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Use buyer intent

Last updated: September 3, 2025

Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:

  • HubSpot Credits required for certain features
  • Additional subscriptions required for certain features

After configuring buyer intent, use buyer intent to gain insight into which companies are visiting your website and showing an interest in your brand, and from there, identify which companies to focus on. 

In buyer intent, you can add and define specific target markets. You can also define a company's intent by count of visits, unique visitors, and review which pages are being visited.

For buyer intent, data collected through the HubSpot tracking code allows website visits to be matched to companies. This helps HubSpot build a commercial dataset that allows you to identify which companies are visiting your website. Learn more about the data that's collected by the HubSpot tracking code.

Before you get started

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


Use buyer intent

HubSpot Credits required To view more than 20 companies per view, you must have HubSpot credits.

Subscription required To view more than 20 companies per view, you must have a Starter, Professional or Enterprise subscription.

After installing the HubSpot tracking code, company data will appear in buyer intent. Buyer intent connects anonymous web visitors to known companies' IP addresses. Companies currently in your account will appear with a HubSpot icon. 

When adding a company to your CRM from buyer intent, the company will have a Record source property value of Buyer-Intent. Learn more about the Record source property.

Please note: custom intent properties are directly linked to their visitor intent criteria. For example, if you have SMB Intent as a criterion and a custom property called Showing SMB Intent, that property will automatically update to reflect whether an existing company meets or no longer meets the SMB Intent criteria.

However, these custom properties aren't designed to be updated by saved views in buyer intent or when you add a company from buyer intent into your HubSpot account.

  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
  2. In the left panel, you can filter your companies:
    • Time frame: filter by the timeframe when the company last visited your website. For example, you can filter by companies that have visited your website in the last 14 days.
      • This timeframe is based on midnight UTC, it will not be based on your local timezone or your account's timezone. 
      • You can only set timeframes within the last 90 days. 
    • Showing visitor intent: filter by companies that have met at least one intent criteria. Learn more about defining Intent
    • Traffic source: filter by what is detected at the URL level for tracked visits. HubSpot checks the full page URL using a specific order and rules. Learn more about traffic source order and rules.
    • Visitor country: filter companies by the country identified from the IP address of website visitors.
    • Specific page views: filter by companies that have visited specific pages. Click the dropdown menus to select:
      • Path: 
        • Path is equal to
        • Path is not equal to
        • Path contains
        • Path does not contain
        • Path starts with
      • Domain: select all or one of your domains.
    • In my target markets: filter by companies that meet your Target Markets criteria. Learn more about adding target markets
    • Filter by segment: if you have a Starter, Professional, or Enterprise subscription and your account has HubSpot Credits, you can choose to show or exclude specific company segments from your views within buyer intent. This does not consume HubSpot Credits.
      • This filter will only work if you've chosen All companies or Companies in my CRM in the HubSpot CRM filter. If you've selected the Companies not in my CRM option, the Filter by segment option will not be available. 
      • To filter your buyer intent views by segment:
        • Click to toggle the Filter by segment switch on. 
        • Click the first dropdown menu and select Exclude companies in or Only show companies in
        • Then, click the second dropdown menu and select the checkboxes next to the segments that you'd like to include or exclude from buyer intent.
    • HubSpot CRM: choose to filter by All companies, Companies not in my CRM, or Companies in my CRM. If you've chosen All companies or Companies in my CRM, you can use the following additional filters: 
      • Lifecycle stage: filter by the lifecycle stage of the corresponding company record, such as Customer or Subscriber
      • Deal Stage: filter by pipeline-oriented deal stages through the Deal stage property of the company's associated deal records.
      • Owner: filter by the company record's assigned owner
  1. To save your filters as a view:
    • At the bottom, click Save view.
    • In the dialog box, enter a view name
    • Click Save
  2. To access previously saved filters:
    • At the top left, click the Saved filters tab. Then, click the filter that you'd like to use.
    • To edit the view, click Edit view. After editing the view, click Save view. To dismiss your edits, click Dismiss
    • To rename a view, click More and select Rename View
    • To delete a filter, at the bottom, click More. Then, select Delete View
The buyer intent tool, displaying saved views with the options to rename view, set up auto-add, create email digest, and delete view.
  1. To adjust the sort order, at the top right, click Page views and select from the following options. All options can be set to Ascending or Descending
    • Page views: sort companies by the total number of page views from each company. by default, companies in the buyer intent table are sorted by pageviews in descending order.
    • Unique visitors: sort companies by the number of unique website visitors from each company. 
    • Last visit: sort companies by the most recent visit date from visitors associated with each company. 

The buyer intent tool, highlighting the option to sort companies by page view.

  1. To review more details on a specific company:
    • Click the View company icon.
    • To review the most viewed pages for that company, click the Top page views tab. 
      • If you're reviewing companies that have shown intent, the specific domain and page path that qualified the company will be tagged with Intent
    • To review the most recent page views from a company, including IP-derived country and date and time of the website visit, click the Recent page views tab.
    • To review additional details about the company, such as a brief description of the company, the company's industry, count of employees, or country, click the About tab. 
    • To review any existing contacts associated with a company, click the Contacts tab. You can also review the contact's last touch, last engagement, and any recently scheduled interactions such as planned meetings.
    • If the company has been added as a company record in your account, in the top right, click View record
    • If you have a Starter, Professional, or Enterprise subscription and your account has HubSpot Credits, you can add companies to your CRM records and segments:
      • If the company does not currently exist as a record in your account, in the top right, click + Add to companies. to create a new company record. 
      • To add the company to an existing static segment:
        • In the top right, click + Add to static segment. If the company does not currently exist as a record in your account, it will automatically be added as a new record. 
        • In the dialog box, click the dropdown menu and select a segment. Then, click Add
    • After reviewing the company details, click the X icon in the top right. 

