Free tool · Demand intelligence

Buyer Intent Query Builder

Buyer intent data is any signal that someone is actively evaluating a purchase. The purest form is public and free: people writing that they are frustrated with their current tool and asking what to switch to. Enter your category and competitors below to get ready-to-run searches that surface exactly those posts, grouped by how close to buying the person is.

Free, no account required.

The phrase a buyer would use, not your internal category name.

Comma or line separated, up to 6. Unlocks switching and comparison searches.

Up to 4. Narrows the recommendation searches to your segment.

Enter a category to begin.

Your query set will appear here, grouped by intent type, with a live link for every search.

The five intent types, ranked

Not all intent is equal. Work this list top down: a single recommendation request is worth more than fifty people complaining in general.

Intent typeStrengthWhy it ranks there
Recommendation requestHighestSomeone has stated the problem and asked what to buy. Nothing beats this.
Alternative huntingVery highThey pay a competitor and are shopping. Budget exists, category is sold.
Comparison shoppingHighAn evaluation is live. Absence here loses deals you never knew about.
Complaint about status quoMediumPre-purchase frustration not yet phrased as a question. Best source of copy.
Review-site criticismMediumAttributed, structured, and filterable by rating. Slower but more specific.

The search operators doing the work

Nothing here is exotic. Four operators cover almost all intent research, and knowing them means you can write your own queries once you see the pattern.

site:reddit.com

Restricts results to one domain. Swap in any forum, review site, or community where your buyers actually talk.

"exact phrase"

Forces an exact match. Essential for intent phrases, because looking for and looking are completely different signals.

("a" OR "b" OR "c")

Matches any of several phrasings in one query. This is what lets one search cover five ways of saying the same complaint.

Past year filter

Google's date filter, applied automatically here. Intent decays; a stale thread is someone else's closed deal.

To go competitor by competitor instead of category-wide, use the Competitor Complaint Finder. To find the communities worth searching in the first place, use the Subreddit Finder.

How to find buyer intent posts

Step 1

Enter the category buyers actually search

Use the phrase a buyer types, not your internal category. If people say project management software, do not enter work operating system. The category drives every recommendation-request search.

Step 2

Add your competitors

Each competitor unlocks two of the highest-intent buckets: people hunting for an alternative to them, and people comparing them against someone else. Both are buyers with budget who are already sold on the category.

Step 3

Run the searches and read the threads

Click any query to run it live. Skim for posts where someone states a problem and asks what to buy, and note the exact words they use. That language is worth more than the lead itself.

Step 4

Reply usefully, or log the language and move on

If the thread is fresh and you can genuinely help, answer the question first and mention your product second. If it is stale, harvest the phrasing for your positioning and copy, then move to the next query.

When you outgrow this tool

Running these searches by hand works once. Demand Intelligence runs them continuously and scores every result by intent.

This tool is free and complete on its own, with no account and no limits worth mentioning. Linkeddit is what you use when the job stops being a one-off and starts needing to run every week without you.

FAQ

Buyer Intent Query Builder questions

What counts as intent, how to search for it, and how to reply without getting banned.

What is buyer intent data?

Buyer intent data is any signal that someone is actively evaluating a purchase rather than passively browsing. The purest form is public and free: a person writing that they are frustrated with their current tool and asking what to switch to. Paid intent data vendors mostly infer the same thing from anonymized web behavior.

How do I find people asking for recommendations?

Search where the asking happens, with the words askers use. A query like site:reddit.com "project management software" ("any recommendations" OR "looking for") finds posts that are literally requests to be sold to. This tool composes those queries for your category and links them live.

Why restrict searches to the last year?

Because buying intent decays fast. Someone who asked for recommendations eighteen months ago bought something and moved on; replying now is noise for them and a wasted hour for you. Most Google queries here carry a one-year date filter, and Reddit links sort by new.

Is it acceptable to reply to these threads?

It is if you answer the question first and disclose that you work on the product you mention. Most communities tolerate a genuinely useful reply from a vendor and remove a drive-by pitch. Read the subreddit's rules on self-promotion before you post, because some ban it outright regardless of quality.

Why does this send review-site searches through Google?

Because G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot each change their internal search URLs periodically, and a generator that hardcodes them quietly starts producing dead links. A Google site: query always resolves and shows you what actually exists.

How is this different from a paid intent data tool?

Paid tools run these searches continuously, dedupe results, score each post by how ready the person is to buy, and alert you the day a new one appears. This tool composes the queries once and you run them by hand. The searches themselves are the same public data.

Is this query builder free?

Yes. It runs entirely in your browser with no account, no credit card, and no limits. Nothing you type is sent to Linkeddit, because there is no server call involved in building a search query.