Intent Data vs Fit Data for Contractors in 2026

Say a roofer working the Raleigh metro receives an intent alert about a company researching roof replacement. The company has several locations, and the alert gives no project address. Across town, a 38,000 square foot warehouse has a 22-year-old membrane roof documented in its maintenance records, but no online research signal appears. The estimator has one opening this week.

I would qualify the warehouse first. Then I would ask which property the researching company has in mind, keeping the alert open while the rep establishes whether that company has a roof we can service inside our territory.

Ground Control by PorchRocket supplies the physical starting point: buildings selected by roof attributes and visible features within your chosen area and size band. Your team adds the conversations that establish the buyer’s plans. That order matters when every survey takes an estimator away from another job.

What is intent data?

Buyer behavior can signal interest in a purchase, from a direct service inquiry to an increase in online reading about a product category.

First-party intent comes from interactions with your business, including inquiry forms and sales conversations. Third-party intent comes from activity collected outside those interactions. An overview of intent data sources explains that distinction and the role of content consumption in identifying research interest.

For a contractor, I would separate a named manager asking for an HVAC maintenance proposal from an unidentified visit to an HVAC article. Both can enter a contact history. They deserve different follow-up.

A request with an address and access instructions can go to qualification immediately. A content signal needs more research. Identify the property and check the service you could sell before looking for the responsible person. Preserve the underlying event. A label such as hot tells the estimator less than a dated request for a maintenance proposal at a named address.

Also distinguish the signal’s subject. Establish whether it identifies an individual or an organization, and whether the organization means one branch or the parent company. Before buying a feed, ask the seller to show the delivered fields on a sample from your territory. Can your rep tell which entity the event concerns? Is there a date? What action generated the score?

My preferred record says what happened and when. A score without that context gives the rep another research task, especially when the account has several facilities and the salesperson cannot tell which location prompted the alert or whether a project exists there.

Ground Control and intent platforms compared

Ground Control is my first choice for finding buildings a trade company can serve; account-level intent platforms address a different purchasing question.

How we compared

For this decision, I would judge each purchase on four criteria:

• Does it identify physical features that qualify the building?
• Can the salesperson connect the record to a service address?
• What is the cost of the next workable territory, including staff time?
• Does the information change which call, survey or proposal happens next?

Option	What you buy	Published cost position in November 2026	Best place in a trade sales process
Ground Control	Buildings selected by property characteristics, with match reasons	$10 to $20 per commercial building; contact research extra	Best for trade companies finding buildings by what is on them
Bombora Company Surge	Organizational research activity compared with a historical baseline	Request a quote; no fixed price on the reviewed overview	Add timing information to accounts already qualified for physical fit
6sense	Account intelligence and predictive intent using multiple activity inputs	Customized quote	Coordinate an established account sales and marketing program

Ground Control for the property list

Ground Control lets a roof service department select older membrane roofs, or an HVAC department select buildings with 5+ visible rooftop units. You pay per building. The file arrives within 48 hours after payment. Owner information and decision-maker research are optional additions. A wrong match receives a credit within 30 days.

Bombora for research activity

Bombora compares an organization’s content activity with its baseline. Its Company Surge threshold guidance describes 60 as the minimum score it recommends for identifying a spike. That number is a research threshold, not a percentage chance of buying your roof job.

For a trade company, I would require a separate property check before acting on the score. Topic relevance does not establish roof material or which branch needs service. The public overview directs buyers to an expert for a quote. Pick it if you already have suitable accounts and a defined use for research timing.

6sense for an account program

The 6sense intent model uses CRM, marketing and web activity alongside other intent inputs to predict an account opening an opportunity within 90 days. Its current pricing page offers customized quotes.

The estimator still needs a property. Before assigning that visit, I would connect the account to a local address and establish the equipment or scope there, even when the account model predicts an opportunity in the next quarter. Pick it if your team already runs coordinated account campaigns and can connect their signals to buildings. The comparison of contact-database alternatives for contractors covers the related decision about buying people records before property records.

Fit data vs firmographic data

Physical attributes tell a contractor whether a property belongs in the territory; company attributes help identify the organization behind that property.

Firmographic data describes a company’s industry and location, along with measures such as revenue or headcount, as defined in this B2B data glossary. Fit is your decision about those attributes. For a commercial trade, expand the decision to include the assets your crew works on and the distance it must travel.

