The Intent Maturity Scale is your roadmap to mastering customer personalisation using real-time intent.
It’s a framework developed by Made With Intent to help brands understand their current level of sophistication in identifying and acting on customer intent, and to guide you toward higher-impact, more appropriate experiences.
It guides our Customer Success Programmes and how we work with you; building your and your teams capability across in-session and post-visit.
Level 1: Understanding Intent
Level 1: Understanding Intent
Learn how intent can help you think and act visitor-first
Estimated time to complete: 2 - 4 weeks, low-touch
This stage is crucial for you to be able to get the full value out of the Made With Intent product and advance through to the later stages.
It will equip you with the foundations of being able to think about your visitors in a different way. This gives you data to challenge your existing reporting measures, guiding you to make decisions that balance hitting both short-term targets and long-term measures (LTV, reputation, repeat visits). Only by understanding the data can you then optimise it.
Why is this level important?
We’re here to up-skill your teams to shift from a website reporting and analysis that is one-size-fits-all approach, to really understanding the composition of your visitors, how users move through their decision making and where they are in that buying cycle.
You’ll learn how Intent Stages, Signals, Trends and Affinities map to real-time behaviour and the visitor’s end to end journey.
Currently, journey analysis is thought of in a linear funnel, where experiences are optimised on a page template basis. Funnels are created with page drop outs (x% of users reached a product page, y% of users bounced). We see this type of analysis as website-first (not user first), designing for pages instead of people, and therefore they create generic experiences assuming they work for everyone all the time.
Intent allows you to advocate moving away attribute-based proxies (device, channel, page template) to user-first predictions which are adaptive based on what a customer needs at that point in time.
At this level, we help you:
See the composition of your traffic based on the intent of the user
Understand where the user is in their shopping journey
Primary Benefit: Understanding this means that you’re able to be an innovative participant in internal sessions; seen and known for understanding your users at a level that most brands overlook. The next level will see you act on that.
What will you be doing at this level?
Reading and reviewing our help centre, framework and articles that help challenge existing optimisation efforts
Onboarding sessions with the Made With Intent team to equip you with a core understanding of the Intent Framework; Stages, Signals, Trends and Affinities
Exploring pre-built segments within the platform, and the Segment Assistant to get a better understanding of your traffic
Setting up any Analytics & CRM integrations, with an understanding of the data points being sent via Session Summaries
How will you know you’re ready to move to Level 2?
You’ll have all completed the Made With Intent learning sessions
You and your team are confidently using Made With Intent language in sessions and see that being used in internal meetings
You and your team are confident in understanding what Intent Stages and Signals are and how they can be used for activation
You and your team are starting to explore the Integrations you’ve set-up, to enhance existing analytics or segment users within Analytics Platforms, CDPs or CRMs
You understand the Intent framework and can apply that to building segments designed for your business objectives
Recommendations
Challenge conversion rate and attribute-based metrics within internal sessions. Use our segments to show your conversion rate based on user intent
Start to question “what is the intent of the user” in internal sessions
Question and acknowledge current analysis is retrospective; advocate real-time intervention within internal sessions
Level 2: Optimising Experiences
Level 2: Optimising Experiences
Connect your current tactics with intent to create more impact
Estimated time to complete: this could take any time from 6-12+ months, utilising resource to better target existing experiences. Many customers may stay here for longer periods
This is where you and your teams begin to prove the commercial value of intent. Intent becomes a segmentation criteria within your optimisation efforts. Acting on the data, and proving that intent is a more effective and efficient way of working, that less can be more, means you can see see a direct commercial benefit from your thinking.
Why is this level important?
Once you’ve developed a clear understanding of intent data; what it is and how it signals different levels of customer motivation, the next step is to apply that insight to improve experiences you’re already running.
Currently, you’ll be creating experiences at a page level, perhaps with some form of segment that’s based on an attribute (user lands on a particular page, comes from a specific traffic source). Perhaps even site-wide such as “show discount code on land to all users”. This is because your current forms of analysis prior to understanding intent was limited to website-first methods of measurement. We optimise what we measure.
But now that we understand visitor intent (level 1), an evolved measurement, we can optimise accordingly.
Rather than launching new experiences, we recommend your teams start by using intent to better time and target what you’re already doing. These are existing features and campaigns like pop-ups, discounts, social proof, email capture, and CRM campaigns. The goal is simple: make what you already have work harder, by showing it when it matters most.
Primary benefit: Prove the commercial value of acting on user intent. By timing experiences and tactics better you will be able to see that less can be more. Dependant on the use case optimisation, you can influence purchase intent by 24%.
You can either get started with running AB tests, or you may want to analyse existing tests you are running by Intent. For example, if you have a Social Proof experience live, you can add in an event of someone’s level of Intent at the time they are served the experience. This will allow you to analyse, how does this experience perform for a visitor who is building intent vs those with high intent? To then inform optimisations.
