In short: A buying signal is an event after which a company is more likely to buy than before. Examples include a new job posting, a new leader, a funding round, a new location, a profile view, a comment on your post, or an event sign-up. Reach out where company and trigger both fit, and name the trigger in your message.
As of November 2026. Filters, limits and prices for LinkedIn and CompLeadly refer to this month.
Cold outreach without a reason is a numbers game: you message lots of people and hope a few happen to need what you sell. Buying signals flip the order. You first look for companies where something is moving, then you write, and your message opens with a real reason.
Below you'll find the signals that matter, where they show up on LinkedIn, a simple way to sort them, and templates for your reply. The last part covers recruiting and job hunting.
What a buying signal is, and what it isn't
A buying signal is an observable event that makes a company's need more likely or brings it closer in time. It says nothing about whether the company is a fit for you. That's what your ideal customer profile is for: industry, size, region and the role that buys from you. How to build that profile is covered in our post on the ideal customer profile, and the free ICP generator helps with a first draft.
A strong signal at the wrong company is worth nothing. Five open sales roles at an enterprise outside your target industry have nothing to do with you. The same posting at a mid-sized company that matches your profile is a reason to write this week.
Two neighboring topics draw the line like this. Social selling is about becoming visible through your profile, posts and relationships. Some buying signals are the response to that visibility, such as a comment or a profile view. AI in sales shows how AI helps you research and write. This post is about the question before that: which events are worth a message at all? The whole path from research to meeting is described in What is prospecting.
Buying signals in B2B sales: examples
These signals come up again and again in B2B. The table shows where you spot them and what you can pick up on in your message.
Signal | Example | Where you find it on LinkedIn | What you pick up on |
|---|---|---|---|
New job posting | A software company is hiring three reps and a team lead | Jobs tab on the company page, job search | The team is growing, and new people need processes and tools |
New leader | A new VP of Sales started six weeks ago | Profile, notifications, Sales Navigator filter for job changes | People new in a role look at what they inherited |
Funding | The founder announces a funding round | Founder posts, company page | Money is earmarked for growth |
Expansion | New office, new country, growing headcount | Posts, company page, Sales Navigator filter for headcount growth | A new market brings new tasks |
Profile view | A managing director from your target industry views your profile | Your list of profile viewers | The topic you stand for, not the view itself |
Engagement with your post | A purchasing manager comments on your post about delivery times | Reactions and comments under the post, notifications | The point he made in his comment |
Event attendance | Signed up for a webinar on your topic | The event's attendee list | The session you are both interested in |
Follows your company page | A team lead recently started following your company | Company page followers, Sales Navigator filter | A piece of your company's content that fits their role |
Posts about the problem | An HR director writes that applications have dried up | Feed, post search, Sales Navigator filter for recent posts | Her own description of the problem |
Not every signal carries the same weight. Job postings, funding and expansion affect the whole company and stay relevant for weeks. Profile views and likes are weaker: they show attention, not yet a need. A comment with an actual opinion sits in between, because the person took the time to write something.
A job change is a special case. It is one of the best-known signals, but it takes patience: in the first days of a new role, it's about congratulations, not vendors. Congratulate first.
How to find buying signals on LinkedIn
Without Sales Navigator
A regular LinkedIn account shows many signals. All it takes is a weekly half hour.
- Job postings: In LinkedIn job search, filter by company, location and job title. Set up a job alert for your most important target accounts so LinkedIn tells you about new postings.
- Profile viewers: You'll find the list on your profile. How much of it LinkedIn shows you and how to read it is covered in LinkedIn profile views.
- Reactions and comments: Under each of your posts you can see who reacted and who commented. Focus on posts about your core topic.
- Posts about the problem: Post search finds content with the words your customers use for their problem. Whoever is writing about it right now is dealing with it right now.
- Events: Search for events on your topic and look at the attendee list.
- Company pages: Follow your target accounts. Companies often announce new locations, funding and new hires on their own page.
With Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator bundles many signals into search filters. According to LinkedIn's help article on search filters (as of November 2026), lead search includes these, among others:
- "Changed jobs" in the last 90 days
- "Posted on LinkedIn" in the last 30 days
- "Viewed your profile recently"
- "Following your company"
In account search, you can filter for companies with open roles posted on LinkedIn ("Job opportunities") and for headcount growth over the last twelve months, for the whole company or for single departments. There's also "Account has buyer intent": according to LinkedIn, it shows companies that expressed high or moderate interest in your company in the past 30 days.
