By The PhantomBuster TeamBuying signals help sales reps and marketing teams know when a lead is ready to engage.
These signals can show interest or intent, helping you focus your lead-generation efforts where it matters most.
In this article, we’ll explore key buying signals to track, giving you a clear path to find high-quality leads and close deals faster.
AI highlights
Buying signals are actions that indicate a prospect's interest, like visiting your pricing page or interacting on social media. They help marketing and sales teams identify who’s ready to buy.
There are different types of buying signals:
Intent data: Shows when prospects are interested in products or services similar to yours, like researching competitors' solutions.
Behavioral data: Tracks how prospects engage with your content, from email opens to social media interactions.
Contextual data: Looks at external events like funding rounds or market shifts that signal new opportunities.
Opportunity data: Highlights company changes, such as product launches or geographic expansion, signaling a need for new tools.
Fit data: Ensures a prospect matches your ideal customer profile based on size, industry, or tech stack.
Verbal/non-verbal cues: Direct interactions, like asking about pricing or showing interest during sales calls.
Automation tools make it easier to track various buying signals. They help you stay on top of key signals to act on new opportunities faster and more effectively.
We recommend using PhantomBuster to create lead lists based on buying signals. It can scrape data from LinkedIn and build qualified lists, track job changes, and automatically update your CRM.
What are buying signals?
Buying signals are actions or behaviors showing a prospect's interest in purchasing.
These signals, like viewing your pricing page or engaging with your brand on social media, give sales teams key insights to identify potential customers.
Tracking these helps teams personalize their B2B sales pipeline and improve the sales process.
Types of buying signals
Picking up on the right buying signals can help determine when a prospect is ready to take action or shows interest in your product or service.
Let’s break down the key types of B2B buying signals and why they’re important for your marketing and sales efforts.
Intent data
Intent data reveals when prospects actively show interest in products or services like yours.
To identify purchase intent and simplify the buying process, look at key indicators, such as:
Competitor research: A prospect researching competitors' products indicates they are considering options.
Engagement in industry groups on social media: Joining industry-related groups on social platforms signals intent to learn more about trends and solutions.
Behavioral data
Behavioral data tells you how prospects are engaging with your brand’s content.
These strong buying signals help you understand what resonates most and where they are in their decision process.
Page views: Visiting product or pricing pages frequently indicates serious interest.
Email activity: Engaging with your emails, like opening and clicking, suggests the prospect is actively interested.
Content downloads: If a prospect downloads resources like whitepapers or case studies, it shows they seek more in-depth information.
Social media engagement: Likes, comments, or shares show a growing interest in your content.
Ad clicks: Clicking on ads, especially multiple times, shows a prospect is intrigued.
Contextual data
Contextual intent data considers the broader environment of a prospect’s business, helping you understand their current needs and goals.
Recent funding announcements: Companies that secure funding might be in the market for growth solutions.
New hires in key roles: A company hiring for a role related to your product may be looking for solutions.
Market changes: New regulations or industry trends can drive companies to seek out new solutions.
Opportunity data
This type of buying signal highlights specific events that create a ripe opportunity for a sale, like shifts within a company or its market.
Mergers and acquisitions: These events often create new needs for tech or services.
Product launches: Companies releasing new products may require additional resources or solutions to support the launch.
Geographic expansion: Expanding into new markets often requires more tools or partnerships.
Regulatory changes: A new data protection law drives companies to invest in compliance software.
Competitor closures: A competitor exits the market, opening opportunities to capture their clients.
Fit data
Fit data refers to how well a prospect matches your ideal customer profile based on demographics or firmographics.
Company size: Larger companies may need more comprehensive solutions, whereas smaller businesses may require scalable options.
Industry alignment: Targeting industries that benefit most from your product.
Technology stack: Knowing what tools they already use helps predict how well your product will integrate.
Revenue growth: Companies with rapid revenue growth may be more inclined to invest in scalable solutions.
Company location: A business located in a tech hub might require specialized services that align with local industry standards.
Verbal or nonverbal buying signals
These are direct cues from conversations with prospects that indicate where they are in their buying journey.
These buying signals are more subjective but are valuable for understanding a prospect’s readiness to move forward.
Verbal: When prospects start asking about specific features, pricing, or implementation details, it’s a sign they’re close to making a decision.
Nonverbal: Body language like nodding, leaning in, or making eye contact during a sales meeting can indicate high interest.
Tracking buying signals using automation tools
Automation tools make it easier to track various buying signals. They help you stay on top of key signals quickly and efficiently to act on new opportunities faster.
Let’s dive into some ideas to help you get started.
Extract data from LinkedIn and build qualified lead lists
LinkedIn is a goldmine for lead generation and sales prospecting, especially when you focus on building targeted lists based on intent data.
Instead of reaching out to people who aren't interested, connect with those already showing genuine interest, as they are more likely to become paying customers.
Here's a quick guide to help you get started:
Find an industry-related influencer's post with engagement: Look for an influencer's post with lots of comments and likes. This shows high engagement from people interested in the topic.
Extract a list of people interacting with that post: We recommend using the LinkedIn Post Commenter and Liker Scraper to extract the list of contacts who engaged with the post, along with key information like job titles and their comments.
3. Use AI to write personalized LinkedIn messages: Once you have your leads list, you can leverage those insights to tailor your outreach. Use the AI LinkedIn Message Writer to craft personalized messages based on the leads' engagement with the influencer’s post. This approach makes your messages feel personal and helps establish rapport.
Track job changes and update your CRM
When prospects or clients change jobs, it might open new sales opportunities or affect ongoing deals.
Monitoring these career shifts lets you adjust your sales process, connect with prospects at their new jobs, and keep them engaged.
Follow these key steps to enrich your CRM with PhantomBuster's HubSpot Contact Career Tracker:
Prepare your contact list in HubSpot: Create a static list of the contacts you want to track for job changes.
Set up the Career Tracker: Connect PhantomBuster's HubSpot Contact Career Tracker to your HubSpot account. Select your contact list, and the tool will automatically track these contacts—adding updated job titles, professional emails, and start dates and refreshing their lifecycle stage and company info.
3. Manage launch frequency: Set the tool to run 4 times per day (or up to 8 with a Premium LinkedIn account) to ensure you get updates while respecting usage limits.
Track form submissions in HubSpot
When a prospect fills out a form on your website (e.g., for a free trial or eBook download), this interaction provides valuable intent data.
HubSpot logs the submission, adds the contact to your CRM, and enables automatic follow-ups through email.
You can get key info about potential customers by tracking form submissions and understanding what content they interact with. This approach will help you clarify their current pain points and needs.
Aggregated forms data | HubSpotHere's how to track form submissions in HubSpot:
Set up or choose a form within HubSpot.
Link the form to your landing page or a specific resource.
Configure instant notifications to alert your sales team for new submissions.
View each lead’s form data in the contact record.
Use the submission data to create tailored follow-ups based on the lead’s interests.
Marketers can then segment these leads based on their behavior (e.g., viewing a pricing page or engaging with a chatbot) and nurture them with targeted campaigns to push them further down the sales funnel.
Conclusion
To wrap things up, B2B buying signals are key to identifying high-quality leads who are already interested in solutions like yours.
Using automation tools like PhantomBuster, sales and marketing teams can capture strong buying signals and make their sales cycle more effective.
Want to boost your sales strategies? Grab a free PhantomBuster trial today and start tracking real-time buying signals!
