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78signals, ranked

Every B2B intent signal, ranked for the way you sell

78 buying signals scored on five votes, with the tools that catch each one and a finder that ranks them for your company.

The Intent Signal IndexOctober 2026
  1. 1Asks for recommendations78
  2. 2Job post names your category75
  3. 3Compares you on G271
  4. 4Customer intro71
  5. 5Champion changes jobs71
  6. 6First hire in a function71
  7. 7Hiring your buyer's team71
  8. 8Job post describes the pain68
  9. 9Complains about a rival68
  10. 10Posts about the pain68
Score = intent 30% + timing 25% + fit 15% + volume 15% + detectability 15%How we score
WHY SIGNALS

Your market this quarter. Fifty of these are buying.

Intent signals are events that show a company is likely to buy something like what you sell, soon: a demo request, a new leader in the team you sell to, a job post that names your category. Some come from your own channels, the rest from public sources and data providers.

5%of B2B buyers are in market in a given quarter. The other 95% are not buying right now.

Source: John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, for the LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2021.

94%of buyers rank a favorite vendor before they talk to sales, and 95% of the time the winner was already on their Day One shortlist.

Source: 6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report.

Signals are how you find the fifty, and get on their shortlist before Day One.

By , founder of Growth Cab. Updated October 20, 2026.

In market this quarter: 50Not buying right now: 950
THE INDEX

The Intent Signal Index, all 78 ranked

Scored for the typical B2B company. Open any signal for who to write to, a first line that works and how to catch it, for free where you can.

The map. Every square is a signal, by family, strongest on top. Click a family to filter.

  • On fire, 75+
  • Hot, 60 to 74
  • Warm, under 60
Free to use with a link backCite it, embed the top 10 or take the whole dataset (CC BY 4.0). Missing a signal? Write to success@growthcab.com and it goes into the next edition.
Download the CSV
THE FINDER

Which signals matter for your company?

Complete the sentence. The finder votes every signal again for your company with the same model, mostly on fit, volume and detectability, and shows why each one moved.

We sell in deals, , to at companies in .

Our market has companies. We get website visits a month, we have and a month for signal tools.

Your top 10 signals to build campaigns on

Ranked for the company above. Open one for who to write to and the first line.

Never let these wait

Your own channels. Answer within the hour.

  • Asks for a demo or a call with sales89
  • Usage gets close to the plan limit81
  • Asks your chat or support about plans, security or contracts78
  • Starts booking a meeting and stops halfway78

Your first micro-campaign

Run them next to your always-on campaign. An account that shows one jumps the queue.

  • Asks in public for a tool or vendor recommendation81
  • A job post names your category or a competitor's tool75
  • A new CRO, VP Sales or head of sales starts75

Your starter stack

Tools with a published price up to $2,000 a month, or a free plan with the signals.

  • ClayFrom $167/mo · our partner5
  • SyftenFrom $29.95/mo3
  • OctolensFrom $159/mo3
  • TheirStackFree plan3

Skip for now

The weakest outbound signals for you.

  • Wins an award or gets press coverage29
  • Shares an investor with you33
  • Lands on a fast-growth ranking40
8 signals do not apply to you
  • Trial sign-upNeeds a free plan or a self-serve trial
  • Hits an upgrade gateNeeds a free plan or a self-serve trial
  • Product-qualified leadNeeds a free plan or a self-serve trial
  • Team invitesNeeds a free plan or a self-serve trial
  • Email openNot a signal since Apple Mail Privacy Protection
  • GitHub activityOnly for products that developers use
  • Tender or RFP publishedOnly for teams selling to the public sector
  • Pre-tender consultationOnly for teams selling to the public sector

Want these running on your market?

On the first call we bring your top signals counted in your own market, the way we prepare every sales call.

Book a call
METHOD

How the score works, in five votes

The same model Stratega, our research engine, runs before every sales call we take. Each signal gets five votes from 1 to 5. The weights turn them into a score from 0 to 100.

  • Intent30%
  • Timing25%
  • Fit15%
  • Volume15%
  • Detectability15%
Intent30%

How directly it says they want to buy something like yours

  1. 1Context only, no need implied
  2. 2Interest in the topic
  3. 3A change that creates a need
  4. 4Strong implied intent
  5. 5An explicit request to buy
Timing25%

How short and how close the buying window is

  1. 1No clock at all
  2. 2Half a year or more
  3. 3About a quarter
  4. 4A few weeks
  5. 5Days
Fit15%

How specific the signal is to what you sell

  1. 1Any company could show it
  2. 2Loosely related to you
  3. 3Related to your buyer
  4. 4About your category
  5. 5About you or your exact problem
Volume15%

Fires often enough to fill a campaign, rarely enough to separate accounts

  1. 1Almost never, or almost everyone
  2. 2Rare
  3. 3Some accounts
  4. 4A healthy slice
  5. 5The sweet spot for a campaign
Detectability15%

