Buying intent / intent signals

Buying intent is the degree to which a prospect is moving toward a purchase, inferred from what they do rather than what they say. The individual behaviors that point to it are called intent signals. These range from obvious actions, like requesting a demo or pricing page visit, to softer ones, like reading three articles about a problem your product solves, attending a webinar, or engaging publicly with a competitor's content. Sales teams care about intent because timing is most of the battle in B2B. The same outreach message lands very differently when it reaches someone who is already in a buying cycle versus someone who has no active need. Intent signals come in two broad types. First-party signals happen on properties you own, such as your website, your emails, or your product. Third-party signals happen elsewhere, such as research on review sites or engagement with industry content. The practical job is to collect these signals, weigh the strong ones more heavily than the weak ones, and use them to decide who to contact and what to say. A signal alone does not guarantee a sale, yet a cluster of signals from the same account is a strong reason to prioritize it.