Combining them gets you the most. In lead search, look for sales leaders in your target industry who changed jobs in the last 90 days. In account search, look for companies with open sales roles. Anyone on both lists brings two triggers. How to build and save searches like these is shown in How to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Whether the license pays off for you is the subject of Sales Navigator: worthwhile investment or overrated?
Prioritizing signals: fit first, then trigger
Once you collect signals, you quickly have more names than you can message. Sort them with two questions. Does the company match your ideal customer profile? And how strong and how fresh is the trigger?
Fit | Trigger | What you do |
|---|---|---|
High | Strong and fresh: job posting, funding, expansion, comment | Write a personal message this week |
High | Weak: profile view, like, new follower | Connect, follow their posts, write at the next signal |
Low | Strong | Check briefly whether your profile is too narrow, otherwise leave it |
Low | Weak | Leave it |
Two rules help you fine-tune. First, signals add up. Someone who comments on your post while their company is hiring reps comes before someone with just one signal. Second, signals age. Sales Navigator's time windows are a useful guide: 30 days for posts, 90 days for job changes. Anything older still works as small talk, but not as the reason for your first message.
A simple sheet with company, person, signal, date and next step is enough to start. Use the sales pipeline template and add a column for the signal.
The right message for each signal
A good message on a buying signal names the trigger in the first sentence and then asks a question related to your topic. A pitch has no place in the first message.
Connection notes are short. According to LinkedIn Help, without Premium you can add a personalized message to up to three connection requests per month, each up to 200 characters. Premium members can add personalized messages to all their connection requests (as of November 2026). The templates below stay under 200 characters. Check your own version with the LinkedIn character counter. Whether a note helps at all is covered in Connecting with or without a message.
Templates to copy
New job posting (connection note):
"Hi [Name], I saw you're growing your sales team. I work with teams at exactly this stage on [topic]. Would be glad to connect."
Comment on your post (message to a 1st-degree connection):
"Hi [Name], thanks for your comment on [topic]. I hear your point about [detail] a lot. How do you handle that at [company] today?"
Profile view (connection note):
"Hi [Name], we both work around [topic]. I like swapping notes with people who own [responsibility], so I'd be glad to connect."
Don't mention the view itself. The topic is what connects you; the view was just the hint.
Event (connection note):
"Hi [Name], we're both signed up for [event]. I'm most interested in [session]. Let's connect so we can compare notes afterwards."
Funding or expansion (connection note):
"Hi [Name], congrats on the new office in [city]. When a team builds out like that, [topic] usually comes up soon. Would be glad to connect."
New role (message to a 1st-degree connection):
"Hi [Name], congratulations on your new role as [position] at [company]. Wishing you a great start."
The question about needs can wait until the first few weeks are over.
First message after connecting:
"Thanks for connecting, [Name]. You had [trigger in a few words]. Is [topic] on your plate right now, or more of a later-this-year thing?"
If there's no reply, a short reminder after a few days helps. You'll find wording for that in follow-up templates and more notes in LinkedIn connection message templates. The free message check shows whether your text is clear and short enough.
Using buying signals with CompLeadly
CompLeadly builds target audiences from people with a specific signal and sends your reply as a sequence. The table shows which signal you capture with which feature, and from which plan.
Signal | How you capture it in CompLeadly | Plan |
|---|---|---|
Profile view, new follower | The link types "LinkedIn Profiles That Viewed Me" or "LinkedIn profile, following me" as a target audience | All plans, up to 2 saved audiences on Free |
Viewed your profile, posted recently, changed jobs, follows your company | Sales Navigator audience in the audience builder, under "Good moments to reach out" and "Special signals" | Basic and up, with your own Sales Navigator |
Comment or reaction on a post | Export Post Interactions: commenters and likers land in their own audiences, split into connected and not connected | Premium and up |
Event attendance | Add the event's attendee list as a link to a target audience | All plans; invitations to your own events from Premium |
Poll participation | Survey Participants as Audience | Premium and up |
Open roles | Export jobs with imprint: jobs from your audience as a spreadsheet, including address and contact details from the company's legal notice | Premium and up |
New role | "Congratulate on new position" for your connections | Premium and up |
Posts from your target audience | Smart Comment AI writes AI comments on those posts and sends them directly or for review, depending on your settings | Smart Chat Premium add-on, $49.99 per month, requires Sales Navigator |
Signal described in your own words | The AI audience builder creates the audience from your description | Premium Plus |
You reply to the signal with the same building blocks as always: connect with an optional note, a first message to new connections, and follow-ups. A follow-up only goes out once the previous message has gone unanswered for the number of days you set. If the contact replies, no further follow-up is sent. As a scheduled workflow, this runs on Basic for $29.99 per month, or $24.99 on the yearly plan. On the free plan, you start each step yourself and work with daily limits, for example 2 connection requests and 1 follow-up per day. All prices exclude VAT.
