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Buying signals you can track without a signal tool
A buying signal is a dated, public change at a company that means someone there now owns the problem you solve. Five you can check free: visits to your own pricing page, job posts for the role you sell to, funding announcements, past customers changing jobs, and changes to a company’s pricing or product pages.
What is a buying signal?
A buying signal is a dated, public change at a company that means someone there now owns the problem you solve. Each word matters. Dated, because a change from last year is history. Public, because you have to be able to point at it. Owns the problem, because the signal is useless unless it tells you who to write to and why now.
Which signals can you track for free?
- Your own pricing page. Repeat visits from one company to your pricing or comparison pages, from your own website analytics.
- Job posts for the role you sell to. A company hiring its first marketer, or its fifth engineer on a stack you support, now has the problem you solve.
- Funding announcements. Money raised is money about to be spent, usually on the plan in the announcement.
- Past customers changing jobs. Someone who bought from you before and just started somewhere new is the warmest message you will send this year.
- Pricing and product page changes. A company that rewrites its pricing page is changing who it sells to, and that changes what it needs.
How do you check each one by hand?
| Signal | Where to look | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing page visits | Your own website analytics, filtered to your pricing page | Daily |
| Job posts | The careers page of each company on your list | Weekly |
| Funding | The company’s own news page and the founders’ public posts | Weekly |
| Job changes | Your past customers’ public profiles, and their new company’s team page | Monthly |
| Page changes | Each company’s pricing and product pages, compared with last month | Monthly |
The first one depends on your site counting visits properly. Many sites lose a share of visits to consent banners, blockers or a broken tag, and a signal you cannot see is not a signal.
How do you tell a strong signal from noise?
- Recent beats big. A change from this week outranks a larger one from last quarter.
- Two beats one. A job post and a pricing page change at the same company in the same month is a pattern; either alone may be nothing.
- Specific beats general. A post for the exact role you sell to outranks a hiring spree.
- Owned beats watched. A visit to your pricing page is a person looking at you; a funding round is a company that might.
What do you say when a signal fires?
Name the change and its date in the first line, connect it to your product in one sentence, and ask for something small. “Saw you posted a growth marketer role on 14 October” is a reason. “I noticed your company is growing” is not. The more exact the evidence, the less the message needs to persuade.
How does InstinctGTM watch these for you?
InstinctGTM watches the companies you name for these changes: hiring for the role you sell to, funding, leadership changes, product launches and changes to their pricing and other pages. Each change arrives with its date and the page it came from. When several add up at one company, the message is drafted in your voice with that evidence, and you approve it before anything is sent.
Questions this answers
- What is a buying signal in B2B?
- A dated, public change at a company that means someone there now owns the problem you solve, such as a job post for the role you sell to, a funding round or a rewritten pricing page.
- What are examples of buying signals?
- Repeat visits to your pricing page, job posts for the role you sell to, funding announcements, past customers changing jobs, and changes to a company’s pricing or product pages.
- Can I track buying signals for free?
- Yes, by hand: your own website analytics, companies’ careers and news pages, and your past customers’ public profiles. Pick a short list of companies and check each source on a fixed day.
- What is signal-based selling?
- Choosing who to contact, and what to say, from a recent dated change at their company rather than from a static list.
- How do I know if a buying signal is strong?
- Recent, specific to the role you sell to, and ideally paired with a second signal at the same company in the same month.
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