A buying signal is a public change at a company that creates work nobody has been hired for yet. The ones worth acting on are recent, specific and verifiable; the rest are noise dressed up as intent.
A buying signal is a public change at a company that creates work nobody has been hired for yet. The ones worth acting on are recent, specific and verifiable: a role posted, a location opened, a launch, a funding round or a complaint about a competitor. Everything else is a filter pretending to be intent.
Intent data is one of the few categories where a bigger number is worse. A score that says a company is 82% likely to buy tells you nothing you can put in a sentence, and the reader can tell.
The three tests a signal has to pass
Recent. If it happened last quarter, the situation has changed or been resolved.
Specific. It names something only this company did, not a category it belongs to.
Verifiable. You can open the page, and the sentence you write can quote it.
A signal that fails any one of the three is not a reason to write. It is a reason to keep watching, which is a different job.
Signals ranked by how much they tell you
Signal | What it implies | How to check it
Role posted for the work you do | The team is already overloaded | The company's own careers page
New office or location | Local demand nobody covers yet | A press note or the site
Funding round | Budget that did not exist last quarter | The announcement
Launch or new product line | Support and ops volume arriving | The product page
Complaint in a review | A competitor is failing at your strength | The review itself
A thread asking for a tool | Someone is choosing right now | The thread
Signals that look good and are not
A page view
Someone reading an article is not a buying signal. It is a browsing signal, and it is mostly indistinguishable from research, a competitor checking your site, or a bot.
A category match
Being the right size in the right industry is fit, not timing. Fit tells you who could buy. It says nothing about whether this is the week.
A score you cannot inspect
If a vendor cannot show you the page behind the score, you cannot write a truthful sentence from it, and neither can their model. Prefer evidence you can open.
If you cannot quote it, you cannot write it. If you cannot write it, it is not a signal.
How to keep a signal usable
Store the quote verbatim with the page it came from and the date you saw it.
Expire it. A signal older than its moment is a liability in a message.
Score fit and timing separately, so a perfect fit with no reason does not win.
Keep the source's allowed use on record, including outreach.
Re-check before a second message uses the same signal.
Turning a signal into a sentence
The first line of a message should be the signal, in the words the reader would use. Not that you noticed they are growing, but that they posted two operations roles this month. One is a compliment. The other is evidence.
Snaut keeps each signal with its quote and its expiry, and refuses a sentence whose quote is not in the saved snapshot. You can read the source for every factual line before the message goes out.
What is a buying signal? A public change at a company that suggests it now has a problem worth paying to solve: a role posted, a location opened, a launch, a funding round, or a complaint in a review. It is a reason to write this week, not a guarantee.
Which signal is the strongest? A job post for a role your service replaces, because a company only pays for a role when the work has outgrown the team. It is also easy to verify and easy to quote, which is what makes it usable in a first message.
How old can a signal be? Days, not months. A hiring post from last quarter has either been filled or abandoned, and a message that treats it as news reads as automated. Signals should expire, and the agent should stop using one when it does.
Are intent data providers worth it? Sometimes. A provider that reports that a company read an article is telling you very little, and it is often the same list everyone else bought. A signal you can open and read yourself, and quote word for word, is worth more than a score you cannot inspect.
Can I use a signal I found myself? Yes, if it comes from a page you are allowed to read and you may contact the person. Record where it came from and the date you saw it, so the claim in your message can be checked later.