If you aren’t running existing experiences, you can start straight away with running AB tests based on Intent segmentation. By running tests within the Made With Intent platform or through your own tools, you can start to understand which segments should be used for your use cases, whilst demonstrating clear ROI that aligns with your business. These gains come from more intelligent deployment: protecting margin with targeted discounts, reducing noise from urgency tactics without hurting performance and boosting sign-ups and LTV by aligning email prompts with the right moments.
At the same time, you may start to use this for your existing post-visit strategies. Using Intent Session Summaries to analyse and refine existing strategies like Abandon Browse, Abandon Cart and re-marketing. This means fewer irrelevant follow-ups, and more timely messages that reflect where someone is in their buying journey. Driving long-term value and turning missed conversions into customers.
Because this stage focuses on refining existing experiences, it demands very little additional resource. That makes it a fast, low-friction way to demonstrate ROI and build confidence internally.
What will you be doing at this level?
In-Session
Campaign Manager Workshop (on-page) with you and your teams being up-skilled to create campaigns yourselves
Analyse existing experiences with an Intent lens, understanding how they perform for visitors based on the Stage they are in
Review use case playbooks aligned for your business objectives, highlighting which use case is best to start (value vs effort)
Once a use case is selected, you’ll create campaigns to learn which segments the experience is most effective for using our Experimentation Framework
You’ll analyse campaigns through the Campaign Manager, looking at results by Intent metrics and segmentation. Taking learnings into future iterations, getting more granular in your segmentation
You’ll analyse experiences outside of the Made With Intent platform eg. for those you are running through an AB testing
Post-Visit
CRM workshop to up-skill you on post-visit use cases and opportunities
You’ll begin optimising existing campaigns (such as Abandon Browse & Abandon Cart) using Intent Session Summaries
You may analyse campaigns using Intent to begin with, before segmenting who receives them based on the Intent framework
How will you know you’re ready to move to Level 3?
You and your team are now thinking and challenging “When is this feature right in someone’s journey, based on their intent?”
You’re seeing success from using Intent Stages & Signals to optimise what you’re already doing, with always-on campaigns. Such as increasing purchase intent, protecting margin and increasing sign-ups
You’re now thinking about the next steps, questioning “How can I use Intent to support me with wider business objectives?” or “How could I make this feature work harder?”
The successes are being shared with the wider business, to demonstrate the value of Intent
Recommendations
Review our use case playbooks to get inspiration and see what use cases are right for you
Integrate our data set into your existing tech stack eg. AB testing tool, CRM, analytics tool, meaning you can analyse existing experiences and campaigns based on intent (stage, signal, segment)
We recommend you still measure conversion rate, but balance that analysis with intent analysis eg. high intent, or purchase confidence (xC™)
Level 3: Surfacing Insights
Level 3: Surfacing Insights
You’re now exploring your website, and objectives in an Intent-first, user focused way. Highlighting opportunities that may have been overlooked.
Estimated time to complete: 1-3 weeks to get started, but you’ll use this understanding throughout your Intent journey to understand your visitors and highlight new opportunities
Now you and your teams have clearly demonstrated the value of Intent within the business, it’s time to move beyond individual tactics and begin understanding your website, and business objectives, through the lens of the Intent framework.
Why is this level important?
Now you’ve proven the commercial value of acting on Intent through tactical optimisation, the next step is to scale that impact to more strategic journeys.
Currently, many teams still analyse performance based on isolated page metrics, behavioural proxies, or basic funnels. You might be looking at things like drop-off or bounce rate, but not understanding the visitor’s mindset at that point in time. This approach is rooted in template based thinking, with experiences designed around pages and the website, not the user.
This level changes that. It allows you to analyse your site’s performance not just by pages or sessions, but by Intent Signals, Stages and Trends across key objectives - whether that’s a specific category, traffic source or page type.
This deeper level of analysis allows you to understand what your visitors actually need. You move from thinking website-first, to user-first. Enabling you to start forming hypotheses, designing targeted in-session experiences, and planning post-visit strategies rooted in real behaviour, not assumptions.
The result? A holistic view of your website, where intent and users become the primary lens for optimisation. This stage unlocks a new level of insight and ownership for your team, empowering them to think more like journey architects than page editors. Setting the stage for more strategic experimentation.
Primary benefit: This level marks the transition from improving tactics to shaping strategy. You’ll uncover what your visitors actually need, when they need it, and begin using that insight to influence site wide experience design. You’re no longer just optimising features, you’re reframing how your organisation sees it’s visitors.
What will you be doing at this level?
