Intent data and buying signals
Intent data tells you which accounts may be looking. Buying signals tell you why they might need something now. This page covers both: the three sources of intent, the signal types worth tracking, how often each one happens across 8,518 companies, and how to act on a signal within a day.
By Semir JahicCEO & Co-Founder, SalesmotionLast reviewed B2B intent data is evidence that a company is researching a problem or getting ready to buy. It answers two questions for a sales team: which accounts to work this week, and what to say to them. Buyer intent data is the same idea seen from the account's side: signs that a buying group is forming.
Intent signals are the single observations behind it: a pricing-page visit, a rise in topic research, a new job posting for the team you sell to. Buying signals is the wider term. It also covers events that change what an account needs, such as an acquisition, a funding round, a new executive or a priority named on an earnings call. Intent says an account may be looking. An event says why it might need something now.
The short version
Each source answers a different question, so they work best together: one tells you who is looking, one tells you where to look, one tells you why now.
What accounts do on your own channels
Topic research measured across other websites
Things that happened at the account, on the record
Salesmotion works on the third column: it monitors public events across 1,000+ sources and 50+ signal types for the accounts you track, and links every signal to its source. For the trade-offs between data types, read contact data vs intent data and finding in-market accounts without third-party intent.
Twelve signals sales teams track most, where each comes from, what it usually means and how fast to act. Response windows follow the priorities in the signal-based selling guide.
| Signal | Source | Example | What it usually means | Act within |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing or comparison page visits | First-party | Three people from one account read your pricing and security pages in the same week | An active evaluation that includes you | 24 to 48 hours |
| Product usage change | First-party | A second team at a customer starts using the product | Expansion potential, or a new owner forming | Within a week |
| Topic research surge | Third-party | An account's reading on your category rises above its usual level across a publisher network | Early research on the problem, reason unknown | Verify, then 1 to 2 weeks |
| Review-site category research | Third-party | An account compares vendors in your category on a software review site | A shortlist is forming | 24 to 48 hours |
| Leadership change | Public event | A new VP of Sales joins from a company that already ran your type of tool | New leaders review priorities and tools in their first months | 7 to 14 days |
| M&A | Public event | The account acquires a company in an adjacent market | Integration work, duplicate tools and new budget owners | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Funding round | Public event | A growth round closes with a stated plan to expand into Europe | Hiring and new tooling tied to the stated plan | 14 to 21 days |
| Relevant hiring | Public event | Five open roles for the team your product serves | The team is growing into the problem you solve | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Earnings call | Public event | The CFO names sales productivity as a priority for next year | An executive priority you can quote back | 24 to 48 hours |
| SEC filing | Public event | A 10-K adds a cost program or a new risk factor in your area | A stated priority with budget behind it | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Product launch or expansion | Public event | The account enters a new country or launches a new product line | New go-to-market needs and new buyers | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Regulatory decision | Public event | A product approval or a new compliance rule that applies to the account | Launch work, new processes, new vendors | Within a week |
Not every signal is a reason to call. Five news categories tend to reopen budgets, priorities or vendor choices: M&A, funding, partnerships, expansion and product launches. These are the trigger events, and relevant hiring is close behind. Everything else is context: it improves the message but rarely justifies one. The charts below show how often each happens, from Salesmotion's first-party benchmark of 8,518 tracked companies in Q3 2026 (1 July to 30 September 2026). It measures how often signals occur, not win rates.
Share of companies with each kind of news event
8,518 companies, Q3 2026. Each company counted once per category.
| Item | Share of companies | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Other news | 48.3% | Context |
| Financial results | 48.1% | Context |
| Leadership and executive news | 43.4% | Context |
| Strategy | 39.3% | Context |
| Technology or AI | 17.5% | Context |
| M&A | 9.9% | Trigger event |
| Regulatory and legal news | 8.4% | Context |
| Funding or IPO | 4.3% | Trigger event |
| Product launch | 3.2% | Trigger event |
| Expansion or new market | 2.7% | Trigger event |
| Partnership | 2.0% | Trigger event |
| Clinical | 1.3% | Context |
Share of companies with a trigger event, by size
Employees. Trigger = M&A, funding or IPO, partnership, expansion, product launch.
| Item | Share with a trigger event |
|---|---|
| 1 to 200 employees | 8.4% |
| 201 to 1,000 | 12.8% |
| 1,001 to 10,000 | 18.3% |
| 10,001+ | 39.6% |
Signals per 100 companies in one quarter, by type
What a 100-account book produces in a quarter, Q3 2026. Hiring and podcast coverage grew during 2026, so earlier quarters were lower.
| Item | Signals per 100 companies |
|---|---|
| News | 933 |
| Podcast or video mention | 314 |
| Press release | 117 |
| Relevant hiring | 70 |
| Earnings call | 26 |
| SEC filing | 20 |
9.9% of tracked companies had an acquisition, merger or divestiture story in one quarter. Integration work, duplicate tools and new budget owners follow.
Only 4.3% had a funding or IPO story. A prospecting motion built only on funding alerts runs dry for most books of accounts.
43.4% of companies appeared in leadership and executive news, but in a hand check only about a third of those stories were appointments or departures.
39.6% of companies with 10,001+ employees had a trigger event in the quarter, against 8.4% of companies with 200 or fewer. Enterprise books need filtering, small ones need coverage.
At companies with two or more trigger events, the median gap between them was 10.5 days (May to September 2026). A signal that waits a month has usually been overtaken.
100 tracked companies produced about 1,500 signals in a quarter, most of them news and podcast mentions. Use those for the first line of a message, not as the reason for it.
