Open any sales tool and you’ll get “intent signals.” Someone visited a pricing page. A company raised money. A job title changed. The pitch is that these signals tell you who’s ready to buy. Most of them don’t. Most buying signals are noise dressed up as insight, and acting on them is how you end up reaching out to people who have no idea why you’re in their inbox.
A real buying signal does one thing: it predicts a reply. If a signal doesn’t make someone meaningfully more likely to write back, it’s decoration. So let’s sort the signals that actually predict a reply from the ones that just look good in a dashboard.
The strongest signal is someone asking out loud
Nothing beats a public request for help. “Anyone know a good tool for X?” “How are you all handling Y?” “Looking for an alternative to Z.” When someone posts that, they’ve told you three things at once: they have the problem, they have it now, and they’re open to hearing answers. That’s the whole game.
Reply to a person who just asked for exactly what you sell and your odds of a response are high, because you’re not interrupting. You’re the answer to a question they raised themselves, in the window where they still care. This is the signal to drop everything for. Everything else is a step down from here.
The second strongest is a complaint about the alternative
Right behind a direct ask is someone trashing the tool you replace. “Apollo’s data is garbage lately.” “I’m so done with how slow this thing is.” A complaint is a problem with the volume turned up. The person is already unhappy, already looking for the exit, already primed to hear about something better.
The trick with complaints is to lead with empathy, not a pitch. Agree that the thing is frustrating, say how you’d handle it, mention what you built only if it fits. Reply like a fellow sufferer who found a way out, and people lean in. Reply like a vendor who set a Google Alert for your competitor’s name, and they don’t.
Trigger events matter, but only fresh ones
“Just launched.” “Just hired our first salesperson.” “Just hit a wall scaling support.” A trigger event is a moment when the problem you solve suddenly gets real for someone. These predict replies well, with one strict condition: they have to be recent. A trigger from last quarter is cold. The person has already solved it, hacked around it, or stopped caring.
Recency is the whole value of a trigger. “I saw you launched yesterday” lands. “I saw you launched eight months ago” is a little creepy and clearly automated. If you can’t tell how old the signal is, treat it as old.
The buying signals that quietly waste your time
Now the ones to ignore, no matter how much a tool charges for them:
- Generic interest. They follow accounts in your space, joined a relevant group, downloaded a free thing once. Interest is not intent. Most curious people never buy anything.
- Firmographic fit with no behavior. “Right industry, right size, right title” tells you they could be a customer, not that they want to be one. It’s a filter, not a signal.
- Old pain. A perfect thread from two years ago. The person who wrote it has moved on. So should you.
- The person teaching, not asking. Someone writing “here’s how I solved this” is past the pain and in expert mode. They’re a peer, maybe a partner, rarely a buyer.
The test for any signal
Before you act on a signal, ask one question: if I reach out citing this, will it feel obvious to them why I’m here, or will it feel like I’ve been watching them? Obvious is good. A public question, a recent complaint, a fresh trigger all make your message feel expected. Watching feels like surveillance, and surveillance gets ignored or reported.
That single test will throw out most of what passes for “intent” in this industry, and leave you with a short list of people who’ll actually write back. A short list of replies beats a long list of sends every time. That’s the entire idea behind what we built: surface the signals that pass the test, skip the ones that don’t, and tell you which is which before you spend a word.