If you're in sales or marketing and tired of chasing dead-end leads, you're not alone. Most lead tools promise “hot prospects,” but hand you a pile of data that’s more distracting than helpful. You want signals that actually mean something—and to hear about them while you still have a shot. This guide gets into the nuts and bolts of using Leadonion to surface real buying signals and set up alerts that cut through the noise, not create more of it.
What’s a Buying Signal, Really?
Let’s get clear: a “buying signal” isn’t just any activity. It’s a behavior that hints someone’s actually considering a purchase soon. The trick is separating the real signals from the “just browsing” noise.
Examples of real buying signals: - Someone downloads a detailed pricing guide. - A competitor’s customer posts about being unhappy. - A company just hired a new head of IT (and you sell IT security). - There’s fresh funding news in your target sector.
Meanwhile, things like opening a blog post or liking a random industry tweet? Nice, but not worth your time.
Why Most Alerts Fall Flat
Before you start plugging in keywords and triggers, know this: most platforms drown you in alerts. Every time someone clicks your homepage, you get a ping. Someone mentions your product on Twitter? Another ping. It quickly becomes spam.
What matters is context. Not every action is urgent, and not every company is ready to buy. The goal is fewer, better alerts—stuff you can actually act on.
Step 1: Get Your Target List Tight
Don’t skip this. The sharper your list, the less junk you’ll get later. Here’s what you need:
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Industry, company size, tech stack, region, pain points.
- Key Accounts: Don’t just use a giant list—prioritize accounts you actually want.
- Decision Makers: Titles or roles that make or influence buying decisions.
Pro tip: If you dump in every company in your CRM, Leadonion’s going to drown you in data. Start focused.
Step 2: Set Up Intent Signals That Matter
Leadonion can track a lot—website visits, job changes, funding rounds, tech installs, reviews, and more. But not every signal is worth the same.
Here’s what usually works: - Job Changes: New decision makers shake things up—prime time to reach out. - Funding Announcements: New money, new budgets (and less red tape). - Tech Stack Changes: If someone just ditched your competitor, act fast. - Review Site Activity: Customers asking about alternatives or complaining.
What to ignore (mostly): - Generic social media likes or follows. - Visits to your blog’s “About Us” page. - Random press releases.
In Leadonion, you’ll want to dig into the “signals” or “intent data” filters and turn off the ones that don’t connect to buying. This takes a few test runs to get right—expect to tweak.
Step 3: Build Useful Real-Time Alerts
Here’s where most tools trip up: they send everything, all the time. Real-time is great, but only if it’s stuff you can actually act on.
How to keep alerts useful: - Route Alerts by Role: Sales gets MQLs, execs get only “big whale” account moves. - Bundle Low-Priority Stuff: If it’s not urgent, get a daily summary instead of an instant ping. - Customize Channels: Email, Slack, CRM—pick what your team actually checks. Don’t just default to email.
Setting up in Leadonion: - Go to the Alerts or Notifications section. - Choose your triggers (funding, tech changes, review mentions). - Set timing (instant, daily digest, weekly). - Assign to users or teams.
Pro tip: Test your alerts for a week. Anything you ignore? Turn it off or switch to a summary.
Step 4: Put Alerts Into Your Workflow—Or They’ll Be Ignored
Getting an alert is useless if it dies in your inbox. The trick is to wire alerts into whatever your team actually uses.
- CRM Integration: Make sure alerts push into Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive as tasks—not just emails. If it’s not visible in daily workflow, it’s forgotten.
- Slack Channels: For fast-moving teams, pipe high-priority alerts into a dedicated Slack or Teams channel.
- Assign Ownership: Don’t just CC the world. Make sure each alert has a clear owner (ideally the account owner).
What doesn’t work: - Spamming everyone with every alert. - Assuming people will “just notice” an email. - Making alerts without clear next steps.
Step 5: Use Signals to Start Real Conversations
The end goal isn’t just to know someone’s active—it’s to reach out while you’re still relevant.
How to act on a real buying signal: - Reference the signal (“Congrats on the funding—I saw your team’s growing”). - Offer something useful, not just a demo (“Noticed you’re hiring for IT—here’s a quick checklist we made for scaling teams”). - Move fast. If you wait a week, the window closes.
Pro tip: Keep it human. People know when you’re responding to a real event versus blasting a templated pitch.
Step 6: Tune, Prune, Repeat
No buying signals system is “set and forget.” Every few weeks, check:
- Are you getting too many alerts? Cut back.
- Are the right people acting on them? If not, change routing.
- Are you closing more deals or just burning time? Be honest.
Leadonion gives you some analytics, but even a simple spreadsheet—tracking which alerts led to meetings or deals—can show you what’s worth your time.
Honest Takes: What Works, What Doesn’t
What works: - Focusing on 2-3 high-value signals, not everything under the sun. - Tight integration with your daily tools—CRM, Slack, task lists. - Regular reviews to keep alert volume sane.
What doesn’t: - Hoping intent data will magically hand you deals. It’s a nudge, not a shortcut. - Using every signal type “just in case.” More data usually means more confusion. - Letting alerts pile up without ownership or next steps.
Ignore the hype: No tool, including Leadonion, will close deals for you. But if you use it to spot real buying signals—and move fast—you’ll waste less time and have better conversations.
Keep It Simple, Iterate Often
Don’t try to automate everything on day one. Start small: pick a few signals, set up alerts, and see what happens. If something’s not working, kill it. If you’re getting value, double down. The goal isn’t to have the fanciest setup—it’s to spot when someone’s ready to buy, and actually do something about it. Stick to what helps, and keep tuning as you go.