Buying signals: what they mean
A buying signal is something a person or company does that suggests they may need what you sell soon: asking for recommendations, complaining about a current tool, hiring for a relevant role, or reading your pricing page. Signals tell you when to reach out, not just who to reach.
Strong signals and weak ones
Not every signal deserves the same weight. A rough way to rank them is by how specific and how recent they are.
| Signal | Who it points at | Typical strength |
|---|---|---|
| "Can anyone recommend a tool for X?" post | A named person | Strong: explicit need, right now |
| One-star review of a competitor | A named person | Strong: has the problem and a budget line |
| Job post for the role you support | A company | Medium: need is real, buyer unknown |
| Paying for search ads in your space | A company | Medium: has budget and a growth goal |
| Liked a post about your category | A named person | Weak alone, useful in combination |
| Visited your website once | A company, sometimes | Weak alone |
The strongest signals combine a named person with words that describe the problem. Our article on buying signals that actually convert goes deeper on which sources tend to produce replies.
How do you measure a signal?
Treat each signal like an ad campaign and keep score. For every signal you track, record:
- How many people it surfaced.
- How many of those matched your ideal customer profile well enough to contact.
- How many replied.
Say a phrase search for "looking for an alternative to" finds 120 people a month. 30 match your profile and 4 reply. Another phrase finds 400 people, 12 match and 1 replies. The first is worth four times the second per reply, despite the smaller volume. Without the counts you would keep the noisier one because it looks busier.
Common mistakes
- Treating a like as intent. Engagement on a post shows interest in a topic, not a budget. Pair it with fit before you message.
- Acting too late. A weekly export of last month's signals is history, not a signal.
- Saying you saw it in a creepy way. "I noticed you visited our pricing page three times" puts people off. Lead with their problem, which is what the signal told you about.
- Never switching signals off. Phrases that never produce a qualified lead still cost time.
Related terms
Buying signals are the raw material of signal-based selling. Third-party intent data is one source of them, and lead scoring is how you decide which signalled people are worth a message.
How Sluice handles signals
In Sluice a signal is a phrase of at least three words that you search across public posts. Each phrase keeps its own record: searches opened, people found and how many scored 70 or more against your profile, so dead phrases can be switched off. One honest gap: event signals like "raised money" are not available yet, because no supplier we tested serves them reliably.
Questions people ask
- What are examples of buying signals?
- Someone asking a community for tool recommendations, a one-star review of a competitor, a job post for the role your product supports, a company paying for search ads in your category, or repeat visits to your pricing page.
- Are buying signals the same as intent data?
- Intent data is one kind of buying signal, usually bought from a third party and aggregated at company level. Buying signals is the wider term and includes anything public you can see yourself, such as a post or a review.
- How quickly should I act on a buying signal?
- Quickly. A signal describes a moment. Someone asking for a recommendation today has often chosen within a week or two, so a message a month later is reaching a person who has moved on.
Try it on your own market
Sluice quotes the worst-case price before anything runs and charges only for lookups that found something, so finding out costs close to nothing.
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