Updated August 21, 2023: We brought the definitions of and advances in predictive intelligence up to date.
The field of predictive intelligence is growing quickly. For the past 10 years, companies have been gathering lots of analytics and big data. Today, the advances in AI and machine learning allow us to not only analyze but predict what’s going to happen based on large historical datasets and behavioral patterns.
Practical applications of AI, such as predictive intelligence for sales, are possible due to the emergence of new products and services that help sales and marketing teams solve previously time-consuming business problems.
What is the science of predictive intelligence? How does predictive intelligence for sales help reach business goals? Why is predictive intelligence considered to be the most promising technology to change sales and marketing in the near future?
Tip: Get the benefits of predictive intelligence for sales today with Lift AI. Identify the most promising prospects as soon as they land on your website, and reach out right when their buyer intent is at the highest point.
What Is Predictive Intelligence for Sales?
The definition (and the power) of predictive intelligence differs depending on the context. It’s common to see it being bundled together with other “predictive” terms, such as predictive analytics, predictive recommendation engines, and predictive marketing. They all describe different versions of the same idea.
Predictive intelligence was born out of behavioral science and can be defined as the process of collecting and processing behavioral data (related to customers, prospects, and leads) from various sources to foresee future actions and events.
All the data that predictive intelligence tools collect is automatically interpreted with the help of algorithmic models that can combine an infinite number of data points and output an action-ready conclusion in seconds.
Note: Nearly all predictive intelligence models in sales and marketing are limited by the hypothesis or framework that was defined by engineers, instead of having true AI-powered self-learning capacity.
The essence of predictive intelligence for sales is in doing something that humans can’t — instantly analyzing large sets of data and making predictions that your team can follow up on.
Think of how useful leveraging behavioral science and complex mathematical models can be on any vast set of data. Your sales strategy and tactics will never be the same again.
Here are a few examples.
Predictive intelligence tools can foresee user churn, on both macro and micro levels. Using this data, you can create marketing campaigns, reorganize customer journeys, hire new people (e.g. a customer relationship manager), and make specific changes to your product or service.
Predictive models powered by artificial intelligence can estimate click-through rates (i.e. the efficacy) of your ad campaigns before you even send them out. Your team can then analyze the most powerful images, tone of voice, schedule, and more. Use this technology to personalize your communications at scale.
Are Predictive Intelligence Tools Accurate?
You might be wary of integrating predictive intelligence tools if you don’t know how accurate and effective they are. Do they move the needle when it comes to your quarterly results?
A Forbes Insights report surveyed 308 executives in North America working for companies with at least $20 million in revenue and found that 86% of them recorded increases in their ROI due to using predictive marketing platforms.
There are two great advantages to using predictive intelligence tools.
First, they work with raw data and remove the emotional (human) component from the equation when they interpret data-based events.
Second, they are able to process unlimited pools of data of any quality or complexity, instantly. This could never be done by a human, even if you have hundreds of data crunchers working for you. As a result, you get better insights, faster, which in turn improves your sales and marketing strategy, and maximizes human resources.
What Are the Predictive Intelligence Tools of the Future?
Nearly all predictive intelligence tools exist in the B2B market, where they can rely on a wealth of customer data from various sources and leverage it to produce accurate insights, score leads, and determine buyer intent.
The frameworks and models that guide predictive intelligence solutions are constantly improving. At the moment, the most impactful update came from the introduction of machine-learning technology and artificial intelligence.
Before, predictive intelligence tools relied on behavioral science hypotheses. Now, the best solutions improve their own predictive models by learning from their own results. They can find the paths to specified success states independently and without oversight.
To do this in the most effective way, the initial machine-learning models have to be fed vast quantities of data, events, and scenarios in the related fields.
Machine learning is capable of analyzing the most subtle cues in the unstructured data and making connections between data points that would look unrelated to humans.
Since the field of predictive intelligence is developing quickly, the leaders aren’t large companies like IBM or Salesforce. They are smaller players, specializing in certain business niches.
For example, when it comes to identifying anonymous buyer intent, there’s no tool more powerful than Lift AI.
Lift AI is the best-in-class anonymous buyer intent solution that accurately picks out the most promising leads in the sea of typical website visitors.
Relying on a proprietary machine-learning model trained on more than one billion data points and millions of sales engagements, Lift AI can read the intent of every single visitor to your website, even if they are anonymous (which up to 98% of them could be) and haven’t been recorded in your CRM or other marketing tools.
And it all happens in real time.
Here’s how Lift AI improves your sales performance:
- Anonymous visitors land on your website
- Lift AI predicts their buyer intent (with 85% accuracy) by matching their displayed behavior to modelled behavior
- High-scoring visitors get connected directly to your sales team for conversion through online chat (or recorded in any other marketing tool)
- Medium and low-scoring visitors are assigned to a nurturing bot or a self-help guide
On average, 9% of any B2B website traffic has high buyer intent, which could represent millions of dollars of extra revenue, but goes unnoticed by companies that don’t use tools like Lift AI.
Using Lift AI, companies see up to 10 times chat conversions within 90 days, since their BDRs get to talk to the most promising visitors first.
For example, PointClickCare increased its conversions by 400%, attributing $1M of extra revenue to its Lift AI integration. Formstack, another customer, increased its conversions by 420%.
Try Lift AI free — for 30 days. No credit card or complex installations required, and the tool can be integrated with your specific marketing stack. Take advantage of predictive intelligence for sales and see immediate improvements in your sales results.
