Buying signals: what they are and how to act on them

Know what a buying signal is

A buying signal is a change that makes a sales conversation worth starting now. Some are events you can check: a new leader, a funding round, a posted role or a contact who moved. Others are estimates of interest, such as topic research across the web or anonymous visits to your site. Events tell you what happened. Estimates suggest who may be looking.

Prefer signals you can check

An event comes with a source you can open and mention. An estimate is harder to verify, and we found no independent test of how accurate topic intent data is. The closest study tested five vendors' ready-made segments of IT decision-makers and found they reached the right person no better than random prospecting, though it covered role targeting in ads, not research surges. If you buy intent data, Forrester advises checking it first on the accounts you know best.

Sources: Neumann, Tucker, Subramanyam and Marshall, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 2023; Forrester, How to evaluate intent data providers, 2025

Treat a new leader as an opening

A change at the top can loosen old vendor ties. One study found that replacing a customer's CEO cost dependent suppliers substantial sales, largely because the successor divested assets. Another found that a manager leaving a client firm made its advertising agency ties more likely to end, depending on firm size. Both studied existing suppliers, so they show old ties loosening, not new purchases being made.

Example: I saw that Orbit named a new VP of Operations. Shiftly forecasts labor by location. If labor planning is on the new VP's list, would you be open to hearing a little more about how we can help?

Sources: Intintoli, Serfling and Shaikh, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2017; Broschak, Administrative Science Quarterly, 2004

Follow the people who know you

When someone who used or bought your product changes jobs, write to them at the new company. Deals involving such a person had a 114% higher win rate in UserGems' data, which is one vendor's count, doesn't prove cause and includes people who only evaluated the product. In a study of patent law firms, a firm got less work from Fortune 500 clients that hired from its competitors, so people bring past working relationships with them. Confirm the move first, because a stale profile makes a bad first line.

Example: Dana, congrats on the move to Orbit. You used Shiftly to forecast labor at your last company. If Orbit has the same staffing questions, would you be open to hearing a little more about how we can help?

Sources: UserGems, 5,000+ opportunities, 2023; Carnahan and Somaya, Academy of Management Journal, 2013

Read what a job post says

A job post shows what a company is about to work on, often in its own words: the team, the problem and sometimes the tools. Research links postings to company change, not to purchases. Firms that raised skill requirements in their postings also invested more in capital after the Great Recession, and firms advertising newer kinds of jobs grew sales faster than their peers. Pick roles your product would help, and read several openings on one team as a stronger sign than a single post.

Example: I saw that Orbit posted a Store Operations Manager role in Austin. Shiftly forecasts labor by location. If the role will own staffing plans, would you be open to hearing a little more about how we can help?

Sources: Hershbein and Kahn, American Economic Review, 2018; Atalay and Sarada, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 5.2 million job ads, 2021

Don't assume funding means budget

A new round is easy to check and easy to misread. A working paper using US Census data found venture backing concentrated among firms with large employment gains after funding, so a round can point to growth. We found no study showing that companies spend more with outside vendors after a round. Mention the round, connect it to what growth makes harder, and leave out guesses about budget.

Example: I saw that Orbit announced its Series B. Shiftly forecasts labor by location. If new stores are part of the plan, would you be open to hearing a little more about how we can help?

Source: Ando et al., NBER working paper 33993, 2025

Tie company news to one consequence

Launches, new offices, partnerships, acquisitions and new technology each change someone's work. Name the event, then the one consequence your product deals with. Use the company's own announcement where you can, because a secondhand story may be wrong or about another company. Leave out planned events, which may not happen.

Example: I saw that Orbit opened a warehouse in Dallas. Shiftly forecasts labor by location. If staffing the new site is on your list, would you be open to hearing a little more about how we can help?

Reach out while it's still news

We found no study of how quickly an outside event loses value. The well-known five-minute rule comes from inbound web leads, so it doesn't carry over to cold outreach. In two B2B field experiments, calls timed to when customers were predicted to buy earned more, though timing was bundled with coordinating products across salespeople. Our working rule, not a measured cutoff, is to act within a week of seeing a signal. Leadpoet keeps jobs from the last 30 days, news from the last 45 and funding from the last 120, so check the date on an older round before you call it recent.

Sources: Kumar, Venkatesan and Reinartz, Journal of Marketing, 2008; Oldroyd and Elkington, MIT and InsideSales, 15,000 leads, 2007

Say what happened, not what it means

State the event as fact and let the reader draw the conclusion. In Gong's data, company-specific topics such as news, launches and milestones tripled replies from directors and above but showed little link to replies from non-managers. For non-managers, a personal detail such as a recent promotion more than doubled replies. That's one vendor's count. We found no randomized B2B test of mentioning a trigger, so test it yourself. The Messaging guide has opening lines for a posted role, funding, a new leader and a launch.

Source: Gong Labs, 30,000+ emails, 2023

Expect most signals not to become deals

A signal helps you pick the moment. It doesn't mean a purchase is coming. Dawes estimates that about 5% of B2B buyers are in the market in a given quarter, a rule of thumb from how often companies switch rather than a measurement. Ask about interest rather than a decision, and if someone says not now, come back when something else changes.

Source: Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2021

Track which signals earn replies

Count replies and meetings by signal type, not alerts. Work one or two types at a time so you can tell what worked, and drop the ones that don't start conversations. In Leadpoet, rate each alert useful or not so the team's judgment is on record.

Match the tool to the signal

Intent data tools estimate who is researching a topic. Event tools report what changed at accounts you choose. Job-change tools follow people. First-party tools read your own site, product and community. Decide which question you need answered before you compare products.