Purchase intent is how likely a person or company is to buy a product soon, judged from what they do rather than what they say. In B2B, you read it from public behavior: researching a category, visiting a pricing page, hiring for a role, changing jobs. I run a LinkedIn prospecting agency, and the whole job comes down to one thing: reach people while their buying intent is high, not months before or after. This guide gives you a plain definition, the buyer intent funnel stage by stage, and the signals that tell you someone is close.
The short version: buying intent is a spectrum, not a yes or no. Most of your market has none today. A small slice is actively looking. The skill is spotting that slice from public signals and reaching them first.
Purchase intent definition
Purchase intent (also written buying intent, or buyers intent) is the measurable likelihood that someone will buy after they start looking for a solution. It is behavioral. You infer it from actions: searches, page visits, downloads, questions, hiring, job moves. That is the useful buyer intent definition for outbound, because every one of those actions is something you can observe and act on.
Two distinctions keep it clear. Intent is not the same as fit. A perfect fit account with no active problem has low intent today. And intent decays: a signal that meant something last week may be dead this week, so timing is part of the definition, not an afterthought.
Buying intent vs fit
Founders confuse these constantly, and it costs them replies.
| Fit | Buying intent | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | Should I sell to them? | Are they looking now? |
| Source | Firmographics, role, industry | Behavior and events |
| Changes over time | Slowly | Fast |
| Use it for | Building your list | Timing your outreach |
Fit tells you who belongs on your list. Intent tells you who to contact this week. You need both. A high fit, high intent prospect is the one worth a personal message today. A high fit, low intent prospect goes in the nurture pile until a signal wakes them up.
The buyer intent funnel, stage by stage
Marketers map buying intent onto three funnel stages. Knowing which stage a signal belongs to tells you what to say.
Awareness. The buyer feels a problem but is not shopping yet. Intent is near zero. Signals here are soft: reading educational content, following the category. A hard pitch now feels early and gets ignored.
Consideration. The buyer is comparing options. Intent is real but fledgling. Signals include viewing a product page, watching a demo recording, or reading a comparison. This is where a well timed, relevant message does the most work.
Decision. The buyer is ready and picking a vendor. Intent is high. Signals are unmistakable: pricing page visits, a booked demo, a bad review of the tool they are about to replace. Move fast, because so is everyone else.
This is the classic three stage model that Demandbase and others describe when they explain buyer intent. The point for outbound is simple: match the message to the stage, and never sell a decision stage pitch to an awareness stage reader.
Signals that reveal purchase intent
You cannot see intent directly, so you read it from public behavior. The strongest B2B signals:
- Pricing page visits. Almost always a decision stage move.
- Comparison and review research. Reading "alternatives to X" is late funnel intent.
- Job postings. A company hiring for a role you serve just declared a problem and a budget.
- Job changes. New role, new mandate, a short window to make changes.
- Competitor engagement. Following or commenting on a competitor signals active interest in the category.
- Search behavior. Terms like "best [category] software" show someone shopping, not browsing.
Each of these is public and person level, which means you can name it in your first message. For the full list and the exact icebreaker that fits each one, see how to identify buying signals, and for the definitional side of these behaviors, intent signals.
How to measure buying intent
Measurement is where founders either build a real edge or fool themselves. A vendor score on a dashboard is not measurement. The only number that counts early is whether a signal predicts a reply.
Track two things per signal source over a few weeks. First, the reply rate of the people you sourced from it, compared against a plain cold list. Second, how fast the signal goes stale. A job posting is worth acting on for about two weeks. A funding round is burned in three days. A pricing page visit is a same day action or nothing.
Then act on what the numbers say. If a source produces replies at the same rate as a cold list, it is not a signal for your product, no matter how good it looks in theory, and you should drop it. If a source beats cold by a wide margin, pour more time into it and reach the freshest names first. This is unglamorous work, and it is the difference between a list that feels smart and a list that books meetings. Keep it to two or three sources at the start, because you cannot measure ten signals by hand and you will end up trusting none of them.
How to act on buying intent
Reading intent is half the job. Acting on it before it decays is the other half.
Three rules keep it honest. First, mention the signal. If someone visited your pricing page or posted about your topic, say so in the opening line, or the timing looks like luck. Second, respect the stage. An awareness reader gets a helpful nudge, a decision reader gets a direct offer. Third, move on decay. Rank your list by how fresh the signal is, and contact the freshest first, because a two week old job post beats a two month old funding round.
The trap is acting on the same overexposed signal as everyone else. A funding round is real budget, but the day it is announced every rep on the platform piles in, so you become the fifteenth "congrats on the raise" of the week. Combine it with a sharper signal, or skip the gold rush.
Where Sendable fits
My cofounder and I built Sendable to catch person level buying intent on LinkedIn and act on it fast. It watches signals like job posts, profile visits, and first degree network activity, filters the profiles against the ideal customer you describe, and pushes the matches into a LinkedIn sequence. It is LinkedIn only, no email, and it does not measure account level topic intent across the open web. If the intent you care about shows up on LinkedIn, it fits. If you need broad third party intent data, a dedicated provider fits better.
FAQ
What is purchase intent? Purchase intent is how likely a person or company is to buy soon, inferred from behavior rather than words. In B2B you read it from public actions like pricing page visits, category research, job postings, and job changes, each of which raises the odds of a near term purchase.
What is the difference between buyer intent and fit? Fit is whether a prospect belongs on your list, based on role, industry, and company size, and it changes slowly. Buying intent is whether they are looking to buy right now, based on behavior, and it changes fast. Use fit to build the list and intent to time your outreach.
What are the stages of the buyer intent funnel? Awareness (a problem is felt but no shopping yet), consideration (options are being compared), and decision (a vendor is being chosen). Intent rises through the three, so the message should shift from helpful to comparative to direct as the buyer moves down.
What signals show high purchase intent? Pricing page visits, comparison and review research, job postings, job changes, and competitor engagement. These are late funnel, person level, and public, so you can act on them quickly and name the exact signal in your first 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 for you.