Glossary
Buying signals glossary: the terms, in plain English.
The vocabulary of signal-based outbound, defined in a sentence or two each. Where a term has a full page, the definition links to it.
On this page 3 sections
The short answer
A buying signal is any action by a prospect or their company that makes them more likely to buy now than they were last month. Signals are usually grouped as first-party (they interacted with you), borrowed (they interacted with a competitor or creator) and trigger events (something changed at their company, such as a new leader, hiring or funding).
Signals and signal types, A to I.
- Abandoned signup
- Someone who started creating an account or filling in a demo form and stopped. The strongest signal there is; it goes cold in hours.
- Account-level signal
- A signal about a company rather than a person, such as a funding round, a job ad or a company-level website visit. Useful for choosing accounts; you still have to pick the right person.
- Borrowed signal
- Interest shown in someone like you rather than you: engaging with a competitor's posts, following a competitor, or engaging with a creator in your category. See competitor engagers.
- Buying signal
- Any action that makes a prospect more likely to buy now than last month. The full ranking is on the signals page.
- Buying window
- The period in which a company is actively choosing a solution. Trigger events open one; it closes when the decision is made.
- Champion
- A person inside a customer or prospect who wants your product to win and argues for it internally.
- Champion job change
- A past champion moving to a new company. The warmest trigger event in B2B, because they already trust you. See job changes.
- Cold outbound
- Messaging people who match your ideal customer profile without any sign that they are interested right now. Typically gets around 1-3% replies. See signal-based vs cold.
- Competitor engager
- A person who liked, commented on or reposted a competitor's content. A medium-high signal that goes cold in two to four days.
- Competitor follower
- A person who follows a competitor's company page. A medium signal best used as a pool to watch for a second signal.
- Decay window
- How long a signal stays worth acting on before it goes cold. Hours for an abandoned signup, roughly 90 days for a new leader. See signal decay.
- First-party signal
- A signal from someone interacting with you directly: viewing your profile, engaging with your posts, following you or visiting your website. The strongest group of signals.
- Hiring signal
- An open job ad at a target company for a role connected to the problem you solve. Public, so you can mention it. See hiring signals.
- ICP (ideal customer profile)
- A written description of the companies and people you sell to best: industry, size, region, role and what they sell. Every signal is checked against it.
- Intent data
- Usually third-party data estimating which companies are researching a topic across websites you do not own. Account-level and inferred. See vs intent data.
- Interested-reply rate
- The share of people messaged who reply with real interest, not just any reply. A better measure of outbound quality than reply rate alone.
Methods and metrics, N to W.
- New in role
- A relevant leader who recently started at a target account. As a rule of thumb, new leaders review their tools in roughly their first 90 days.
- Person-level signal
- A signal tied to a named individual, such as a profile view or a comment. Stronger than an account-level signal because a specific human is paying attention.
- Post engager
- Someone who liked, commented on or reposted your post. A high signal that also tells you which topic is on their mind. See post engagers.
- Profile viewer
- Someone who viewed your LinkedIn profile. A high signal that goes cold in one to three days. See profile viewers.
- Qualification
- Checking each person who showed a signal against your ICP and dropping those who do not fit. For a high-ticket offer, keeping roughly 10-30% is normal.
- Reply rate
- Replies divided by people messaged. Always ask what it is a rate of: people, messages, or accepted connections.
- Response window
- The time you have to act on a signal before it decays. Within a day for most first-party signals.
- Signal-based outbound
- B2B prospecting where you only message people after they show a buying signal, and time the message to it. See the definition.
- Signal-based selling
- Using buying signals across the whole sales cycle: prioritizing accounts, steering deals and spotting expansion. See signal-based selling.
- Signal stacking
- Combining several different signals on the same person or account, such as a new leader plus hiring plus a post engagement, to separate real opportunities from noise.
- Surveillance narration
- Mentioning private behaviour in a message, as in "I saw you viewed my profile". It makes prospects feel watched and lowers replies. Public events about them are fine to mention.
- Trigger event
- A change at a company that makes buying more likely, such as a new leader, a hiring push or a funding round. Slower to decay than first-party signals.
- Website visitor identification
- Software that matches anonymous website traffic to companies or people. Person-level identification raises real privacy questions, especially under GDPR. See website visitors.
- Warm outbound
- Outreach to people who already know you, such as your profile viewers, post engagers and followers. A subset of signal-based outbound. More at warmoutbound.site.
Terms people mix up, side by side.
Most confusion in this space comes from vendors using the same word for different things. These four pairs cause the most of it.
| These two | The difference |
|---|---|
| Signal vs intent data | A signal is a specific, dated action you can see. Intent data is an inferred trend at account level. |
| Signal-based vs warm outbound | Warm covers people who know you. Signal-based adds borrowed signals and trigger events. |
| Signal-based outbound vs selling | Outbound is the first touch. Selling is the whole cycle. |
| Reply rate vs interested-reply rate | Any reply counts in the first. Only real interest counts in the second. |
Next: the buying signals ranking, or worked examples.
