Marketing’s biggest threat isn’t a lack of talent—it’s the “ghost signals” of flawed data. Discover why third-party intent is failing, how bot traffic is polluting your pipeline, and what it takes to stop sales from going rogue in the age of AI.
Marketing teams often discuss creativity, targeting, and measurement, but few address the invisible problem that sabotages all three: poor data. In the Metadata Ghosting Series, we will explore data integrity, AI-driven autonomy, and how new approaches to GTM strategies are reshaping what performance really means. In this opening byline, Lisa Sharapata unpacks why the biggest threat to modern marketers isn’t a lack of ideas, tools, or talent — it’s starting with the wrong data and trusting it for too long.
In B2B marketing, data has become the linchpin for campaign success. While creativity and strategy remain essential, neither can compensate for flawed data. Yet, many marketers find themselves chasing signals that promise intent but deliver little substance. These so-called “ghost signals” — the artifacts of outdated or irrelevant data — have become more illuminating in what they conceal than in what they reveal. As organizations invest heavily in platforms and strategies to uncover buyer intent, the cracks in the system become clearer with every missed opportunity and wasted dollar.
Years ago, intent data seemed poised to revolutionize marketing by allowing teams to read digital body language and reach buyers in new ways. However, as the market evolved and the wave of AI (and genAI) disrupted traditional workflows, those signals lost their luster. Instead of guiding marketers to genuine buyers, they led teams astray, costing resources and eroding trust between sales and marketing, while amplifying underlying errors.
Bad data does more than throw off campaign targeting; it undermines the foundation of go-to-market strategies. Marketers spend resources optimizing for leads that aren’t genuinely interested, triggering sales efforts that miss the mark, and fragmenting alignment between key teams. As roles shift and bots invade digital spaces (comprising over 37% of web traffic now), the signals marketers pursue become more polluted, less actionable, and increasingly disconnected from actual buyer behavior. The result is the collapse of sales-marketing alignment and morale, causing teams to “go rogue” and build their own account lists, often out of sheer frustration and necessity.
The Problem with “Ghost Signals”
The rise and reliance on third-party intent data is at the core of the problem. Marketers have tracked site visits, keyword surges and industry touchpoints as proof of buyer readiness. However, practical experience shows these indicators are frequently unreliable. Campaigns are often set up to target the wrong persona — such as executives who have already solved their challenges weeks prior, or blanket actions triggered by interns downloading resources, all based on the hope of an impending sale. Enrichment vendors, tasked with matching leads to accounts, often deliver conflicting firmographics, failing to keep pace with the rapid changes in roles and real-time market dynamics. Instead of generating true intelligence, these mismatches create noise, erode sales trust and leave marketing believing in data fiction.
Up next in the Metadata Ghosting Series, discover how flawed data impacts more than marketing, throwing sales teams off course, too. Stay tuned as we investigate the true cost of bad data on sales performance and what it takes to restore confidence across your entire GTM strategy.
