Intent signals are public actions and events that suggest a company or a person is moving toward a purchase. A job posting, a pricing page visit, a spike in research on a review site, a job change: each one tells you the problem you solve is on someone's mind right now. I run a LinkedIn prospecting agency, and those signals are the difference between a campaign that books meetings and one that gets ignored. This guide covers what counts as an intent signal, the types worth tracking, and how to turn each one into a message people actually answer.
The short answer to "what are intent signals": they are observable behaviors that reveal buying interest before a prospect ever talks to you. Some come from your own website (first party), some from the open web (third party), and some from public sources anyone can watch, like job boards and LinkedIn.
What counts as an intent signal
A signal is anything public that raises the odds someone will buy. The key word is public: you can see it without a conversation, and you can name it in your first message.
Two things separate a strong signal from a weak one. A strong signal means the person is dealing with your problem right now (hiring for it, researching it, complaining about it). A weak signal means the person only looks like a fit (right role, right industry, right size) with nothing saying the problem is urgent today. Both are useful. You just write to them differently.
Demandbase, for example, frames intent signals as the behavioral data that shows which accounts are actively researching a topic. Analysts define them the same way, and the idea is older than the software: watch what people do, not what they say.
First party vs third party intent signals
Almost every discussion of B2B intent signals splits along this line, and it matters because the two behave very differently.
| Type | Where it comes from | What it tells you | Freshness |
|---|---|---|---|
| First party | Your own site, product, emails | This person is looking at you | Same day |
| Third party | Publisher co-ops, review sites | This account is researching your category | Weekly |
| Public | Job boards, LinkedIn, news | This person or company changed something | Same day |
First party signals come from your own properties: who visited your pricing page, who came back three times, who opened the docs. You already own the data, and it is the highest intent of the three, because they came to you. The limit is volume. A small company gets little first party traffic.
Third party signals are aggregated by outside vendors who watch content consumption across a network of sites. They tell you an account is in market, but they are anonymous by design, so they land at the account level, not the person level. Useful for planning, hard to act on directly.
Public signals sit in the middle and are the ones I lean on most, because they are person level and free to watch. A job change, a hiring post, a comment on a competitor's content: each names a specific human you can message today.
B2B intent signals: 8 examples that work
Here are the buyer signals I actually use, grouped by where they live.
- Job postings. A company hiring for a role you serve is announcing a problem and a budget at the same time.
- Profile visitors on LinkedIn. Someone who checks you out is curious. The quiet ones often hold the budget.
- Job changes. New role, new priorities, roughly 90 days to prove they can change things. One of the most reliable signals there is.
- Engagement on competitor content. People who follow or comment on a competitor care about your category. Your competitor warms them up for free.
- Keyword posts. Anyone posting about a topic in your niche is active and reachable, so your message will actually be seen.
- Review site research. Reading a comparison page on G2 is close to a decision. See G2's take on buyer intent.
- Pricing page visits. A first party classic. Someone pricing you is past the awareness stage.
- Funding rounds. Real budget, but the most overrated signal on the list. Everyone jumps in the day it is announced, so it works combined with other signals, not alone.
For the full version of this list with the exact first message that goes with each one, I wrote how to identify buying signals.
How to track B2B buyer intent signals
Tracking is where most teams give up, because doing it by hand is a part time job. You have two honest paths.
Do it manually. Fine at the start. Pick two signals maximum, block 30 minutes a day, and keep a spreadsheet. I would take profile viewers and competitor engagement, because both are person level and free.
Automate it. Third party intent tools resolve account level research. Visitor identification tools resolve first party website traffic. Signal and outreach tools watch public LinkedIn activity and push matches into a sequence. Which one you need depends on the signal you care about. I compared the account level options in intent data providers.
Whatever you pick, the rule holds: a fresh signal on a person beats a big static list, every time.
Buyer intent measurement: what to watch
Measurement is not the score a vendor prints on a dashboard. It is whether the signal predicts a reply. Track two things per signal source over a few weeks: the reply rate of people sourced from it, and how quickly the signal goes stale. A job posting is worth acting on for about two weeks. A funding announcement is burned in three days. If a signal source produces replies at the same rate as a cold list, it is not a signal for your product, and you should drop it. That is the only measurement that matters early on.
Intent signals vs intent data
People use the two terms loosely, and the difference is worth a sentence. Intent data usually means the aggregated, third party, account level research feed a vendor sells you. A signal is a single public action you can see and name yourself: one job post, one profile visit, one comment on a competitor's post. Intent data tells you a company is warming up somewhere in the market. A signal tells you which person to message and what to open with.
For a small team, the second is far easier to act on. You cannot write a personal first line to an anonymous account level score, but you can write one to a founder who just posted about the exact problem you solve. That is why I lean on public, person level signals over bought account data: they arrive with a first message half written. If you are trying to place a behavior on the buyer journey, the same actions also map onto purchase intent and the buyer funnel, from a soft awareness read to a hard decision stage move.
Where Sendable fits
When I got tired of collecting LinkedIn signals by hand, my cofounder and I built Sendable. It watches a narrow set of person level signals (job posts, webinars, profile visits, first degree network activity), filters the profiles against the ideal customer you describe, and pushes the matches into a LinkedIn sequence with a shared inbox. It is LinkedIn only, no email, and it does not do third party topic intent across the open web. If the signal you care about lives on LinkedIn, it fits. If you need account level research data, one of the providers above fits better.
FAQ
What are intent signals? Intent signals are public actions and events that suggest a person or company is moving toward a purchase, such as a job posting, a pricing page visit, or a research spike on a review site. You can see them before any conversation and name them in your outreach.
What is the difference between first party and third party intent signals? First party signals come from your own website, product, and emails, and tell you a specific person is looking at you. Third party signals are aggregated by outside vendors and tell you an account is researching your category, but stay anonymous at the account level.
What are the strongest B2B buyer signals? Job postings, job changes, profile visitors, and engagement on competitor content. All four mix clear intent with easy person level targeting, so you can write a first message that mentions the exact signal.
How do you track buyer intent signals without a big team? Start manual: pick two person level signals, spend 30 minutes a day, keep a spreadsheet. Automate only the signal that reliably produces replies, and make sure the tool delivers it into a sequence rather than a dashboard you never open.
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 for you.