How reliably and cheaply you can capture it

  1. 1Custom work, low coverage
  2. 2Hard or expensive
  3. 3A paid tool does it
  4. 4Easy with common tools
  5. 5Your own data or free public data

Signal levels

  • On fire75 to 100First in line for your micro-campaign
  • Hot60 to 74Joins the micro-campaign when fire signals are too few
  • Warm0 to 59Stays in the always-on campaign, adds 10 points on top of a stronger signal

One account, three signals, 100 days

Signals stack and fade. The best live signal counts in full, every other live signal adds 10 points (up to 20), and priority loses a point every three days. For an account in your micro-campaign, priority 70 or more means reach out within 24 hours, 55 or more within the week. When every signal has passed its window, the account goes back to the evergreen campaign, the always-on sequence for accounts with no live signal.

  1. 1Day 0New head of operations starts68
  2. 2Day 20Job post names your category75
  3. 3Day 45Comes back to your pricing page70
05570100Day 0Day 20Day 40Day 60Day 80Day 100New head of operationsJob post names your categoryPricing page visits
05570100Day 0Day 50Day 100123
  • Priority 70 or more: reach out within 24 hours
  • 55 or more: within the week
  • Priority of the account, day by day

Where the votes come from. Intent and timing come mostly from the nature of each signal. Fit, volume and detectability depend on your company, so the general index votes the typical B2B case and the finder votes each signal again for yours, mostly on those three. Votes are Growth Cab's judgment from running signal-based campaigns in the US and Europe, not a survey, reviewed every quarter. This is the October 2026 edition, and the CSV has every vote if you want to change them.

TOOLS

Intent data providers, mapped to every signal

54 tools mapped to the signal families they cover today, with the lowest price each vendor publishes (billed yearly where it shows both), read on the vendors' own pages in October 2026. Nobody paid to be listed. Our clients and partners are marked, and Prospeo pays us a referral commission elsewhere on the site.

ToolInboundProductWebsiteResearchSocialPeopleHiringMoneyChangeTechNetworkNamesStarts atDetails
Website visitor identification
Both From $79/moFree plan too
Both From $10,000/yr
Both From $36,000/yr
Both From €79/moFree plan too
Both From $49/mo
Company From €59/mo
Company On request
Both From $20/mo per seat
Intent and ABM platforms
Both On request
Both On request
Company On request
Both On request
Both On request
Contact databases with signals
Both On request
Both From $49/mo per seatFree plan too
Both From $37.45/mo
Both On request
Both From $37/moFree plan too
Review-site intent
Company On request
People moves
Both From $40,000/yr
Both From $500/mo
Both From $200/mo
Both From $89.99/mo
Social and community listening
Both From $2,500/mo
Person From €449/mo
Person From $99/mo
Both From $99/mo per user
Person From $29.95/mo
Person From $159/mo
Company, hiring and tech data
Company Free plan
Company From $40/moFree plan too
Both Free plan
Company From $295/mo
Both From $22,000/yr
Company Free plan
Both From $19 credit pack
Funding and deal data
Company From $49/mo
Company On request
Both On request
Both On request
Company From €100/mo
Partners and relationships
Company Free plan
Both From $99/moFree plan too
Ad engagement
Company From $199/mo
Company From $59/mo
Company From $80/mo
Inbound routing and scheduling
Both From $12,000/yr
Both From $1,250/mo
Signal workflow platforms
Both From $167/mo
Both From $600/mo
Both From $20/mo per seat
Both On request
Both From $249/mo per seat
Both On request
Your own systems
Both You own it
Both You own it
IN THE DEAL

Buying signals inside a live deal

Once you are talking, the signals change. These eight, scored with the same model, say a deal is moving. Tap or hover one to find it in the thread.

Re: Planning tool for Acme5 messages
Laura BianchiHead of Operations, Acme Logistics

Thanks for the session. How long did onboarding take for a team of our size? We have 40 planners across three sites.

Laura Bianchi

Adding Marco from finance, he will want to see the numbers. What would 25 seats look like on the annual plan?

Marco RossiCFO, Acme Logistics

If we started in January, could we pay quarterly? We need this running before peak season in March.

Marco Rossi

Is there a logistics company we could speak with? Our worry is that planners will not keep the data up to date.

Laura Bianchi

One more thing. Could you fill in our vendor security questionnaire and send your DPA?

  1. 1Security reviewAnswer within two days and offer a call with your security lead.89
  2. 2Contract termsSend a draft order form with the terms they asked for.89
  3. 3Implementation questionsShare a dated onboarding plan with names on each step.86
  4. 4New stakeholders joinSend each new person the one page that answers their question.79
  5. 5Pricing questionsGive a real number fast, with the value it is tied to.79
  6. 6Names a deadlinePlan backwards from their date, in writing.78
  7. 7Asks for referencesBook the reference call for them, do not just send a name.75
  8. 8Specific objectionAnswer with a customer who had the same worry, and what happened.65
STOP SIGNALS

Signals that mean stop or wait

Some events take an account out of the sales queue. Respect them and your good signals keep working.