In-Session & Post-Visit
You’ll be using the our Session Summaries to explore the Intent Framework based on things such as business objective, pages, or traffic source to create hypotheses
You’ll undertake exploration of at least 1 x key objective, with support from the MWI team
You’ll also analyse at least 1 x objective independently, to showcase your knowledge of the tool and insights
How will you know you’re ready to move to Level 4?
You have a variety of new hypotheses, related to your business objectives, you want to test in different ways, based on findings from Session Summary analysis
You’re thinking about customer time on pages as adaptive experiences, not just fixed templates and experiences
You think of your eCommerce strategy as user-first, not website-first
Recommendations
Explore your business objectives using our Session Summaries, documenting hypotheses for new experiences
Introduce Intent-First questions into optimisation meetings, reframing discussions from questions such as ‘What’s the bounce rate on this page?’ to ‘What stage are these visitors in?’
Run a workshop using Intent data, mapping out how different users are behaving from an Intent lens to help visualise opportunities
Level 4: Directing Campaigns
Level 4: Directing Campaigns
You’re moving from optimisation to innovation; building smarter, intent-first experiences for your key segments
Estimated time to complete: 6-12+ months (you could spend a long time in this phase!), utilising resource to target un-tapped opportunity
At this stage, you and your team have built confidence in using Intent to optimise existing features, and see your visitor experience in a new way. Now it’s time to unlock new opportunity - moving from refining what’s already live to creating new experiences based on visitor’s Intent.
You’ll begin testing different types of in-session and post-visit experiences. Not just adjusting when they appear, but what they say, how they’re delivered and how they evolve throughout a visitor’s journey.
From dynamic overlays and in-page content, to sequenced CRM flows and personalised remarketing, you’re thinking beyond features, and toward adaptive, intent-first journeys.
Why is this level important?
Now that you’ve built a clear understanding of user intent and have used it to optimise existing tactics, it’s time to go further - turning insight into innovation.
Level 4 is where you start creating new experiences that couldn’t exist without Intent data.
Many companies are still relying on one-size-fits-all templates, with experiences based on basic segmentation rules. Even when features are better timed (like you’ve done in Level 2), content itself is still generic. This limits your ability to personalise in way which reflects real visitor behaviour and mindset.
But now, armed with the new hypotheses from Level 3, you can begin to test new experiences that are directly shaped from Intent based insights and opportunities across both in-session and post-visit journeys. This also means testing different campaign types, such as sequenced and dynamic content, that enable more meaningful, personalised engagement throughout a visitor’s journey. On-site, you’ll go beyond overlays and begin to experiment with the delivery and design of in-page content. Post-visit, you’ll explore personalised CRM flows and re-marketing strategies, using the Intent framework to shape messaging beyond the session to drive LTV.
Rather than asking ‘Should we show this feature?’, you’re now asking ‘What’s the right experience for this moment, and how should it evolve as Intent shifts?’. You’ll also begin personalising the content of experiences, not just their timing, based on the visitor’s Intent Stage, Signal, Trend and Affinities.
This level unlocks richer personalisation without requiring large resource investments. Instead, you’re working smarter and designing experiences that respond to context. Testing new ideas faster than ever before. It’s the first major step toward intent-orchestrated journeys.
Primary benefit: You’re moving beyond tactical wins to strategic creativity. You begin to create and test new experiences that wouldn’t be possible without Intent. Setting the stage for full-scale journey orchestration in Level 5.
Key Activities:
In-Session
Launching new experiences based on Intent insights, and taking optimised features a step further
You’re testing new experiences based on your objectives, and validating in-page content as part of the delivery mechanism
You and your team are utilising advanced campaign types (sequenced, dynamic) to achieve this. Understanding the relationship(s) between overlays, and in-page content
You’re continuing to analyse based on Intent to drive iterations.
You’re also thinking about how content of optimised features can be tailored based on where a visitor is in their journey
Post-Visit
You’re thinking about how you can personalise existing campaigns based on Intent, and about new scenarios based on insights you’ve found, being sent through Session Summaries to your CRM or CDP
Campaigns such as Abandon Browse will be personalised using data points such as Signals and Affinities
You’re introducing new flows based on insights, which are being tested and validated using Intent metrics
You’re personalising existing remarketing campaigns, and creatives, based on a visitor’s Intent Signals and Affinities, as well as thinking of new ones to test
How will you know you’re ready to move to Level 5?
