At Made With Intent, we help you understand in real-time where your visitor’s are in their journey, to allow you to personalise to them appropriately. To do this, we structure our data points into the framework of Intent Stages, Signals and Trends.
This article walks you through what each one means and how they work together.
Intent Stages
Intent Stages represent the visitor’s overall mindset. It’s not about which page they’re on, but how ready they are to buy. They give you context to your visitor.
Visitor’s move through the intent stages in a linear journey, and won’t move backwards. They act as the overarching guide to give you context on your visitor.
Stage | Description |
Low Intent | Visitors who have not yet demonstrated any real intent |
Building Intent | Visitors whose intent is not yet high, but is growing positively |
High Intent | Visitors who have high intent |
Intent Signals
Intent Signals are real-time behavioural clues that indicate what a shopper might do next. They’re dynamic, and reflect the current state of the visitor’s session.
Signal | What It Means | Abbreviation | Strength Range |
Purchase Confidence | Intent to convert (within 14 days) | xC | Very Low → Very High |
Readiness to Add to Bag | Likelihood to add an item to cart | xATC | Very Low → Very High |
Likelihood to Abandon | Likelihood to exit the site in this session | xE | Very Low → Very High |
Likelihood to Return | Intent to return in a future session | xR | Very Low → Very High |
Product Affinity | A visitor has built intent whilst engaging with specific products | — | Top / All / No Affinities |
Page Affinity | A visitor has built intent whilst engaging with specific pages | — | Top / All / No Affinities |
Shopper Mindset | Where a visitor is in their shopping journey | — | Discovering / Considering / Not Actively Shopping |
Signal strength for the top four signals is scored from “Very Low” to “Very High,” based on behaviour percentile ranges. Giving you a clear sense of urgency or opportunity.
Intent Trends
While signals show what’s happening now, Intent Trends tell you how this trend is changing.
Trend | What It Means |
Increasing | The behaviour is trending upwards |
Neutral | The behaviour is neither trending upwards or downwards |
Decreasing | The behaviour is trending downwards |
These trends add further context to your signals, helping you decide not just who to act on but when to act.
How It All Comes Together
Think of this framework as a live intent engine:
Intent Stage tells you their mindset
Intent Signal tells you what they’re doing
Intent Trend tells you how that behaviour is evolving
Together, they help you focus on the right people at the right time with the right message.
Data Visualisation Examples
Data Visualisation Examples
The graphs below bring our framework to life with real visitor examples across our Signals of Purchase Confidence, Likelihood to Return, Readiness to Add to Cart and Likelihood to Exit. You can see visitors moving through the Intent Stages, and their Signal trend increasing and decreasing throughout their journey.
