What drives someone to click, search, or buy online—and how can businesses measure it? Customer intent is the motivating force behind a person’s interest in a product, brand, or service on a website or search engine, revealing the “why” behind their actions.

Ecommerce platforms perform best when they anticipate customer needs by personalizing recommendations along their shopping journey. Customer intent applies to search queries, clicks, buyer histories, and duration spent on pages. 

Have you ever started searching for a laptop or smartphone with one brand in mind, only to buy from another? The reason lies in how leading brands strive to anticipate customer intent—offering competitive pricing, superior quality, exceptional support, or extended warranties—to win you over.

What are the different types of customer intent?

1. Informational intent 

One major customer intent point is when they are seeking information and answers to their questions on a certain product and service. Customers will be searching with the desire to learn more hoping to land on product guides, blog posts, and other FAQs to educate themselves before arriving at purchase decisions. 

Examples of informational intent: 

• What are the best tennis rackets for beginners?

• How to choose a solar lamp

• What boots are suited for mountain climbing?

Recommendation for businesses

To capture this form of customer intent and drive traffic towards their platforms businesses can invest in their search engine rankings (SEO). This creates an opportunity to share product descriptions, reviews, comparisons, and other educational content. 

2. Navigational intent

Customers here are trying to locate certain products, brands, and specific pages on a website. In online stores, customers can efficiently search, filter information, and navigate menus to find exactly what they need. Some customers immediately rush to access products through the filters or other menus. 

Examples of navigational intent:

• Seiko wristwatches on Amazon

• Electronics

• John Deere engines

Recommendation for businesses

To capture the navigating visitors, businesses can optimize the navigation process on those websites. Solutions that embrace automation like AI chatbot Lookfor with advanced search functionality, help categorize different product pages. 

3. Investigation/Commercial intent

The people browsing here are researching options that are a potential threat to buyers but are yet to commit fully. People doing investigative searches are in a consideration phase where they explore deals, features, and other alternatives before making decisions. 

Examples of commercial intent:

• Best lawn mowers 2025

• Top retail chatbot comparison and reviews

• Top consumer drones below $1000
  
  

Recommendation for businesses

The most effective way businesses can draw in customers is by integrating comparison tools on their websites, showcasing social proof through customer reviews, and featuring discount codes alongside best-seller sections to encourage purchases.

4. Transactional intent

Transactional intent occurs when a customer is primed to act, by making a purchase or completing a task, such as searching "Buy iPhone 14 Pro Max" or adding items to the cart and checking out.

Examples of transaction intent:

• Buy a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL 5G

• Book Superman movie tickets

• Black Friday coupons

• Add items to your shopping cart then checkout

Recommendation for businesses

This is a streamlined checkout process where customers are given multiple payment options providing clear shipping and return policies. 

5. Post-purchase intent 

After buying a product or service some people will make support-related searches. Once you complete a product checkout on Amazon or eBay curiosity might arise on what next before you receive the product. At the same time, you might wonder if there are chances of getting additional support should the product turn out to be damaged or defective. 

Examples of post-purchase intent:

• Track my order

• How do I return a defective item

• What does the warranty cover?

Recommendation for businesses

Businesses should get accurate customer service channels with tracking tools and support documentation. 

Read more: FAQ Chatbot: Benefits, Use Cases and Prices

Tools for assessing and measuring customer intent

Now that we know the different types of customer intent involved, the next question many retailers ask is how one will answer this question accurately. 

To drive the right amount of buyer intent to your platform, you can begin with a few dollars using SEO and feedback tools or use more advanced AI-based customer intent tools that are within your budget and scope of implementation. 

1. Customer feedback tools

Tools are a simple way of understanding customer intent. Some of the options available are pop-ups, surveys, and feedback forms. User feedback can be captured in two ways:

• A great way to learn what your target audience is searching for on your website. It delivers ideas of what to expect when they arrive on a web page. 
  
  

• Assist users in determining if target keywords attract the right audiences to a website. Further, optimize the web pages while searching for top keywords that drive a lot of traffic and would not otherwise convert if the content mismatches the user’s intent. 
  
  

2. Integrate quiz and lead pop-ups along the customer journey

Although it may seem intrusive, another approach is to request visitors' contact information. Prospects that land on web pages and are willing to share their personal information can identify value in different products. These prospects are fixated on exploring more details about the products and intent to purchase. 

How can you identify such behavior and target it accurately?

Conducting web surveys and pop-ups gives customer intent data with a lower margin of error and can be deemed more credible. 

Examples of this:

• Run customer engagement quizzes to gauge the likelihood of prospects that are ready to purchase and forward them to the most relevant pages.
  