Add companies to your CRM records and segments 

HubSpot Credits required To add companies to your CRM records and segments, you must have HubSpot credits.

Subscription required To add companies to your CRM records and segments, you must have a Starter, Professional or Enterprise subscription.

Permissions required To add companies to your CRM records and segments, you must have Data Enrichment permissions.

  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
  2. To add an individual company to your HubSpot company records, click the + plus icon next to the company. 
  3. To add multiple companies to your HubSpot company records in bulk, select the checkboxes next to the companies' names. At the top, click + Add to companies
  4. To add multiple companies to an existing static segment:
    • Select the checkboxes next to the companies' names.
    • At the top, click + Add to static segment. If any of the selected companies do not currently exist as a record in your account, they will automatically be added as new records. 
    • In the dialog box, click the dropdown menu and select a segment. Then, click Add
  5. In the dialog box, review the count of records to enrich, and the credits available in your account. At the bottom, click Add enriched records

Please note: the credit balance reflects the number of credits in your account. Depending on your enrichment settings or if other users are in the account using credits, this number may have changed between actions.

Enroll companies in a workflow

You can enroll companies directly from buyer intent into a workflow:

  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
  2. On the Overview tab, select the checkbox next to any company you want to enroll in a workflow.
  3. At the top of the table, click Enroll in workflow.
  4. In the dialog box, click the dropdown menu and select an existing workflow.
  5. Click Enroll.

The buyer intent tool, displaying the option to enroll a company in a workflow.

Exclude companies from buyer intent

HubSpot Credits required To exclude up to 100 companies from the buyer intent overview and companies tabs, saved views, auto-adds, and email digests, you must have HubSpot Credits.

To exclude an individual company:

  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
  2. On the Companies tab, hover over a company and click the + plus icon. Then, select Add to exclusions.

The buyer intent tool, highlighting the option to add a company to exclusions.

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.

To add a company back in to your buyer intent tool:

  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. Delete the domain from the exclusion list, then click Save. Or to remove all domains, click Remove.

Analyze your buyer intent overview

From the Overview tab, you can analyze the penetration of your target markets and total addressable market from the companies visiting your website. 

  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Buyer Intent.
  2. At the top, click the Overview tab.
  3. To change the timeframe for the Intent Funnel report, in the top right, click Last 7 days, Last 14 days, or Last 30 days.
  4. After selecting your timeframe, you can review the following: 
    • Total Addressable Market (TAM): the count of companies that meet your target market criteria. Click View Target Markets to review these companies on the Buyer Intent tab. 
    • Showing Intent: the count of companies in your TAM that meet your intent criteria. Click View companies showing intent to review these companies on the Buyer Intent tab. 
    • Engaged: the count of companies in your TAM that also exist as company records and meet your intent criteria. Click View engaged companies to review these companies on the Buyer Intent tab. 
       

The buyer intent funnel report, displaying the number of companies in the total addressable market, companies showing visitor intent, and captured companies. 

  1. In the hot accounts section, you can review new companies in your target markets that have shown intent, but do not currently exist in your account as a company record. 
    • To add a hot account as a company record, click the + plus icon next to the account name. 
    • To review a list of all hot accounts on the Buyer Intent page, click Show me recent hot accounts. This will display all hot accounts from the last 7 days. 
  2. In the market penetration section, you can review the following:
    • Total Addressable Market (TAM): the count of companies that meet your target criteria.
    • Market Penetration: the percentage of companies in your TAM that are currently in your CRM records. 
    • Market opportunity: the count of companies in your TAM that are not currently in your CRM records. 
  3. To review the companies that have visited your site from each target market, click the rightarrow icon next to the category type. 

Use buyer intent in your company records

Add the Buyer Intent card to your company records to review buyer intent data directly from your company records. 

Add the buyer intent card to your company records

Permissions required To add the Buyer Intent card to your company records, users must have Customize record page layout or Super Admin permissions.

  1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings settings icon in the top navigation bar.
  2. In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Objects, then select Companies.

  3. At the top, click the Record Customization tab.

  4. To edit the default view, click Default view or click the name of an existing team view (Professional and Enterprise only).
  5. In the left or right column, click Add cards.
  6. After adding your card, in the top right, click Save and exit. Learn more about customizing cards on your CRM records
     

Company record customization settings, highlighting the option to "add card" for the buyer intent card on the company record's left sidebar. 

Review the buyer intent card in your company records

After adding the Buyer intent card, you can review buyer intent data directly from your company records. If a company does not have buyer intent data, the card will still appear but display empty values. 
  1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Companies.
  2. In your left or right sidebars, review your Buyer Intent card.
    • Website visits: the count sessions of website visits from this company. 
    • Unique visitors: the count of unique visitors that have visited your website from this company. 
    • Last seen: the date and time of the last visit from a visitor from this company. 
    • Top page views: the pages with the most visits from visitors from this company. 
  3. To view all buyer intent activity, click View full visit activity. You will be redirected to the company profile on the Buyer intent page.

The buyer intent CRM card, displaying visitor indent data, such as website views, unique visitors, and top pages.

 

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