“Congratulations on your merger from 2023.” What buying signals are for, and when they go stale.

Why do most buying signals turn out to be useless?

Most buying signals are useless because they’re old. The database says the business merged, so the email says “Congratulations on your merger,” and the merger was in 2023. The person reading it knows exactly how you found that out.

The other reason is that the signal doesn’t mean anything for your business. A software company cares about a funding round. A benefits agency doesn’t. What a benefits agency cares about is whether the person who picks the broker has changed. What we found over and over again was country club buddies, golf buddies, and poker night chums relying almost exclusively on that relationship, and not on the best interest of the business’s finances. After years and years of increases, there comes a point where your relationships don’t matter. A new person at the top doesn’t have that relationship yet. That’s the signal.

What do most agencies try first?

Most agencies try a data tool. Clay is the one everyone names. I never paid for it. The only things I ever paid for in my outbound system were verified emails and a sending platform. Every personalization signal we used came from my own AI SDR team watching for it.

Here’s a signal story that isn’t about a prospect. Early on, while researching solution-first emails, I watched my research agent work and a name came across the screen that I didn’t recognize. I looked him up. He was a sales coach, and everything he was saying was exactly the approach I wanted to use. I found him on LinkedIn and sent him a message: “Believe it or not, when I was researching best practices for outreach, my AI agent was referencing your system. I just want to thank you for putting out as much content as you do.” He accepted within 10 minutes. That’s what a fresh, true signal does. It gives you a real reason to talk to someone.

Wanna fix it?

Useless buying signals get fixed with a signal agent that watches a short list of sources, throws out anything that isn’t fresh, ranks what’s left by tier, and writes one line per contact for a person to approve.

1. Watch four sources. Google, Google News, the job boards, and the decision-maker’s socials. Small, purpose-built scrapers (I use bespoke Apify actors) pull recent news and data on a person.
2. Freshness is the only filter that matters. If it doesn’t qualify as fresh, it doesn’t get used. If there was anything recent, we found a way to use it. Old news gets thrown out, no matter how good it looks.
3. Rank by tier. Something the person did in the last 30 days beats something the organization did, which beats something the state or the industry did. Every contact gets the freshest tier that exists.
4. Weight the change at the top. A new owner, president, CFO, or HR lead is the signal most likely to mean a broker review is coming. Rank it first.
5. One line, one opinion, one human. The agent writes what the signal means for them, never congratulations. You read it before it goes anywhere.

What does it look like once it’s running?

Once it’s running, you don’t look for signals. They show up already ranked, with the line drafted, attached to the contact in your CRM. Your job is to read the line and decide whether it’s true enough to send. The same agent that feeds a cold email can tell you a current client just changed CFOs.

Can you do this yourself?

Yes, and for a small agency the 20-minute version might beat the machine. When you get alerted to a business, go right to their LinkedIn. More than likely there’s a corresponding fresh post from that person. Engage with it. Leave a thoughtful comment. Twenty minutes a week. If you do 10 thoughtful comments with those 20 minutes, that can do more than four teams of AI SDRs trolling the interwebs looking for signals.

Where DIY stops is coverage. You can watch 20 target accounts by hand. You can’t watch 2,000, plus the job boards and the news, every morning. If your list fits on one screen, do the comments. If it doesn’t, build the agent and still do the comments.

Quick answers

What is a buying signal?

Something a business or a person did recently that means they might need what you sell now.

How fresh does a signal have to be?

About 30 days for something the person did. Older than that, don’t use it.

What’s the best buying signal for a benefits agency?

A change at the top. The new person doesn’t have the old relationship with the incumbent broker.

Do I need Clay?

I never paid for it. The only outbound tools I paid for were verified emails and a sending platform.

Where does a signal agent look?

Google, Google News, job boards, and the decision-maker’s social posts.

What’s the cheapest way to use a signal?

Go to the person’s LinkedIn and leave a thoughtful comment on their fresh post. Ten a week.

Image brief for Astra (header, same treatment as the other headers)