The signals
Buying signals for B2B outbound, ranked.
Not every signal is worth a message. Here are the ones that are, ordered by how strongly they predict a reply, with what each one means and how long you have before it goes cold.
On this page 5 sections
The short answer
The strongest B2B buying signals are the ones where a prospect interacted with you directly: viewing your LinkedIn profile, engaging with your posts, following your company page or visiting your website. Next come borrowed signals, such as engaging with a competitor's content. Trigger events like job changes, hiring and funding are useful but weaker, because they show a company changed, not that a person is interested.
The ranking, in one table.
| Signal | What it tells you | Strength | Goes cold in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Started a signup, didn't finish | They wanted the product enough to begin | Very high | Hours |
| Website visitor (identified) | They came looking, on their own | Very high | 1-2 days |
| Profile viewer | They were curious about you specifically | High | 1-3 days |
| Post engager | The problem you wrote about is on their mind | High | 2-4 days |
| Page follower | They want to keep hearing from you | Medium-high | 1-2 weeks |
| Competitor post engager | They care about the problem, and are looking at alternatives | Medium-high | 2-4 days |
| Competitor follower | They know the category exists | Medium | Weeks |
| New in role | New leaders change tools in their first 90 days | Medium | ~90 days |
| Hiring for a role you help with | The pain is big enough to spend headcount on | Medium | While the job is open |
| Funding round | Budget just arrived, and so did pressure to grow | Low-medium | ~60 days |
"Goes cold in" is a working rule, not a law (the signal decay guide has the detail). The pattern holds, though: the closer the signal is to you, the faster it expires. Someone who viewed your profile is curious today and has forgotten you by next week.
First-party signals: people who touched you.
Profile viewers
They searched for you or clicked through from something you posted. On LinkedIn, the full list needs Premium or Sales Navigator.
Post engagers
Likes and comments on your posts. A comment is worth more than a like; a comment asking a question is worth the most.
Website visitors
Visitor identification tools turn anonymous traffic into people and companies. Pricing-page visits are the best of these.
Followers
New followers of your personal profile or company page. Slower to act on, but they keep coming.
These are the signals most teams already own and never use. If you post on LinkedIn even once a week, you are generating a list of interested people every day and leaving it in a notification tab.
Borrowed signals: people who touched someone like you.
You do not need an audience to start. Your competitors and the creators in your space are building one for you.
- Competitor post engagers. Someone who comments on a competitor's post about the problem you both solve is in the market. This is often the best signal for a company that is new and has no audience yet.
- Competitor followers. A weaker version of the same thing. Good for building a list, less good for timing.
- Creator audiences. People engaging with an influencer who writes about your category. Pick creators whose audience is your buyer, not your peers.
A real example of how this plays out: someone follows a creator who writes about tax compliance on a Tuesday. On Wednesday, that creator's competitor messages them. By the end of the week they are a customer. The competitor understood that following that creator meant the problem was live.
Trigger events: the company changed.
- Job changes. A new VP of Sales or Head of Growth reviews the stack in their first quarter. A past champion who moved companies is the warmest version of this.
- Hiring. A company hiring three SDRs is telling you outbound matters to them and is not working well enough yet.
- Funding. New money means a growth target. Useful, but every vendor sees the same press release, so expect a crowded inbox.
Trigger events tell you a company might buy. First-party and borrowed signals tell you a person is paying attention. Combine them: a new Head of Sales who also viewed your profile is the best lead you will get all month.
Signals that are mostly noise.
- Generic "intent data" (see signals vs intent data) that says a company is researching a broad topic, with no person attached and no date you can trust.
- Anyone outside your ICP, however strong the signal. A student who comments on every post is still a student.
- Your own team, recruiters and vendors engaging with your posts. Filter them out before anything else.
Next: how to turn these signals into replies, step by step.
