Outbound sales has always been a game of strategy, timing, and persistence.

But in today’s world, where buyers are bombarded with messages daily, the traditional spray-and-pray approach no longer works. 

Sales teams are under immense pressure to hit their quotas and do so efficiently. 

The key? Focusing on the right prospects, at the right time, with the right message.

That’s where intent signals come into play.

Intent signals are the digital breadcrumbs your prospects leave behind, revealing their interest and readiness to engage with your solution.

These signals might be as obvious as filling out a demo request or as subtle as multiple visits to your pricing page.

With these insights, you can stop wasting time on uninterested leads and focus on those who are most likely to convert. It’s about working smarter, not harder, to drive better results in your outbound efforts.

In this blog, we’ll show you how to identify, collect, and act on intent signals to create hyper-targeted outreach strategies that boost conversions. Let’s dive in.

Understanding Intent Signals

Intent signals are the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) clues that prospects leave behind, indicating their level of interest in your product.

They give sales teams valuable insights into where a prospect is in their buying journey, replacing guesswork with data-driven precision.

Intent signals can come in many forms, from direct actions to subtle digital behaviors. Here are some common examples:

Website Activity

• Visiting your pricing page or product features page.
• Spending time on a case study or blog.
• Returning to your site multiple times within a short period.

Content Engagement

• Downloading an ebook, whitepaper, or report.
• Watching a product demo video or webinar.
• Clicking on links in your email campaigns.

Social Interactions

• Engaging with your company’s LinkedIn posts.
• Commenting on or liking industry-related articles.
• Following your company or team members on social media.

Third-Party Data

• Being flagged by intent data platforms like Bombora or 6sense for researching relevant topics.
• Showing increased engagement with competitor content.

These actions aren’t just random—they’re digital breadcrumbs that guide you to high-potential prospects.

Think of it this way: a prospect visiting your pricing page multiple times is a major breadcrumb suggesting they’re close to buying. On the other hand, downloading a blog post might indicate they’re just starting their journey. 

The key is recognizing these clues and acting at the right moment.

The more signals a prospect leaves behind, the clearer their intent becomes. With the right tools and strategies, you can follow these trails to engage them at the perfect time, boosting the efficiency and success of your outbound efforts.

Collecting intent signals

To effectively use intent signals for outbound, you need to know where to find them.

Intent data can come from multiple sources. 

These include first-party data from your own platforms, second-party data from trusted partners, and third-party data from broader industry tracking tools. 

Combining these streams provides a well-rounded view of your prospects’ behaviors and intent.

Pre-Intent Signals

Pre-intent signals are subtle, qualitative behaviors or indicators that prospects may be starting to show interest in your industry or solution category. 

While these signals don’t explicitly indicate buying intent, they’re valuable for building relationships early in the buyer’s journey.

• Job Changes or Role Shifts: A decision-maker recently promoted to a relevant role may be tasked with solving a problem your solution addresses. Tools like LinkedIn can help track these changes.
• Industry Trends & Events: A company announcing a new product launch, funding round, or expansion may signal the need for your services. Monitor press releases, blogs, and news alerts for such insights.
• Content Interaction Without Direct Engagement: A prospect reading your industry-related content on third-party platforms but not yet engaging with your brand directly.

💡Pro Tip: Treat pre-intent signals as opportunities to educate and build rapport, not to push a sale prematurely. Share valuable content or resources that align with their potential needs.

First-Party Sources

First-party data refers to information you collect directly through your own channels. It’s highly reliable because it’s based on your audience’s actual interactions with your business.

• Website Analytics: Tools like Google Analytics or HubSpot can reveal which pages a prospect visits, how much time they spend, and whether they return multiple times.
• CRM Data: Your CRM tracks email opens, link clicks, and responses. It also helps identify patterns in prospect behavior over time.
• Content Downloads: Monitor who is downloading resources like ebooks, case studies, or whitepapers.
• Product Engagement: If you offer a free trial, track how prospects are using it. Are they exploring key features or frequently logging in?

💡Pro Tip: Use heatmaps or session replay tools like Hotjar to see exactly how users interact with your website.

Second-Party Sources

Second-party data comes from partners or trusted organizations that share their first-party data with you. 

It offers insights beyond your immediate audience while remaining targeted and reliable.

• Partner Organizations: Collaborate with companies serving a similar audience as yours. For instance, a CRM vendor could partner with a marketing automation platform to share prospect behavior.
• Event Collaborations: Gain access to attendee data from joint webinars or an in-person event.

💡Pro Tip: Build data-sharing agreements with partners to access exclusive insights while maintaining compliance with privacy laws.

Third-Party Platforms

Third-party platforms expand your reach by collecting intent data from across the web, beyond your owned channels. 

These services aggregate behavioral data from blogs, forums, and other online activity, giving you insights into broader industry trends.

• Intent Data Providers: Tools like Bombora and 6sense flag prospects researching topics related to your product.
• Social Media Insights: Platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator can reveal who’s engaging with industry-specific content or following your competitors.
• Ad Platforms: Retargeting tools from Google Ads or Meta can help identify prospects who’ve interacted with relevant ads or content.

