user permissions

To configure buyer intent, you will need Buyer Intent permissions. If these permissions are toggled off, the configuration options will be greyed out. 

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Users & Teams.
3. In the user table, click a user record, then click the Access tab.
4. Under Permissions, click Edit permissions. 
5. In the left sidebar menu, use the search bar to search for Buyer Intent permissions. Then, click to toggle the Buyer Intent switch on or off.

Add a market 

Markets allow you to define what companies are the best fit for your business using key company attributes like industry, company location, number of employees, and more. Use markets in buyer intent to segment high-fit companies that are visiting high-intent pages on your website.

Learn how to set up markets for buyer and research intent.

Set visitor intent criteria

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the Intent section, click Add visitor intent criteria or Edit visitor intent criteria. 
4. Type the Criteria name in the textbox.
5. On the Inclusions tab, set up your intent criteria: 
   
   • Page path: the page path of the website page to be included in intent criteria. For example, to include all companies who have viewed your pricing page on the page, you can set the page path to Path is equal to /pricing. 
     • Click the dropdown menu and select your Operator. You can select from the following:
       • Path is equal to
       • Path is not equal to
       • Path contains
       • Path does not contain
       • Path starts with
     • Select one or all of your domains in the dropdown menu.
     • Enter your page path in the field. 
   • Minimum number of visits: the minimum number of page visits from the same company to qualify as showing intent. 
   • Minimum number of visitors: the minimum number of unique visitors from the same company that have visited your page to qualify as showing intent. 
   • Time period: the timeframe during which the website visits have occurred. You can only set timeframes within the last 90 days.
   • Country: filter companies by the country identified from the IP address of website visitors.
6. Click Add a path to add additional intent criteria. 
7. To exclude pages, you can also set exclusion criteria. At the top, click the Exclusions tab. Then, set up your exclusions: 
   • Page path: the page path of the website page to be excluded in the intent criteria. For example, to exclude all visitor that have visited your careers page rather than any product pages, you can set the criteria to Exclude pages where the path is equal to /careers.
     
     • Click the dropdown menu and select your Operator. You can select from the following:
       • Exclude pages where the path is equal to
       • Exclude pages where the path is not equal to
       • Exclude pages where the path contains
       • Exclude pages where the path does not contain
       • Exclude pages where the path starts with
     • Select one or all of your domains in the dropdown menu
   • • Enter your page path in the field. 
   • Minimum number of visits: the minimum number of page visits from the same company to qualify as showing intent. 
   • Minimum number of visitors: the minimum number of unique visitors from the same company that have visited your page to qualify as showing intent. 
   • Time period: the timeframe during which the website visits have occurred. You can only set timeframes within the last 90 days. 
8. Click Add a path to add additional intent criteria. 
9. To delete an intent criteria, click Delete. 
10. After setting up your intent criteria, at the bottom, click Save. 
11. To use a custom property to indicate a company's intent criteria:
    
    • At the top, click the Settings tab.

• • If this is your first time setting up an intent property, in the Property label field, enter a label for your intent property. 

• • To review and edit an existing property in the property editor, click the Edit property. 

• • After updating your settings, at the bottom, click Save. Then, use the property in other HubSpot tools. For example, you can use the property to create an active segment or enroll companies into a workflow. 

Please note: after setting up your intent property, user property access permissions will still apply. 

12. The intent criteria will now appear in the Intent Criteria table. Click to expand one of the criteria to see all included domains and page paths.

Review intent recommendations

Use intent recommendations to identify your highest converting web pages. These website page paths will usually correlate to higher buying propensity. 

When companies reach the selected Goal stages within the set Goal met window, the company's previous 7 days of pageviews will be analyzed in order to identify recommendations. 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the Intent section, click Edit intent criteria. 
4. At the top, click the Recommendation tab.
5. Set up your recommendations.
   • Click the Goal stages dropdown menu and select the pipeline-oriented company lifecycle stages that you'd like to use. 
   • Click the Goal met window dropdown menu and select a date range. 
6. After configuring your recommendation settings, in the table, you can review the following metrics for each recommendation.
   
   • Page path: the page path of the website page that has met the recommendation criteria.
   • Conversion: this metric is calculated by dividing number of conversions, by number of companies that visited a specific path.
   • Confidence: this metric is calculated by comparing the page's conversion rate to the baseline conversion rate. The baseline conversion rate uses the website's homepage. Pages that convert higher than the baseline are considered good candidates for companies showing intent.
7. Companies that have already been added in the inclusions or exclusions for intent criteria will be tagged Included or Excluded. 
   
   • To remove a page from the intent criteria, click Remove. 
   • To add a recommendation to your intent criteria, click Add to. Then, select the operator for the intent criteria. 

Auto-add and track companies in your saved views

If you have HubSpot Credits, you can set buyer intent to automatically add companies and track their intent signals from your saved views to your CRM or static segments, or automatically enroll them into workflows.

When setting up automations and adding and tracking companies from buyer intent to your CRM records, the user account will need super admin or Enrich records permissions.

Please note: auto-add will only add companies that enter your saved views after enabling the auto-add. It will not add all existing companies in your saved views. 

To set up automations:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the Automations section, click Set up automation or click Manage next to a saved view. 
4. In the right panel, click the Select a saved view dropdown menu and select a view. Learn more about saved views in buyer intent. 
5. Click to toggle the Add new companies switch on.
6. If you'd like to track intent signals for companies that enter this view, click Track intent signals. 
7. In the Destination section, select the checkboxes next to the following options:
   • CRM: automatically add companies from the view into your CRM. By default, this option will be turned on if any of the other optoins have been selected, even if the view contains only records already in your CRM. 
   • Static segment: automatically add companies from the view into a static segment. 
     • Click the Select a static segment dropdown menu and select a static segment. 
     • To add these companies to another static segment, click + Add to another static segment. 
     • To remove a static segment, click the delete icon. 
   • Workflow: automatically enrolls companies from the view into a workflow. When this option is selected, you do not need to set an enrollment trigger within the workflow. 
     • Click the Enroll in workflow dropdown menu and select a workflow. 
     • To remove a workflow, click the delete icon. 

