Intent scale translation

Intent scale translation is a mathematical technique used by marketers to convert stated purchase intentions into purchase probabilities, that is, into an estimate of actual buying behaviour.

[1] A survey might ask a question using a five-point scale such as: A marketing researcher will first assign numerical values to these intention categories.

This is a typical example: Next, the researcher uses a predefined functional relationship to convert the stated intentions into estimates of actual purchase probabilities.

If a survey respondent were to choose a response of “definitely” and an intent probability of .99 was assigned to that category, then the actual probability of purchase could be read off the vertical axis.

The translation function gives a value of about .8, indicating the specifiers of the function feel that not all people that claim they definitely intend to purchase will actually purchase.