💡Pro Tip: Choose third-party providers that specialize in your industry or target market for more accurate signals.

Combining Data Streams for Better Insights

The real power of intent data comes when you merge first-party and third-party sources. 

This creates a clearer, multi-dimensional view of your prospects, helping you prioritize leads and personalize outreach.

• Data Integration: Use tools like Zapier or SEPs like Salesgear with native integrations to CRMs to sync data from multiple sources into one dashboard.
• Scoring Systems: Develop an intent scoring model to rank leads based on behaviors across platforms (e.g., pricing page visits = high score, blog download = medium score).
• Behavioral Trends: Combine website activity with third-party insights to spot patterns. For example, a prospect visiting your pricing page after researching related topics on Bombora shows strong purchase intent.

💡Pro Tip: Regularly review and update your data streams to ensure accuracy and relevancy as buyer behavior evolves.

Using intent signals in your outbound workflows

Once you’ve collected intent data, the next step is integrating it into your outbound workflows.

Before you actually ‘integrate’ these intent signals into your workflows, you have to analyze them, segment prospects based on your analysis, and then craft a personalized outreach.

This will help you create a precise and impactful strategy. Let’s break it down into actionable steps with practical workflows.

Step 1: Analyzing and Segmenting Prospects

1. Identifying High-Intent Behaviors

Not all intent signals are equal. A prospect visiting your pricing page multiple times shows stronger intent than someone who just downloaded a blog post. 

Your first task is to identify and categorize signals based on their significance.

• High-Intent Signals: Pricing page visits, demo requests, trial activations with frequent logins.
• Medium-Intent Signals: Case study downloads, watch a webinar or product demo, repeated visits to feature-related pages.
• Low-Intent Signals: Blog post views, following your company on LinkedIn, visiting your homepage once.

✅Quick Tip: Assign an intent score to each behavior (e.g., pricing page visit = 10 points, blog post download = 2 points) and set thresholds to determine high, medium, and low priority leads.

2. Prioritizing and Organizing Leads

Once signals are scored, organize prospects into segments to guide your outreach strategy.

• High-Priority Prospects: Focus your immediate efforts on these leads with tailored outreach strategies.
• Warm Prospects: Nurture these leads with additional resources, such as relevant content or case studies, to move them further along the funnel.
• Cold Prospects: Add these leads to automated workflows for regular, low-effort engagement until they show stronger intent.

✅Quick Tip: Use your CRM or a tool like HubSpot to automate lead scoring and segment prospects into workflows dynamically.

Step 2: Personalizing Your Outreach

Once you are done with segmenting your prospects based on the intent signals data, you can use them to create hyper-relevant messaging that aligns with specific behaviors and readiness levels and resonates with each prospect. 

Here’s how to do it effectively:

1. Messaging Based on Signal Types

High-Intent Leads

These leads are top priority because you might have hidden future customers or great opportunities here.

Personalize your outreach to reflect their specific behaviors.

Example: A prospect visiting your pricing page multiple times.

Email Script:

Subject: Ready to Discuss [Your Solution]?

Hi [First Name],

I noticed you’ve been exploring our pricing options. Many teams in [Industry] have questions about tailoring our solution to their needs.

Would you be open to a quick call to discuss how we can help you achieve your goals?

Best,

[Your Name]

Medium-Intent Leads

Offer value and invite prospects to take the next step.

Example: A prospect downloaded a whitepaper on trends in your industry.

Email Script:

Subject: Insights to Build On

Hi [First Name],

Thanks for downloading our whitepaper on [Topic]. Teams like yours often ask how [Your Solution] fits into addressing [specific challenge].

I’d love to share a recent success story or set up a quick chat—let me know what works best for you!

Best,

[Your Name]

Low-Intent Leads

Focus on educational content to spark further engagement.

Example: A prospect liked your LinkedIn post about industry trends.

Email Script:

Subject: Resources for [Relevant Topic]

Hi [First Name],

I noticed you recently engaged with our LinkedIn post on [Topic]. Here’s a helpful guide that dives deeper: [Link to Resource].

Let me know if you’d like additional resources or have questions about [Your Solution].

Best,

[Your Name]

2. Contextual Outreach Based on Trends

Intent signals can also tie into real-world events, such as funding announcements or product launches.

For example, check out this email-

Subject: Scaling After [Milestone]

Hi [First Name],

Congrats on [recent milestone, e.g., securing funding]! Scaling is exciting, and we’ve helped teams in [Industry] achieve [specific goal].

Are you available for a quick call to explore how we might support your next phase of growth?

Best,

[Your Name]

Step 3: Automating and Testing Workflows

Once you’ve crafted your messaging, integrate it into automated workflows to save time and maintain consistency:

Use tools like Salesgear to set up personalized sequences for each intent level.

Automate follow-ups triggered by new signals, such as a pricing page visit or webinar attendance.

Conduct A/B testing to refine subject lines, messaging, and call-to-action strategies.

Here’s an example of outbound sequence that leverages intent signals for better personalization-

Outbound Scenario: Engaging Cold Prospects Who Engage with LinkedIn Posts

This sequence focuses on using intent signals from LinkedIn activity (likes, comments, or shares on your company’s posts) to identify interest and initiate outreach.