A warehouse tenant might match your preferred industry and company size. Check the roof next. Before assigning an HVAC visit, I would confirm rooftop equipment and ask who handles its service agreement; for a paving visit at that same address, I would look for a paved area and establish who controls it.

Do not count companies as buildings. The Census Bureau’s establishment definition distinguishes a business at one physical location from an enterprise with multiple establishments. Your sales file needs a similar distinction between the account and each service location.

The scale of the building stock reinforces the point. EIA’s commercial-building overview reports about 5.9 million commercial buildings and 96.4 billion square feet in the 2018 survey. Those are 2018 estimates, not a count of buildings seeking work in 2026.

Start a local list with your ideal customer profile for trade accounts: the service, acceptable building types, minimum size and travel boundary. Then select buildings with rooftop HVAC, commercial roof prospects or properties with paved parking areas. Each choice answers a physical question before a rep researches names.

What condition signals can a contractor act on?

Visible roof patches, rust or ponding marks can justify a closer look, while the proposed repair scope should follow an authorized inspection.

Record a visible patch as a patch. Let the survey determine what work is needed, including whether an earlier repair remains serviceable or whether the manager wants a maintenance budget for a roof they intend to keep for several more years. Ask before estimating a replacement.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s low-slope metal roof guidance calls for a condition evaluation and inspection before deciding on repair or replacement after hail. That is the standard of reasoning I would bring to the prospecting record: a visible feature supplies a question for the field visit.

Observation or record	Sales question it supports	Next evidence to collect
Roof in an older age band	When was the last roof review?	Installation and maintenance records, then a survey
Multiple visible rooftop units	Who manages the PM agreement?	Equipment schedule and service responsibilities
Paved parking area	When does the manager review pavement work?	Measured work area and a pavement walk
Loading docks at a warehouse	Who handles dock service?	Site access, equipment inventory and service history

Use the same discipline for the opening warehouse. Its 22-year age comes from the scenario’s maintenance records. Ground Control’s standard commercial age filter is an age band such as 10+ years. Ask for the installation record when a more exact age affects the offer.

A rep can approach that warehouse about a roof review now. Budget approval belongs in a separate field. The guide to demand data for service businesses develops the connection between physical signals and a sales forecast.

When intent earns its place in software and office services

I would give research behavior more weight when the offer can be qualified at company level, such as office software or a centrally purchased business service.

If you sell software to an accounting department, a company researching that software category is close to the entity that might buy. You still have to establish authority and budget, but roof material does not affect delivery. That is why I would spend more on account research signals in that sales process.

Office services need a closer distinction. A remote administrative service can qualify around the organization and its workload. Cleaning requires a site. Before pricing a cleaning agreement, I would want the service area and scope at that address, even if the company fits every account criterion and has spent the week researching commercial cleaning.

For physical trades, intent becomes more persuasive when the account connection is established. A manager who returns your call with a list of sites and a proposal deadline has given you something an estimator can schedule. A general topic alert deserves a smaller time commitment.

I would use paid intent after the team has a good territory file and a repeatable follow-up process. Otherwise, the rep spends the week resolving accounts that should have been screened out before outreach. Review ten sample signals with the person who would work them. Write the next action beside each. Leave a blank where the signal offers no reason to change the rep’s schedule, and count those blanks before approving the purchase.

When another tool is the better buy

An account-intent tool earns the next dollar when physical qualification is already solved and the remaining bottleneck is deciding which buyer to approach.

• A software seller can qualify the offer at company level and needs to rank accounts researching a specific category.
• A national service team already has verified property portfolios and wants to coordinate contact with central purchasing groups.
• A trade company has a staffed account program and a controlled test showing that additional research signals produce profitable opportunities.

I would spend the next dollar on contact research instead if the buildings already fit but nobody can reach the responsible manager. I would spend it on survey capacity if appointments wait weeks for an estimator. Name the bottleneck before buying another source.

Combine fit and intent without mixing the scores

Use physical suitability as an entry requirement, then rank qualified buildings by the strength and recency of their buying signals.

One combined score can hide a poor match. A building outside the crew’s profitable radius should not jump to the top because someone downloaded several articles. Distance still costs money. Keep a fit field and an intent field, with a documented reason behind each.

