I run a LinkedIn prospecting agency. Every month, my team and I contact thousands of profiles for our clients.
Some campaigns book meetings. Others get ignored. The difference is rarely the copy, and rarely the offer. It is who you contact, and when.
That "when" has a name: buying signals.
Most articles about how to identify buying signals are written by people who have never sent a connection request. This one is not. It is the list I use every week, with real numbers and the exact first message that goes with each signal.
What are buying signals in sales?
A buying signal is a public action that tells you someone is more likely to buy. You can see it before you ever talk to them.
A company posts a job ad for an SDR? They have a prospecting problem. Someone visits your profile? They are curious about you. A company gets a bad review? There is an opening.
Buying signals in sales come in two types:
- Strong signals: the person is dealing with your problem right now. They are hiring for it, complaining about it, or asking questions about it.
- Weak signals: the person looks like a good fit (right role, right industry, right size), but nothing says the problem is on their mind today.
Most sales content only covers signals inside your funnel: demo requests, email opens, pricing page visits. Useful, but by then the prospect has already found you. This article is about the signals you can spot outside your funnel, mostly on LinkedIn. You start the conversation first.
Cold outreach vs. signal-based outreach: the numbers
Here is why this matters. Across the LinkedIn campaigns we run:
| Metric | Cold list | Signal-based list |
|---|---|---|
| Connection acceptance rate | 20-30% | 40-70% |
| Reply rate | 10-20% | 25-50% |
Same channel. Same daily volume. Very different results.
The reason is simple. When you target from a signal, your first message can mention that signal. And a message that opens with something true about the person no longer feels cold.
The 14 buying signals I actually use
On LinkedIn
1. Job postings. My favorite strong signal. A company that hires an SDR, a marketer or a support rep announces two things in public: a problem, and a budget. If your product touches that role, this is as warm as it gets without a referral.
2. Profile viewers. Very underrated, and my personal favorite. I call them the LinkedIn ghosts. They never like, never comment, never post. But ghosts often hold the budget. They act instead of talking, and a profile visit is the only trace they leave. Ignore your profile viewers and you ignore your warmest prospects.
3. Incoming connection requests. Someone asked to connect with you. That is not a lead, that is a raised hand. Treat it like one.
4. Your first-degree network. These people already accepted you once. Reply rates are in another league. Most people simply forget to reactivate them.
5. Likes and comments on your posts. The classic engagement signal. They know you, they read you, the door is already half open.
6. Likes and comments on your competitors' posts. Same idea, slightly cheekier. These people follow what your competitor does, so they care about what you do. Your competitor warms up your leads for free.
7. Keyword tracking. Anyone who posts about a keyword in your niche. This one is a goldmine. It only catches people who are active on LinkedIn, so they will actually see your message and answer it. More on this below: it is the signal behind my best campaign.
8. Webinar attendees. Nobody gives up 45 minutes for a topic they do not care about. Attendee lists in your niche are pre-qualified audiences.
9. Company followers. People who follow your competitors' company pages. Easy to collect, surprisingly high intent.
10. Recent job changes. New role, new priorities, new budget. And about 90 days to prove they can change things. One of the best moments to show up.
11. Sales team size. A company with 5 to 10 salespeople is big enough to have a budget and small enough to decide fast. A company with zero salespeople and a growth target? The founder is selling, and drowning. Both are signals. It depends on what you sell.
Outside LinkedIn
12. Recent fundraising. Unpopular opinion: this is the most overrated signal on the list. Yes, they have money. The problem is that everyone knows it. The day the round is announced, every SDR on the planet jumps in. You will be the fifteenth "congrats on the raise 🎉" of the week. It works combined with other signals. On its own, skip the gold rush.
13. Bad reviews on competitors. A 2-star review of your competitor on G2 or Capterra is a free brief. The person just wrote down what they need. Painful to collect, worth every minute.
Custom signals
14. Whatever your niche makes visible. The best signals are the ones nobody else uses. Real example: for a solar panel client, we used Google Earth to find companies that already had panels on the roof. Proof they buy this kind of equipment. Signals are not a fixed list, they are a way of thinking. Ask yourself one question: what public trace does my ideal customer leave?
How to act on each signal: the icebreaker rule
One rule, no exceptions. Your first message must mention the signal that put the person on your list.
- Profile viewer → "Hey, saw you stopped by my profile, figured I'd say hi."
- Job posting → "Saw you're hiring an SDR, quick question about that."
- Content keyword → "Saw your post about [topic], loved the point on X."
- Competitor engagement → "Noticed you follow [competitor], are you using them?"
That is it. No pitch in the first message. Its only job is to prove you are not a bot spraying a list. And you are not: the signal is why you are writing.
One last thing: write like you talk. Every inbox is already full of polished corporate sequences.
Here is one of those first messages in the wild. It only mentions the signal: a lead magnet post that pulled a lot of comments. The reply says the rest.
A real campaign example
For Sendable, we targeted people who post lead magnets on LinkedIn. You know the type: "comment and I'll send you the resource".
We used keyword tracking (signal #7) on phrases like "comment and receive" and "comment and I'll send you". So everyone on the list was active on LinkedIn, and already trying to get leads there. Exactly our user.
The list wrote its own first message, because we knew what each person had posted. Here are two weeks of it:
156 connection requests. 92 accepted, a 59% acceptance rate. And of the 87 people we then messaged, 52 replied: 59.8%.
Compare that to a cold list: 20-30% accepted, 10-20% replies. Same channel, same effort. That is the whole argument for signal-based targeting.
The reply rate is even above our usual range. That happens when the signal is sharp enough to write the first message for you.
How to collect buying signals data (without losing your mind)
Knowing how to identify online buying signals is one thing. Collecting them every day is another. This is where most people give up.
Check your profile viewers. Scroll competitor posts. Export commenters. Cross-check job boards. Done by hand, that is a part-time job.
You have two options.
- Do it manually. Fine at the start. Block 30 minutes a day, pick two signals maximum (I would take profile viewers and competitor post engagement), and keep a spreadsheet.
- Automate it. This is why we built Sendable. It finds and filters your profile viewers, your first-degree network, and everyone who interacts with a post (yours or a competitor's), then turns them into lists you can contact. Job postings, keyword tracking, webinars and LinkedIn groups are next.
Here is one of those lists. Everyone in it liked or commented on a post, and an agent scores each profile against your ICP before you contact anyone.
Whatever tool you pick, the rule is the same. Fresh buying signals data beats a big static list, every time.
FAQ
What is a buying signal? A buying signal is a public action that shows someone may need your product now: a job posting, a profile visit, a comment, a job change. You see it before you contact them.
What are the strongest buying signals on LinkedIn? Job postings, profile viewers, and engagement on competitor content. All three mix clear intent with easy targeting.
How do you recognize buying signals before your competitors do? Track the signals nobody else watches: keyword tracking, competitor reviews, custom signals. Then move fast. A job posting is worth gold for two weeks. A fundraising announcement is burned in three days.
What's the difference between buying signals and intent data? Intent data is aggregated, third-party data about companies researching a topic. Buying signals are individual actions you can see yourself, and mention directly in your message.
Antoine Nicolas runs GyoGyo, a LinkedIn prospecting agency, and co-founded Sendable, a tool that finds warm leads from LinkedIn buying signals and starts the conversation on autopilot.
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