8. After setting up your auto-add, at the bottom, click Save.

When companies are added to your CRM via auto-add, the following properties will be automatically populated: 

• Record source: Buyer-Intent
• Record source detail 1: the name of the saved view in buyer intent used when setting up the auto-add. 
• Record source detail 2: Auto-add
• Company owner: the owner will be left empty so you can assign it to your preferred user.

Review your automation settings

To review and edit your automation settings:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the Automation section, review your list of saved views to see which automations are turned on. When reviewing your configured automation settings:
   • Auto-add on: the Add new companies switch is turned on and running.
   • Auto-add off: the Add new companies switch is turned off.
   • Auto-track on: the Track intent signals switch is turned on.
   • Add credit limit reached: the Optional: the Enforce a monthly credit limit switch is turned on, and has hit the set limit for the month.
   • Configuration error: there is an error tied to the CRM, segments, or workflows associated with the auto-add.

4. To edit an automation, click Manage. 

Backfill auto-adds for existing companies in your saved views

With auto-add backfill, you can add companies that already exist in your saved views to your CRM, segments, or workflows—expanding automation beyond just new entries.

To backfill auto-adds for existing companies in your saved views:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. To backfill auto-adds for existing companies in an existing saved view:
   • Click + Set up automation and select a saved view from the dropdown menu, or click Manage next to one of the saved views in the list.
   • On the right side panel, at the bottom, click Backfill.

3. • A dialog box will appear.
4. In the Backlog your saved view dialog box:
   • If you have enough HubSpot Credits, you can click + Queue backfill.
   • If you don't have enough HubSpot Credits, click Buy Credits.
   • If this action will exceed your credit limit, and you wish to bypass for this backfill only, click the checkbox, then click + Queue backfill. 

Please note: when you bypass the credit limit for a backfill, the process will continue until it reaches the total number of companies you've selected or your account's monthly credit maximum, whichever comes first. If your account is set up for auto-upgrades or overages, exceeding your initial credits through this bypass may result in additional charges as the backfill completes.

Set up buyer intent credit limits

Set limits for the amount of monthly credits that can be used for adding or tracking companies from buyer intent. These actions will be paused once the credit limits are reached.

To set up buyer intent credit limits:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab.
3. In the Buyer intent credit limits section, click Edit limits.
4. In the right side panel, click the Net new company adding or Intent signal tracking switches on. Then, type the credit limit into the text field.
5. Click Save.
6. Now that a limit has been set, when you navigate to Automations or the Visitors tab, you will see a badge or banner letting you know that your credit limit has been reached and that adding or tracking is paused.

Manage your email digests

To set up daily, weekly, or monthly email digests of companies in your saved views:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the Email Digests section, click Add an email digest. Or, click Manage next to the email digest that you'd like to edit. 
4. In the right panel, click the Select a saved view dropdown menu and select a view. Learn more about saved views in buyer intent. 
5. Click to toggle the Enable an email digest switch on. 
6. In the Email digest mode section, select from the following: 
   • Recent visits: if you have HubSpot Credits, you can receive a summary of the companies in your saved view that have most recently visited your website.
   • Most visits: receive a summary of the companies in your saved view that have visited your website most.
7. Click the Frequency dropdown menu and select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. For all options, the email digest will be sent at 10:00AM local time by default. 
   • If you've selected Weekly, you can select the day of the week you'd like to receive the email digest. 
   • If you've selected Monthly, the email digest will be sent on the first of the month at 10:00AM local time by default. 
8. Click the Recipients dropdown menu and select the users that you'd like to receive the email digest.
9. To delete the email digest, in the bottom right, click Delete.  
10. After setting up your email digest, click Create email digest or Save Changes. 

Please note: the email digest will only be sent when there are companies tied to your selected saved views. If there are no new companies with Recent visits or Most visits within your saved views, the email digest will not be sent. 

Exclude companies from buyer intent

If you have HubSpot Credits, you can exclude up to 100 domains from the buyer intent overview and companies tabs, saved views, auto-add, and email digests even if they already exist in your CRM.

To exclude companies by domain:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. Navigate to the Configuration tab.
3. In the Exclusions section, click Add exclusions in the top right.
4. In the right panel, type a domain. 
5. Click Save.

Confirm that your HubSpot tracking code is installed

After installing the HubSpot tracking code, ensure that your tracking code is receiving events:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
2. At the top, click the Configuration tab. 
3. In the HubSpot tracking code section, click Check Code Installation. If the code is working correctly, a Receiving events message will appear. If your code is not receiving events, learn how to troubleshoot the HubSpot tracking code. 

Set up and edit your cookie consent banner

By using Buyer Intent and adding the HubSpot tracking code to your websites, you'll be sharing the following data about your website visitors with HubSpot:

• Domain;
• Online identifiers, including visitor ID and IP addresses;
• Timestamp of the website visit; and
• URL path for the visit.

To comply with data protection laws, you may need to install a cookie consent banner. A cookie consent banner allows visitors to opt in or opt out of being tracked in your HubSpot account with cookies. This feature works for all HubSpot pages as well as any external pages with your HubSpot tracking code installed. See below for more resources on how HubSpot enables customers to comply with data protection laws.

• GDPR Compliance
• CCPA Compliance