Buyers Are Showing You The Way. Are You Paying Attention?

Buying B2B software sucks. Selling it can suck too.

We’re all competing against the same thing: time.

Too much time chasing the wrong buyers. Too many leads passed without context. Too much guesswork.

Marketing pours energy into generating leads. Sales is told to follow up fast. 

But the reality? Sales often has no idea who within the account is actually worth their time. And with larger accounts, it’s not about choosing between three people. It’s more like 300.

So they reach out cold, and hear nothing back. The radio silence usually happens because the person on the other end isn’t ready. Or worse, they’ve never heard of what you’re selling.

Sales doesn’t convert them. Marketing thinks Sales isn’t trying. And both sides end up frustrated.

It all boils down to the fact that buyers crave relevance, but often get irrelevant or generic outreach instead. And that’s where Marketing has the power to change everything.

Responsible selling starts with knowing exactly who’s worth your seller’s time and why.

That’s where signals come in.

They help cut through the noise and surface the buyers who are actively researching competitors, spending time on your site, engaging with your content, and so on.

These signals are your buyers’ digital body language. Just like someone raising an eyebrow or nodding their head in a meeting, a buyer’s online behavior shows when they’re curious, skeptical, or ready to take the next step. You just have to know how to read it.

And when Marketing can interpret those signals at the contact level—not just the account level—you stop operating on assumptions and stop sending Sales into conversations with nothing but an account name, job title, and crossed fingers.

Instead, you guide them toward the buyers already leaning in, so that your outreach feels timely and relevant. Our own data shows that salespeople are 2x more likely to convert B2B buyers who’ve clicked on an ad because that click data tells them:

• The buyer has seen the brand before
• What the buyer cares about 
• A reason to reach out

Want to see how one of our own SDRs turns signals into meetings? Check out this article: How I Sell Smarter and Book More Meetings With Signals 

Even with the right signals, there’s often a breakdown between what Marketing sees and what Sales does.

I call that the signal-to-action gap. It’s the space between identifying meaningful buyer behavior and turning that behavior into effective outreach.

This gap usually comes down to clarity.

Saying “someone from Adobe clicked an ad” doesn’t give Sales much to work with. But saying “Joan Smith from Adobe clicked on an ad about pricing or Googled a competitor” does. That’s the kind of contact-level insight your sales team would kill for: a clear reason to reach out and a better shot at making the conversation count.

But not every signal is about direct intent. Some are moments of leverage. A job change, for example, could mean a shift in decision-making power or an opening to get in early before they start evaluating new processes and vendors.

Another key to closing the signal-to-action gap? Start looking at signals holistically instead of treating them as isolated instances.

Triangulation might sound like something out of a science class, but it’s one of my favorite ways to gain a deeper understanding of each buyer's needs and how they might change and evolve over time.

In geography, triangulation means using multiple known points to find your position. For instance, you might not be able to figure out where you are on a map if all you see is a mountain. But if you can also spot a river and a building, it becomes a lot easier to pinpoint your exact location.

It works similarly with signals.

As buyers move through the decision-making process, they’ll likely send multiple signals. An ad click, a search for a relevant keyword, or social media posts about a common pain point. On their own, each one of these signals is a reason to reach out. But when you look at them together, you get even more context for your sales team.

Plus, when you package signals together like that, you don’t have to push Sales to act. They’ll want to.

One of the reasons I believe so strongly in a signal-driven go-to-market motion is that it removes the usual push-pull between Marketing and Sales. Even though Sales might close the deal, Marketing makes it possible.

If you’re in Marketing, the first step is a mindset shift. Stop thinking of your role as a machine that feeds leads to Sales, and hope they figure it out. Sit down with your Sales team and look at the signals together. Then decide which ones matter most and how you’ll act on them.

Want to put this into practice? Book a demo and we’ll show you how to turn signals into outreach that lands deals.