For an HVAC campaign, my proposed fit gate would require an approved building type, the chosen service area, a suitable size band and 5+ visible rooftop units. Unknown responsibility for the equipment goes into research. A confirmed mismatch goes out of the campaign.

Once a building passes, use this routing sheet. These are starting rules for the sales manager, not a vendor scoring scale.

Physical fit	Buying evidence	Assigned action	Review point
Passes	Named contact requests a proposal for this address	Qualify scope and book access	Same business day
Passes	Manager supplies a future contract-review date	Agree on a follow-up before that review	Date agreed with manager
Passes	Account research signal without a property-specific request	Confirm the property and purchasing responsibility	Next assigned outreach block
Passes	No observed buying signal	Work the planned introduction sequence	Weekly territory review
Unknown	Strong account signal	Resolve address and physical requirements	Before an estimator visit
Fails	Any signal	Close or refer under your territory policy	When the qualifying facts change

Let direct conversation outrank inference. If a manager says the current agreement runs another year and asks you to call before its renewal, store both dates so a later article view does not erase an agreed follow-up. Keep that appointment.

Set recency rules to match the event. I would review a fresh research alert in the next outreach block, while retaining a confirmed renewal date until the manager changes it. The contractor lead-scoring guide provides a fuller scoring sheet for teams that need weights within their qualified territory.

The property record that connects a signal to a job

Keep one record per service address and link it to the owner, occupier or manager only after checking the relationship.

For each address, retain the match reason and the source date. Add the account responsible for the work when your team establishes it. A tenant’s company domain can identify the occupier without answering who hires the roof contractor. Ask that question directly.

My minimum working record would contain these fields:

• Property address and the internal record identifier.
• Physical fit criteria, including the evidence still needed.
• Owner, occupier and management relationships as they are confirmed.
• Buying signal, its source, date and whether it concerns this property.
• Responsible salesperson, next action and due date.
• Survey result, quoted scope and eventual win or loss reason.

Deduplicate at the level where you deliver work. Keep two buildings separate when they need different scopes, even if one manager approves both, and connect those buildings under the same account so two reps do not independently ask that manager for a meeting. Assign one account owner. The sales-intelligence guide for contractors explains how property and account research fit together.

For city, county and school work, Bid Control by PorchRocket adds the public purchasing side: jobs for your trade and area, bid papers, due dates and addenda. Keep those opportunities attached to the buyer’s stated procurement process. A public bid notice provides a different next action from a private account’s research activity.

What does fit data cost in 2026?

Ground Control commercial property records cost $10 to $20 per building, so 240 records cost $2,400 to $4,800 before optional contact research.

Orders start at 10 buildings, or $100 to $200 for the property data. Volume affects the unit price, and the exact amount appears before payment. Owner information and decision-maker contact research are priced separately. Budget for those additions if your staff will not handle that research.

Read the whole intent proposal. Ask for the total committed fee and the allowed use of the resulting records, then add the staff hours needed to connect its company signals to properties before a rep can make an informed call. Compare that total with the cost of delivering a workable territory through property research.

Use this purchasing calculation: total data fees plus research labor, divided by addresses that pass your service criteria. Count each qualified address once. Keep the provider’s match count and your own accepted count in separate columns so the denominator stays visible.

For an intent layer added to an existing list, ask a narrower question: how many additional profitable accounts will it help the same team sign? Existing accounts you would have contacted anyway do not repay the extra fee. Choose a payback period before the test, and measure incremental gross profit during that period.

Use the lead-list ROI guide, the starting point for this money and strategy series, to organize the whole budget. Its cost framework covers the list and the work that follows it.

The same sales hours, two prospecting results

In the following HVAC model, 240 fitting buildings produce four signed accounts within 92 sales hours, compared with one account from a broad file.

A Durham HVAC service department has capacity for four additional PM accounts with its current crews. It compares a generic company file with a list of buildings in its approved service area, at least 25,000 square feet, with 5+ visible rooftop units. Each campaign receives 92 staff hours at a loaded $47 per hour.