One account in your micro-campaign

85sales priority

LiveReach out within 24 hours.

Pick an event to see what it does to the account.

RESULTS

Signals at work in our clients' pipelines

We pick signals for a living. Four engagements where the signal was the strategy.

Federico Donatone and Lorenzo Asnaghi, founders of Growth Cab, in the New York office
Federico DonatoneCEOLorenzo AsnaghiCOOWe rank signals before every sales call. This is the same model, opened to everyone.
FAQ

Intent signals, answered

What are intent signals?
Intent signals are events that show a company or a person is likely to buy something like what you sell, soon. A demo request is the strongest kind. A new leader in the team you sell to, a job post that names your category or a question in a LinkedIn group are signals you can find without waiting for the buyer to come to you.
Why do intent signals matter?
Most of your market is not buying right now: about 5% of B2B buyers are in market in a given quarter (John Dawes, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, for the LinkedIn B2B Institute, 2021). Buyers also decide early: 94% rank a favorite vendor before they talk to sales, and 95% of the time the winner was already on their Day One shortlist (6sense, 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report). Signals tell you who is in the 5% and when, so you get on the shortlist before it is written.
What are examples of buying signals?
The strongest in each of the 11 families of this index: "Demo request" (inbound requests), "Hits an upgrade gate" (product usage), "High-intent pages" (website and content), "Compares you on G2" (research intent), "Asks for recommendations" (social and community), "Champion changes jobs" (people moves), "Job post names your category" (hiring), "Tender or RFP published" (money events), "Regulation deadline" (company change), "Adopts a complementary tool" (tech stack) and "Customer intro" (network and partners). The index lists all 78, with a first line to send for each.
What is the strongest buying signal?
In this index, "Demo request" at 89 out of 100: the buyer asking you directly. Among the signals you can find without waiting for the buyer, the top three are "Asks for recommendations" (78), "Job post names your category" (75) and "Compares you on G2" (71). Those three work for almost any B2B company; product-led and public sector teams have stronger ones, marked in the index.
What is the difference between intent data and intent signals?
Intent data usually means third-party research data: which companies read about a topic across B2B websites, sold by providers like Bombora or built into 6sense and Demandbase. Intent signals is the wider family: anything that shows timing, from your own website and product to job posts, people moves and public conversations. Research intent is one of the 11 families in this index, and not the strongest.
What are first-party, second-party and third-party intent signals?
First-party signals come from your own channels: website, product, forms and inbox. Second-party signals come from a platform that shares its data with you, like a review site telling you which companies compared you with a competitor. Third-party signals come from public or pooled sources: job posts, funding news, people moves and co-op research data.
Which intent data providers are the best?
It depends on the signal. For people moves, tools like UserGems, Champify and Clay. For website visitors, RB2B in the US and Leadfeeder or Snitcher in Europe. For research intent, Bombora, G2 and the ABM platforms like 6sense and Demandbase. Many contact databases (Apollo, Lusha, Cognism, ZoomInfo) now add signals too. The tools section maps 54 tools to the signal families they cover, with the prices they publish. Growth Cab works with some of these vendors: HubSpot, Prospeo, Clay, Enginy and Databar are partners (Prospeo also pays us a referral commission elsewhere on our site), and TendersTool and FlashLabs are clients. They are marked in the table, and none of them paid to be listed.
Can I track intent signals for free?
Yes, for many of them. Job posts, funding news, leadership changes and LinkedIn posts are public, and your CRM, forms and product data are yours. The index shows a free way to catch every signal where one exists: turn on Free to track to see the 68 that have one.
Are intent signals legal under GDPR?
Company-level signals and public business events are widely used in B2B outreach in Europe, with a legitimate interest, a clear way to opt out and respect for local rules. Identifying individual website visitors is much more restricted in Europe than in the US. Check with your own legal counsel: this is not legal advice.
How did you score the signals?
With the model Stratega, our research engine, runs before every sales call: intent 30%, timing 25%, fit 15%, volume 15% and detectability 15%, each voted from 1 to 5. The votes are our judgment from running signal-based outbound for clients, not a survey. The general index votes the typical B2B case, the finder votes each signal again for your company (mostly fit, volume and detectability), and the CSV has every vote if you want to change them.
How often is the index updated?
We review the votes and the tools every quarter. This is the October 2026 edition, with tool prices read on the vendors' own pages.
Can I cite or embed the index?
Yes. Copy the citation or the embed code under the index, or download the full dataset as a CSV (CC BY 4.0). Please link back to this page.

Your top signals, counted in your own market

That is how we prepare every sales call: your market pulled from Clay and your signals counted account by account, ready for the first conversation. Then we build the outbound engine that acts on them, with Clay and real people on the phone.