Predictive lead scorer 6sense launches SearchSense to reveal which companies are conducting specific B2B searches

6sense is now exposing more of itself.

The San Francisco-based company announced today the launch of SearchSense, which it says is the “only solution able to reveal” which companies are conducting specific searches. That is, not only the volume of a specific set of search terms, but which firms are looking for the things that interest 6sense’s clients.

This allows client companies to have “immediate competitive advantage of being first to know when prospects are actively researching their company, product or even competitors,” 6sense said in its announcement.

CEO and founder Amanda Kahlow noted that her company helps B2B clients find active buyers.

“To do that,” she told me, “we’re tying all our [intent] data together into a B2B web.”

This includes online visits to publications, blogs, forums and product guides for specific industries, as well as specific search keywords and phrases the client cares about.

Previously, the result was that 6sense told a client, in effect: Here are the companies and individuals that are in the market for, say, servers. Those search analytics, she said, would “go into our model” that issued this report.

Now, Kahlow added, SearchSense exposes the search “indicators that drive us to that prediction” — including not only the search terms, but the company where the searches originated.

“No one else is offering this ability,” she said.

This helps make “sales feel confident” about which companies are currently in-market for a product, she said, and it allows a client like Dell to find out “who’s in market for its competitors’ products.”

If numerous searches for Lenovo servers are being conducted by people at Company X, for instance, then Company X must be interested in buying the kinds of servers Lenovo offers. And Dell might want to counter what Lenovo can offer.

The client companies still need to find specific contacts at the searching company, which 6sense determines by matching the searching and other intent data against a client company’s own customer relationship management system and its marketing automation platform, as well as against third-party data that provides contacts inside companies.

Kahlow was coy about how 6sense determines the company that is searching. She indicated that revealing the process would “violate our agreements” with the sources of the data, although she did acknowledge that major search engines and site-based search engines are employed. She also confirmed that IP-address matching of the searcher, among other means, is used to identify the company making the search.

This is the second new product 6sense has released in the last few weeks that exposes its internal processes. Earlier this month, 6sense announced another “sense” product, called 2sense.

It gives clients earlier insight into when companies it is tracking have entered a buying cycle related to their product lines, as indicated by search queries, buying guide portals and other intent data signals that 6sense tracks. As an example, 6sense pointed to its client, HP sales and marketing, which was able to immediately identify when its sales accounts were looking for HP products.

In other words, while SmartSense gives client companies an earlier look at 6sense data showing who (the company, followed by analysis to find individuals) is searching for specific terms, 2sense gives an earlier peek that focuses on when.