You are testing a variety of new experiences outside of existing tactics, in-session and post-visit, based on Intent insights
You have validated multiple different delivery mechanisms for in-session experiences, both on-page and in-page
Pages are no longer seen in the business as having one template, but instead, adaptable based on the Intent framework
Your business as a whole is consistently thinking from an Intent-first mindset, with teams across ecommerce regularly mentioning it at the beginning of ideas, and driving it throughout the organisation
You’re beginning to think about the end to end journey of a customer, both in-session and post-visit, and how intent led experiences work with one another
Recommendations
Move your hypotheses into experiences, either through the Campaign Manager, a third-party testing tool or your CRM. Continue to analyse experiences based on Intent, as well as Conversion
Test both timing and content. Take your previously optimised features and think about how the content should evolve as a visitor moves through their journey
Customise your largest post-visit flows, using Intent Session Summaries, and think about new flows for your largest visitor journeys
Share results with your wider team, highlighting the Intent insights that led to an experience, and the results. This will help to build momentum for Level 5
Level 5: Orchestrating Journeys
Level 5: Orchestrating Journeys
Intent is now the contextual engine that powers eCommerce for the business
Estimated time to complete: Ongoing. This is your new way of working, where intent becomes embedded across teams and journeys.
At this stage, you’re not just using Intent to optimise or experiment. You’re using it to design, deliver, and adapt your entire customer journey.
In Level 5, experiences in-session and post-visit are no longer launched in isolation. Instead, they work together as a connected adaptive journey, based on real-time Intent data and aligned to your business objectives.
Your business is aligned around the same language, journeys are designed end-to-end. Intent is the cornerstone of your ecommerce strategy.
Why is this level important?
At this stage, you’ve successfully tested and validated new, Intent-first experiences, both in-session and post-visit. You have your core experiences powered by Intent, and are layering additional personalisations on top. Now, the goal is not just to launch experiences, but to orchestrate them as one connected journey, powered by real-time Intent across every touchpoint.
Today, many brands still treat customer interactions as disconnected moments, managed by siloed teams and deployed in isolation. This creates fragmented experiences, even when the tactics are personalised, and limits your ability to scale value from Intent.
In Level 5, Intent becomes the operating system for your entire customer experience. You’ll move from optimising isolated features to designing adaptive journeys that flow seamlessly across in-page content, on-page content, CRM flows and remarketing campaigns. And they’re all triggered by real-time Intent Stages, Signals, Trends and Affinities.
You and your wider team now works with orchestration at the front of your mind;
Journeys are designed end-to-end with Intent at the core
Every experience serves a clear objective, and adapts based on real-time visitor context
Overlays are used sparingly and precisely, with highly relevant content to the visitor
In this final stage you’ve fully transformed how your business thinks about experience design. Intent has become the thread that connects teams, journeys and your business objectives.
Primary benefit: Intent becomes the engine of your eCommerce strategy. You’re no longer reacting to behaviour in isolation. You’re orchestrating journeys in real time, reducing effort whilst increasing commercial impact.
Key Activities:
Across In-Session and Post-Visit, end-to-end journeys are mapped based on Insights derived from our Session Summaries. All related directly to business objectives.
In-Session
In-page and on-page experiences are mapped together, both used at optimal times based on the context of the visitor from the Intent Framework.
You’re using in-page and on-page experiences together to deliver one journey, testing these journeys throughout, and analysing by Intent
This is delivered through advanced campaign types (sequenced, dynamic)
Multiple customer journeys go live, and are validated, with the ability to be dialled up or down based on business performance (for example, discount amounts)
All new experiences are thought of Intent-first, and tested before being put live to all visitors within the segment
Post-Visit
CRM: All of your campaigns are built using the Intent framework, based on opportunities found in from our Session Summaries, aligning to the in-session customer journey
Remarketing: Customers receive campaigns and creatives, based on Intent framework and the end-to-end journeys, with all new campaigns based on Intent
Traffic quality is continually understood and optimised based on the Intent framework
How will you know you’re succeeding at this?
You’ll have combined on-page overlays, in-page content, CRM journeys and remarketing campaigns to build full journeys based on customer intent, related to key objectives
Intent is seen as fundamental to delivering the businesses eCommerce experience, with all conversations having an Intent-first approach. For example, when discussing new features or new tech solutions
Recommendations
Start by mapping out one full end-to-end Intent journey. Choose a key objective and map every touchpoint using Intent Stages, Signals, Trends and Affinities as your guide. This becomes your Service Blueprint
Use Intent as a shared language across the business. Continuously encourage teams to use Intent Stages and Signals when designing new experiences, and prioritising features
Monitor health using the platform insights. Use your performance dashboard and campaign manager to continuously track the value journeys are delivering, and iterations that can be made
How Progression Works
The maturity model is not a checklist. It's a strategic map from understanding to control. Teams move forward as they validate, build confidence and evolve how they think about journeys.
Some businesses may pause for long periods in Stage 1-2 while proving ROI, and the early stages may happen together. Others may rapidly progress as they embed intent into broader strategy. What matters is that each stage builds confidence, intelligence, ownership and impact, without adding operational complexity.