The generic file gets a $480 preparation allowance. Ground Control uses the top of its published range: 240 x $20 = $4,800. The staff hours cover contact research, outreach, travel time, surveys and proposals. Each campaign also carries $180 of allocated CRM and administration cost, plus $420 for travel expenses and communications. Staff do the contact research. Any paid contact or intent purchase would enter as another acquisition cost.

Acquisition cost	Ground Control territory	Generic company file
Property list or file preparation	$4,800	$480
Staff time: 92 x $47	$4,324	$4,324
CRM and administration allocation	$180	$180
Travel expenses and communications	$420	$420
Total acquisition spending	$9,724	$5,404

Hold proposal conversion at 20%. The targeted campaign earns more qualified surveys before the hour budget runs out, while the broad-file rep spends more of the same 92 hours establishing whether each company even occupies a suitable building.

Funnel stage	Ground Control territory	Generic company file
Records worked	240	240
Conversations	60, or 25% of records	48, or 20% of records
Qualified surveys	24, or 40% of conversations	8, or about 17% of conversations
Proposals	20, or about 83% of surveys	5, or about 63% of surveys
Signed accounts	4, or 20% of proposals	1, or 20% of proposals
Cost per signed account	$2,431	$5,404

The target list produces four times the signed work from the same sales hours. The extra data spend is $4,320; acquisition cost per account falls by $2,973. Here is the labor allocation behind that comparison:

Staff activity	Ground Control territory	Generic company file
Property qualification and contact research	12 hours	52 hours
Calls and other outreach	20 hours	20 hours
Travel for surveys	12 hours	5 hours
Preliminary PM surveys, 1 hour each	24 hours	8 hours
PM proposals, 1 hour each	20 hours	5 hours
Follow-up and scheduling	4 hours	2 hours
Total	92 hours	92 hours

The fitting list saves 40 qualification hours: 52 - 12 = 40. Those hours fund 7 more travel hours, 16 more survey hours, 15 more proposal hours and 2 more follow-up hours. Both campaigns assume a standard PM proposal and a preliminary survey taking one staff hour each. The survey establishes the maintenance scope; a detailed equipment assessment would need another time allowance.

Check this allocation against your own survey logs before approving the campaign. If access coordination or proposal preparation takes longer, reduce the records worked inside the fixed budget or add the required labor cost. The model’s advantage depends on spending the saved qualification time on qualified properties.

Assume each account bills $12,600 annually at a 40% gross margin after field labor, materials and service travel. Annual gross profit is $12,600 x 0.40 = $5,040. At five expected paid service years, undiscounted customer lifetime value is $5,040 x 5 = $25,200 per account, with no price increases or repair upsells.

Four accounts produce $100,800 in five-year gross profit. Lead-list ROI, including all acquisition spending, is ($100,800 - $9,724) / $9,724 x 100 = 936.6%, rounded to one decimal. Gross profit equals 21 times the $4,800 list cost, but the full-cost ROI is the figure to use when approving the campaign. Enter your own assumptions in the lead-list ROI calculator.

Sensitivity and the break-even rule

The HVAC model needs two signed accounts to recover its $9,724 acquisition spending over one paid service year, using $5,040 annual gross profit per account.

Customer acquisition cost, or CAC, is total acquisition spending divided by accounts won. CAC payback divides that cost by monthly gross profit. The model produces $5,040 / 12 = $420 per account per month, assuming revenue and service costs are spread evenly for this calculation. Hold acquisition spending at $9,724 across the three outcomes. ROI percentages and payback months are rounded to one decimal; CAC is rounded to the nearest cent where needed.

Outcome	Accounts signed	CAC	Five-year gross profit	Full-cost ROI	Payback
Low	1	$9,724	$25,200	159.2%	23.2 months
Base	4	$2,431	$100,800	936.6%	5.8 months
High	6	$1,620.67	$151,200	1,454.9%	3.9 months

The high case needs more capacity. Before pursuing two accounts beyond the branch’s initial plan, check whether the service schedule can absorb those visits without overtime or longer drives that would reduce the 40% gross margin used in the model.

At four wins, LTV:CAC is $25,200 / $2,431 = about 10.4:1. One-year break-even is $9,724 / $5,040 = 1.93 accounts, rounded up to two. My decision rule would be two signed accounts within the test’s selling window and a service schedule supporting the modeled margin.

