Milena Traikovich has built a career on turning data into demand, helping businesses cut through the noise to nurture high-quality leads. With deep experience in analytics and performance optimization, she’s an expert at transforming raw buying signals into powerful, aligned go-to-market strategies. We sat down with her to explore how intent data is being used in unique and effective ways, moving beyond simple targeting to inform everything from content creation and product roadmaps to fostering true collaboration between marketing, sales, and advertising teams.
Marketers often build audiences on assumptions. How can teams use intent data to activate coordinated campaigns across digital, media, and sales outreach? Please walk me through the process and share an example of how this focuses spend on accounts that are actively showing interest.
It’s a classic marketing headache: spending weeks manually building a target audience based on firmographics and educated guesses, only to have your campaigns fall flat. Intent data completely flips that script. Instead of starting with who we think is interested, we start with who is actively showing interest right now. You can activate these intent-driven, off-the-shelf audiences almost instantly. This means your digital ad team, your media partners, and your sales development reps are all working from the same dynamic list of in-market accounts. It’s a huge shift that brings incredible precision, ensuring every dollar is focused on engaging accounts that are already on their buying journey, rather than just shouting into the void.
Many teams struggle to create messages that resonate. How does knowing the specific topics organizations are researching change content strategy? Could you describe how this helps build a more relevant editorial calendar and what kind of performance uplift, like improved click-through rates, you have seen?
There’s a real anxiety that comes with launching a big content piece, that feeling of holding your breath and just hoping it lands. Intent data puts an end to that guessing game. It gives you a direct view into the exact topics and keywords that your target accounts are actively researching. Suddenly, your editorial calendar isn’t based on what you think buyers need; it’s grounded in real, timely demand. You can create content that meets them exactly where they are, answering the questions they’re already asking. The impact is tangible. I’ve seen cases where online publishers using this kind of data, like Bombora’s Company Surge®, have boosted their click-through rates by as much as 60%. That’s the difference between being part of the conversation and just being more noise.
Beyond marketing, it’s suggested that real-time research trends can inform a product roadmap. How can go-to-market teams use these buying signals to identify unmet needs? Please provide a step-by-step example of how this insight travels from the data to the product team for prioritization.
This is one of the most exciting, and often overlooked, applications. Imagine your go-to-market team notices a consistent, growing surge in research around a specific feature or problem that your product only partially solves. That’s not just a marketing signal; it’s a product signal. The first step is for the GTM team to package that insight—the specific topics, the volume of interest, and the profile of the accounts researching it. They then bring this data to the product team, framing it as a clear, market-validated opportunity. It moves the conversation from “I think we should build this” to “The market is actively searching for a solution to this, and here’s the proof.” This data-driven evidence makes it much easier for product to prioritize the feature on their roadmap, knowing there’s a hungry audience waiting for it.
Marketing, sales, and advertising teams often operate in silos. How can a shared view of buyer intent data help align these teams around a common goal? Could you share an anecdote where this alignment led to a more coordinated and successful go-to-market execution?
Silos are the silent killers of GTM strategies. Marketing celebrates a lead, but sales says it’s cold; advertising runs a campaign, but sales has no visibility into which accounts were engaged. A shared signal from intent data is the perfect antidote because it creates a single source of truth. Everyone is looking at the same dashboard of accounts showing buying signals. I remember one team where marketing used intent data to identify a cluster of accounts surging on a competitor’s name. They immediately spun up a targeted ad campaign for that audience while simultaneously alerting the sales team. The sales reps could then tailor their outreach, referencing the exact pain points that drove the competitor research in the first place. It was a beautiful, coordinated play that simply wouldn’t have been possible if they were all working from separate, siloed information.
The value of intent data lies in driving action, not just providing insight. What are the most common roadblocks teams face when trying to translate buyer signals into timely execution, and what practical steps can they take to overcome them for faster activation?
The biggest roadblock is often operational inertia. Teams get this incredibly rich data, but their processes are too slow or disconnected to act on it in the moment. The signal says an account is hot today, not next quarter. To overcome this, the most practical step is to create pre-defined “plays” or workflows. For example, when an account reaches a certain intent threshold, it should automatically trigger a specific action: add it to a digital ad campaign, enroll it in a nurture sequence, and create a task for a sales rep—all without manual intervention. This removes the friction and ensures that you’re not just admiring the data, but actually connecting those early buying signals to immediate, coordinated execution across the entire GTM team.
What is your forecast for the role of intent data in go-to-market strategies over the next few years?
My forecast is that intent data will stop being a specialized tool for top-of-funnel marketing and become the central nervous system for the entire go-to-market organization. As the buyer’s journey becomes even more complex and self-directed, having that shared, real-time signal of what buyers care about will be non-negotiable. It will be the essential connective tissue that allows teams to move with confidence and agility, reducing guesswork and ensuring that every single touchpoint—from an ad to a sales call to a product feature—is perfectly aligned with the customer’s immediate needs. It won’t just be an advantage; it will be the baseline for a successful strategy.