Day 1: Connection Request

Message Template:

Hi [First Name],

I noticed your interest in our recent post on [Topic]. It seems like we’re aligned on [specific idea from post]. I’d love to connect and share more about how we’re helping teams like yours tackle similar challenges.

(if the prospect accepts your request and replies on LinkedIn itself, you can continue your conversation there & take necessary next steps accordingly)

Day 2: Initial Email

Set up a trigger as follows – 

Trigger: If the prospect accepts your LinkedIn connection request (but doesn’t reply there)

Action: Send an automated email

Email Template:

Subject: A New Approach to [Challenge]

Hi [First Name],

Thanks for connecting! I noticed your interest in [specific topic or challenge] from our recent post.

Many leaders in [Their Industry] are exploring solutions to [specific problem]. For instance, [Your Solution] has helped companies like [Client Example] achieve [specific result].

Are you open to a quick chat this week to explore how this might work for your team?

Best,

[Your Name]

Day 4: Follow-Up Email 

Send an email offering helpful, tailored content based on the prospect’s industry or role.

Email Template:

Subject: Insights for [Their Industry or Role]

Hi [First Name],

I wanted to share this resource: [Link to Case Study, Whitepaper, or Webinar]. It outlines how teams like yours have overcome [specific challenge].

If it’s relevant, let me know—I’d be happy to discuss how we can tailor a solution for you.

Best,

[Your Name]

Day 6: Follow-Up Call

Schedule a manual task to perform a call if there’s no response to the previous email.

Call Script:

“Hi [First Name], this is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. I noticed your interest in our post about [specific topic] and wanted to follow up. Many of our clients in [Their Industry] face challenges like [specific challenge]. Does this sound familiar? I’d love to explore how we might help.”

If the call goes unanswered, leave a voicemail and you can schedule a manual follow-up email task for Day 7 (if needed).

You can check more call scripts with templates here.

Day 9: LinkedIn Re-Engagement

Create a task to send an automated follow-up message on LinkedIn.

Hi [First Name],

I hope you’re doing well! I wanted to follow up on my earlier message and share this quick insight: [Link to a Relevant Blog or Video]. Let me know if you’d like to dive deeper into how we’re helping teams address [specific challenge].

Day 12: Breakup Email

Send a wrap-up email offering to reconnect in the future.

Email Template:

Subject: Closing the Loop on [Topic]

Hi [First Name],

I understand things can get busy! I wanted to follow up one last time to see if addressing [specific challenge] is on your radar. If now isn’t the right time, I’d be happy to reconnect down the line.

In the meantime, feel free to reach out if you have questions or need resources.

Best,

[Your Name]

If you don’t receive any reply from the prospects, you can set up a trigger to move them automatically to a nurture campaign for periodic outreach (just to keep engaged with valuable content).

Break-up emails can be tricky—how do you end a conversation with someone who never even replied? 😅 These 10 creative angles can help.

To make this workflow even more effective –

• Segment prospects by role or engagement type (e.g., comment vs. like) to personalize your messages.
• Adjust lead scores for prospects who engage further with your posts or content links.
• Review the prospect’s recent activity like new posts or their comments on others’ posts for personalized talking points.
• Use a mix of email, LinkedIn, and phone to maximize touchpoints without being overly aggressive.

This outbound workflow uses LinkedIn engagement as a starting point to create a warm, intent-driven approach to cold prospects. 

There are more sequence frameworks here, you can check them out. You can figure out what works the best for you and tweak the sequence.

The ROI of Intent-Driven Outbound Sales

The ROI of intent-driven outbound sales is game-changing. 

When you focus your efforts on prospects already showing interest, you shorten the sales cycle, reduce wasted effort, and dramatically improve conversion rates.

Take Unity, the world’s leading platform for real-time content creation, as an example. After integrating Bombora’s intent data into their sales workflows, Unity identified high-priority prospects faster and aligned their outreach accordingly.

The results were almost instant: within just 48 hours, Unity secured a six-figure deal by engaging the right prospect at the perfect time.

This illustrates the undeniable power of aligning your sales strategy with buyer intent. Beyond faster wins, intent-driven outbound sales also lead to:

• Higher Efficiency: Focus time and resources on leads that matter most.
• Better Personalization: Craft tailored messaging that resonates with prospects.
• Stronger Pipeline Predictability: Prioritize leads most likely to close.

When implemented effectively, intent signals not only boost immediate sales results but also pave the way for more sustainable, long-term success.

Final Thoughts

The power of intent signals is closer than you think. Why rely on guesswork when actionable insights can transform your outbound efforts into precise, high-converting strategies?

Intent signals will help you identify the right prospects at the perfect time, ensuring every interaction is personalized, relevant, and impactful. 

These insights unlock opportunities you might have overlooked, enabling you to craft outreach that truly resonates with your audience.

Now is the time to take action. Dive into intent-driven sales, start collecting and analyzing intent signals, and watch your outbound efforts evolve into a data-powered, conversion-focused engine.

The opportunity is yours—seize it and redefine your outbound success!