Monitoring is the part to automate. Nobody can read news, filings, earnings calls and job boards for 100 accounts every day. Judgement is the part to keep: whether the signal matters, and a message that shows you understood it. This is the working day from signal to sent message.
1.Signal
An event lands on a tracked account: a new VP, an acquisition, an earnings-call priority, five new roles.
2.Research
Check the source, find the consequence for your offer, and pick the person who owns it.
3.Outreach
One message that names the event, the consequence and one specific idea. A rep reviews it before it goes out.
4.Log
The signal and the play go onto the CRM account, so the next signal builds on this one.
Step 1 · First hour
Sort the new signal: trigger (M&A, funding, partnership, expansion, launch, relevant hiring) or context (results, strategy, executive commentary). Context goes into the account notes. Triggers go to the account owner.
Step 2 · Same morning
Open the source. Is it new, is it about this account, and does it touch what you sell? Leadership news needs this check most: in the benchmark only about a third of those stories were real appointments or departures.
Step 3 · Same day
Find the consequence, not only the event. What does the acquisition mean for their tools, the funding for their hiring plan, the new leader for their first 90 days? Then pick the person who owns that consequence.
Step 4 · Within 24 hours for high-priority signals
One message that names the event, the consequence and one specific idea. No pitch deck, no generic value proposition. Multi-thread to a second stakeholder if the signal touches more than one team.
Step 5 · Same day
Write the signal and the play onto the CRM account, so the next signal at that account builds on this one. At accounts with triggers, the next one often arrives within two weeks.
Patterns from recorded sales conversations with B2B revenue teams in 2026, anonymised by role and company type.
The most common complaint about third-party intent: it says an account is interested in a topic, but not who, why or what happened. Reps want an event they can name and a source they can open.
Buyers worry more about the signal-to-noise ratio than about coverage. They want to choose the signal types that matter for their offer and hide the rest.
A signal at the end of an account's research is too late, because the shortlist is already made. Teams want the event that comes before the buying process, and they want it the day it happens, not three weeks later.
Public news reaches every vendor at once, so the account gets the same message from many sellers. Sales leaders want a ranked answer: which account, which person, which angle, instead of a feed to read.
Buyers named new executives and former champions at new companies as signals they can act on at once. A known contact in a new seat tends to bring the tools they already trust.
Teams that use intent well apply it inside the ideal customer profile. Fit decides whether an account belongs on the list; intent and events decide which ones to work today.
Start with the intent data providers review (12 providers, with pricing where it is published) and the intent data software buyer's guide. If you already run an ABM or data platform and are weighing a change, these pages compare the options:
6sense alternatives
Five options compared on signals, account research and pricing.
Demandbase alternatives
Options compared on signals, account research and published pricing.
ZoomInfo alternatives
For teams that need reasons to reach out, not only contact records.
Bombora alternatives
Compare third-party intent with public-event signal monitoring.
62 guides, grouped by what you are trying to get done.
Definitions, the difference between data types, and what makes a signal worth acting on.
Reviews, pricing and buying criteria for intent data and buying-signal software.
Turn signals into a ranked list of accounts to work this week.
From signal to sent message, with examples, scripts and the metrics to track.
Playbooks for the triggers sellers ask about most.
Use outside signals for expansion and churn risk, not only for new logos.
What to watch in the market you sell into.
Intent data FAQ
Buyer intent data is the same idea seen from the account's side: signals that a buying group is forming or a purchase is getting closer. The strongest buyer intent is first-party, because it names the account that is looking at you. Third-party intent shows research on a topic but not the reason. Public events give the reason, and a source a rep can quote in the first line of a message.
Intent data usually means research behaviour: what an account reads or searches. Buying signals is the wider term. It includes intent data and also events that change what an account needs, such as M&A, funding, leadership changes, hiring, product launches and earnings-call priorities. Intent says an account may be looking. An event says why it might need something now. The best plays combine both. See the buying signals guide.
Intent signals are the single observations that make up intent data: a visit to your pricing page, a spike in topic research, a vendor comparison on a review site, a new job posting for the team you sell to. One signal is weak evidence. Several signals at the same account in the same week are strong evidence. The intent signals guide covers how to score and act on them.
In Salesmotion's benchmark of 8,518 tracked companies in Q3 2026, M&A was the most common hard trigger: 9.9% of companies had an acquisition, merger or divestiture story in the quarter. Funding or IPO reached 4.3%, product launches 3.2%, expansion 2.7% and partnerships 2.0%. 18.7% of companies had at least one of these, and 30.8% when relevant hiring counts. Full data: B2B buying signals benchmark.
Triage every signal the day it arrives, and act on high-priority ones within 24 to 48 hours: a new executive in your buyer persona, an earnings-call priority in your area, or several signals in one week. Medium signals such as hiring or a product launch can wait one to two weeks. Speed matters because signals stack: at companies with two or more trigger events, the median gap between them was 10.5 days.
It is useful for ranking accounts and weak on its own for outreach. Topic-surge data shows that an account's research on a subject rose, but not who researched, why, or whether it relates to a purchase. Treat a surge as a reason to look closer: check for a public event or first-party activity at the same account before a rep reaches out. The contact data vs intent data post explains where each fits.
Most dedicated intent data providers do not publish a price, so the cost is set in a sales conversation. The intent data providers review compares what is known for 12 of them. Salesmotion monitors public-event signals across 1,000+ sources. The Individual plan is $85/mo for up to 100 accounts, billed monthly. For larger teams, talk to us.
Salesmotion watches 1,000+ public sources for the accounts you track and drafts the outreach. From $85/mo for 100 accounts. Book a 30-minute demo or try the interactive demo first.