  

• Integrate pop-up tools like Picreel to hover above the CTA or specific areas of a page, prompting users to fill in the information before proceeding to the next step. 
  
  

• Share freebies or lead magnets to help increase chances of conversion like free consultation and free demo. 
  
  

3. Integrate a knowledge base on your app or website

A website knowledge base is an internal search engine for visitors. Multiple search queries are a basis for users to search through information. A well-detailed and organized knowledge base also helps increase conversion. 

Here is how to take advantage of a knowledge base in customer intent analysis:

• Integrate a knowledge base portal on your app or website.
  
  

• Choose a knowledge base storing search queries in the background while providing in-depth analytics on your dashboard.
  
  

• Track your knowledge base performance to uncover actual search queries in the search bar.
  
  

• Cross-reference targeted keywords with popular search queries that help design blogs, articles, how-to guides, and other content pieces. 
  
  

• Share content around search queries to match user intent. 
  
  

When set up, here are benefits that help users find it worth the effort:

• Increased conversion from intent-based targeting helps customers develop content around top-searched queries.  
  
  

• Knowledge-based articles that are indexed on Google to help boost your website’s SEO and traffic. 
  
  

• Use CTAs within your knowledge base pages to push visitors to another conversion funnel.
  
  

• Add lead generation surveys, pop-ups, and other feedback sidebar forms to collect data, in-depth insights and grow the mailing list. 
  
  

4. Apply data and heat maps

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

There is a reason why visual media, such as cooking videos, are effective and resonate more with people than a recipe list in text form. Customer intent data from clickstreams, heatmaps, and screen recordings visually capture customer intent. 

You might be surprised by the amount of nuanced data collected. For example, why is the conversion rate lower on the landing page despite significant web traffic? By screen recording web visitor behavior, you could discover that your CTA is poorly positioned. When placed at the bottom, customers are likely to click on other links before finally reaching it. In some cases, the button may not work at all.  

How to unravel issues:

• Apply heat maps to see how people scroll through your web content. See if it’s around the CTA and if not, why is that?
  
  

• Leverage click-stream analysis or screen recording insights to track user behavior across pages, boosting conversion rates and enhancing click-through performance.
  
  

5. Run a competitor analysis

Photo by Bruno Aguirre on Unsplash

Remain a step ahead of your competitors on the search engine rankings (SERPS) by doing a competitor analysis of top-performance pages. Target specific places on the sales funnel so you can mimic what other brands are doing the most to attract prospects. It gives you an idea of page content, format, CTA types, and other page elements. 

How competitor analysis can help with customer intent:

• Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Search Console, and other SEO tools available at your disposal.
  
  

• Extract keywords from the best-performing pages and isolate the queries driving the most impressions and clicks.
  
  

6. Live chat and chatbots

Live chat and chatbots play a crucial role in identifying and evaluating customer intent by enabling real-time interaction, gathering direct input, and examining conversation patterns to pinpoint customer objectives—whether it’s with chatbots leveraging NLP to instantly categorize intent and handle high volumes, complemented by live chat’s human touch for deeper understanding, both syncing with tools like Zendesk or Dialogflow to monitor trends, record exchanges, and assess intent changes, empowering businesses to swiftly tailor customer experiences while boosting sales.

Examples are:

• Exploring options, e.g., What’s popular in denim?

• Making a purchase, e.g. Are these jeans available in size 32?

• Resolving issues, e.g., Where’s my order?

Ways of capturing live chat purchase intent here in real-time are:

• Adding a live chat widget

• Using advanced live chat tools for custom triggering 

• Triggering the chat window at the right moment 

• Use of AI-based chatbots to help customers in odd hours

• Conversational chatbots that redirect visitors to relevant product pages, create customer support tickets, and transfer the chats to agents. 
  
  

7. Customer intent software

Customer intent software, like Lookfor, enhances Shopify's ecommerce by measuring customer intent through the following:

• Integrated data collection—Shopify API inputs

• NLP-driven analysis of chat interactions—identifying "buy now" as transactional intent

• Track customer behavior—time spent on product pages

• Real-time analytics for in-session personalization—buyer discounts

• Metrics reporting—conversion rates 
  
  

Read more: Retail Chatbot: Benefits, Use Cases and Prices

Conclusion—Lookfor ecommerce solution

Shoppers want a seamless customer experience—both online and in stores. To understand the intent of users, you can forecast the next steps in your customer journey. To boost your Shopify store’s customer insights instantly and effectively—whether for research, purchases, or support—try out the free version of Lookfor Shopify Assistant Chatbot today.