new to this - what is marketing intelligence?

It's a fancy name for collecting info about your market so you make better decisions. Competitors (what they charge, what they advertise, what they rank for), customers (what they search, what they complain about in reviews), and the market itself (is demand going up or down). Something as simple as checking a competitor's ads and Google Trends counts. Not to be confused with marketing analytics, which is measuring your own campaigns. Though plenty of people use the two terms loosely.