If you work with an AI assistant, it can create these audiences through the CompLeadly MCP server, which is included in every plan. Its tool for audience links knows the same signal filters as the builder, such as job changes, recent posts and profile views.
You'll find step-by-step guides in our knowledge base: profile visitors and followers as target audiences, exporting leads from post interactions, contacting event attendees and the congratulations feature. How a sales team sets this up is shown on the page for sales teams. If you sell yourself as a founder, two sources go a long way: comments on your posts and job postings at your target accounts. More on that on the page for founders.
Recruiting and job hunting: same signals, other direction
Recruiting: candidates open to a move
Candidates send signals too. The clearest one is "Open to work". LinkedIn Recruiter has its own Spotlight filter for it above the search results. A second signal is the "I'm interested" button on company pages, which lets members privately show they would like to work at a company. According to LinkedIn Help, recruiters at that company can see this when they search for interested candidates, and it isn't shared publicly. The weaker signals are the ones you know from sales: someone follows your employer page, comments on your team's posts or views your profile.
In CompLeadly, with your own Recruiter Lite license, you can use a Recruiter Lite search, a pipeline or a saved Recruiter audience as a target audience. People who react to your own posts or to your colleagues' posts can be pulled into an audience on Premium with Export Post Interactions. For outreach wording, see LinkedIn recruiting message templates and active sourcing on LinkedIn. What "Open to work" means for candidates is explained in Open to work on LinkedIn. The full workflow for recruiters is on the page for recruiters.
Job hunting: companies that are hiring right now
For job seekers, the question flips: which company needs someone like you right now? The job posting is the obvious signal. On a job's details page, LinkedIn can show a "Meet the Hiring Team" section, and according to LinkedIn Help you can connect with and message the team listed there. People search also has an "Actively hiring" filter, which LinkedIn lists as a Premium feature. It shows people who are hiring for specific roles. Growth, a funding round or a new team lead are further hints that roles may open up soon.
On Premium, CompLeadly exports jobs from a LinkedIn job search as a spreadsheet, including address and contact details from the company's legal notice. The audience builder for LinkedIn search, available from Basic, has the filters "Currently hiring" and "Is hiring for this position". For a few targeted requests to hiring managers, the free plan with 2 connection requests per day is enough. Which mistakes to avoid along the way is covered in common LinkedIn mistakes when job hunting.
Checklist: put buying signals to work in one week
- Write down your ideal customer profile in a few sentences.
- Pick two or three signals that fit your offer, for example sales job postings and comments on your posts.
- Set one source for each signal: job search, profile viewers, a Sales Navigator search or an attendee list.
- Once a week, sort the results by fit and trigger.
- Adapt one template per signal and name the trigger in the first sentence.
- After each week, note which signal brought replies, and drop the weakest source.
Don't want to check the sources by hand every week? Try CompLeadly for ten days with the Premium features, no payment details needed. After that, the app keeps running on the free plan with daily limits, or you pick a plan on the pricing page. All features are listed under features, and you can get the app on the download page.
FAQ: Buying signals in B2B sales
What are buying signals in B2B sales?
Buying signals are observable events after which a company is more likely to buy than before. Examples include new job postings, a new leader, a funding round, an expansion, a profile view, a comment on your post or attendance at an event on your topic.
Where do I find buying signals on LinkedIn?
In job search, in your list of profile viewers, under your posts, in event attendee lists and on the company pages of your target accounts. Sales Navigator adds filters for job changes, recent posts, open roles and headcount growth.
Do I need Sales Navigator for buying signals?
No. You can see job postings, profile viewers, comments and events with a regular account. Sales Navigator saves time because it offers signals like job changes in the last 90 days or posts in the last 30 days as filters.
Should I mention the profile view in my message?
Better not. Pick up on the topic that connects you instead.
How fast should I respond to a buying signal?
For strong signals like a job posting or a comment, within the same week. Sales Navigator's time windows, 30 days for posts and 90 days for job changes, are a good upper limit. After a job change, congratulate first and ask about needs only after a few weeks.
How does CompLeadly help with buying signals?
CompLeadly turns signals into target audiences, for example from profile viewers, event attendees or Sales Navigator filters, and sends connection requests, messages and follow-ups to them. Scheduled workflows start at Basic, exporting post interactions and jobs at Premium.