For a separate paving illustration, assume an $87,000 project at 28% gross margin and two paid projects over the account relationship. Project-based lifetime gross profit is $87,000 x 0.28 x 2 = $48,720. Put the second project in its expected year; do not count that amount as annual income. The customer lifetime value guide for contractors separates recurring agreements from project work.

What to say when the building fits

Lead with the service you can provide at the named property, then ask about responsibility and the next purchasing date.

For an HVAC prospect, I would use this first-call script:

We service commercial rooftop equipment in your area. I am trying to reach whoever handles the maintenance agreement at your warehouse on the east side of Durham. Does your team manage that agreement, or should I speak with the property manager?

After reaching the responsible person, ask when they review the agreement and what they would need from another provider. Offer a defined equipment review or PM proposal if the timing fits. Record the answer in the buyer’s terms, including any requested follow-up date.

Ask about the building first. A neutral question about maintenance planning lets the manager explain which property needs attention and who handles that work, without the rep opening the call by claiming to know what the company researched online.

For the older roof, start with a review of maintenance records and current priorities. Ask who can authorize roof access. If the manager wants a capital budget, arrange the survey needed to price it. If the manager only wants drain cleaning, record that scope and estimate that work.

Date the next action. A note such as interested leaves the following rep guessing, while a note that the manager will send the equipment schedule by Thursday tells the team what to follow up on when Thursday passes.

How to combine fit and intent data, step by step

Run a 30-day setup and outreach cycle, then track proposals and wins through their selling window before deciding what data to buy again.

1. Choose one service offer on days 1 and 2. Set the building types, size band and profitable travel boundary for that offer. State the jobs your current crew can take, including the number of additional accounts it can serve.
2. Write the fit gate on day 3. For an HVAC PM campaign, require approved property types with 5+ visible rooftop units in your territory. Decide which missing facts get researched and which confirmed mismatches remove a building from the campaign.
3. Order the property list on day 4. Pull matching buildings in Ground Control for $10 to $20 per commercial building, with delivery within 48 hours after payment. Select owner or decision-maker research if needed, and budget those add-ons separately.
4. Prepare the records on days 6 and 7. Load the file into your CRM. Preserve each property’s match reason and connect company records only where the relationship is supported. Give unresolved owner or occupier links to one person for review.
5. Add buying evidence during week 2. Start with inquiries and conversation history. If testing a paid feed, record the signal date and subject. Keep physical fit and intent in separate fields so a score cannot override the service requirements.
6. Work comparable groups during weeks 2 and 3. Split similarly fitting accounts between ordinary outreach and outreach prioritized with the extra signal. Keep the offer and effort comparable. For a stronger test, assign whole owner groups together so a portfolio does not appear in both groups.
7. Audit the work in week 4. Review rejected buildings, contacted managers and qualified surveys. Check the labor hours against the budget, and fix misassigned properties before ordering more records. Keep unresolved opportunities open through their expected decision dates.
8. Make the buying decision after outcomes arrive. Calculate CAC and gross profit from signed accounts. Retain intent spending when the added accounts repay the extra fee and labor within your chosen period. Expand the property territory when fit, contact access and service capacity support the next batch.

Use day 30 to inspect the process. Leave a survey open if it is waiting for a manager’s annual budget meeting, and put that meeting date on the record so the win-rate review follows the buyer’s schedule rather than an arbitrary campaign cutoff.

Build the first fit list with Ground Control

Ground Control by PorchRocket is the fastest way to assemble a commercial prospect list around physical fit before adding intent signals. Select your area, business types and building size, then roof age band or material, rooftop HVAC, paved parking areas, loading docks or other supported visible features. Commercial records cost $10 to $20 per building, and the file arrives within 48 hours after payment. Every property says why it matched; wrong matches receive a credit within 30 days. These are buildings that fit your work, whose owners have not requested a quote.

For this campaign, the order gives your team:

• A selected territory of commercial buildings matching the work you want to sell.
• Match reasons that can populate the physical-fit fields in your sales file.
• Optional owner information for researching who controls the property.
• Optional decision-maker contacts, including role, email and phone where found; unfound contacts are not charged.
• CSV and Excel files to load into your CRM before adding conversation dates and buying signals.
• A 30-day credit window to report wrong matches found during your initial review.

Start with the buildings your crew can serve profitably, and give the next sales hour to a property that earns it.