Ten buying signals SaaS sales teams should track

What counts as a buying signal, and why does timing matter?

A buying signal is an observable, dated event at an account that makes it more likely the account has a reason to buy now. Examples include a new leader, a hiring push, a funding round or a visit to your pricing page. On its own it proves nothing. Combined with fit, it tells a rep which accounts to contact this week, and why.

Timing matters because most accounts aren’t in the market at any given moment. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s 95-5 rule^{Source 1} (industry data: a 2021 model) estimates that “up to 95% of business clients are not in the market for many goods and services at any one time”. In the same model, where companies switch providers about every five years, roughly 20% are in the market over a year and about 5% in a quarter.

Most of your market isn't buying this quarter Industry data

Being early also counts. In 6sense’s 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report^{Source 2} (vendor research, about 4,000 buyer responses), 94% of buying groups had ranked their shortlist before they engaged a seller, and 77% of buyers said their first vendor conversation was with the vendor they chose.

Ten buying signals for B2B SaaS, at a glance

The ratings below are our editorial judgement for a B2B SaaS team selling in South Africa, not measured data. Your own win history should overrule them (see “How to combine signals” below).

What to say when each signal fires

For each signal: why it matters, where to find it in South Africa, a first message angle, a first-call question built on Winning by Design’s SPICED framework (Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical event, Decision), and when the signal expires. HeyThere isn’t affiliated with Winning by Design. The expiry periods are our rules of thumb: adjust them to your own sales cycle.

Every signal expires

1. A new leader in the role that buys you

New leaders review how things are done, and they’re usually expected to show change within their first few months. Sales Navigator’s alerts^{Source 3} include “Senior hires at account” for saved accounts. Before you rely on the alert, check how many leaders at your fit accounts keep their LinkedIn profiles current.

• Angle: acknowledge the move without flattery, and offer something useful for their first plan: “Teams in your position often start by checking X. Here’s a two-minute way to do it.”
• Question (Critical event): “What do you need to have in place by the end of your first quarter?”
• Expires: about 90 days after the start date.

2. A champion or past user changes jobs

People who used or bought your product at one company know its value at the next. After three years of selling, your CRM already holds many of these contacts. Movement is steady: in US data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics^{Source 4} (January 2026), median tenure with an employer was 4.1 years, and 3.0 years for workers aged 25 to 34. SA figures will differ, but the pattern is the same: contacts move. (More on this in champion job changes.)

• Angle: personal and specific: “You used [product] at [old company]. Is the same problem showing up at [new company]?”
• Question (Situation): “How does your new team handle [process] today, compared with what you had before?”
• Expires: about 90 days after the move. Contact them in their first two or three months, before they’ve made their first tool decisions.

3. Hiring for roles your product supports

A company hiring four people to do the work your product makes easier is telling you the problem is growing. Job ads also reveal tools, processes and team size. In SA, company careers pages and local job boards often carry roles that never appear on LinkedIn.

• Angle: “Hiring is one way to handle more [work]. The other is to make each person’s week shorter.”
• Question (Pain): “What’s driving the new roles: more volume, or work taking longer than it should?”
• Expires: when the roles close, or after about 60 days.

4. A funding round

Funding brings growth targets and budget, often for sales, hiring and systems. It’s a weaker signal in South Africa because rounds are relatively few, and not every round is announced. SAVCA’s 2025 VC survey^{Source 5} (industry data) counted 222 venture capital rounds across 110 companies in Southern Africa in 2024. If your ICP includes growth-stage tech companies, track it. If it doesn’t, don’t build your process around it.

• Angle: tie the round to the goal it funds, not to the money: “Congratulations on the round. If the plan is to double the sales team, the first bottleneck is usually X.”
• Question (Impact): “What does the board expect this round to deliver in the next 12 months?”
• Expires: about 120 days.

5. Expansion into a new market, office or product line

Expanding means new processes, new teams and gaps in the current setup. SA SaaS and services companies expanding into other African markets or the UK tend to announce it publicly, on LinkedIn and in the business press.

• Angle: “Launching in [market] usually means [process] gets harder before it gets easier.”
• Question (Situation): “How will [process] work across both markets: one team or two?”
• Expires: around the launch date plus 90 days.

6. A tech-stack change

Switching CRM, adopting a tool that works with yours, or dropping a competitor all open a system decision. Third-party technographic data tends to be less complete for SA companies than for US ones, in our judgement, so job ads (“experience with HubSpot required”) and a company’s own posts are often better evidence.

• Angle: connect to the change: “Teams moving to [tool] often find [related problem] becomes visible.”
• Question (Decision): “Who’s leading the move, and what else is being reviewed at the same time?”
• Expires: about 90 days after the change is visible.

7. Known contacts on your pricing or comparison pages

First-party engagement is one of the clearest signals, because it’s your own data about your own product. It’s also narrower than people assume. HubSpot, for example, associates page views with a contact^{Source 6} only after the visitor fills in a form or clicks a tracked marketing email, and only if they’ve accepted cookies. This signal involves personal information. For POPIA questions, see the Information Regulator’s guidance notes^{Source 7} or take legal advice; this isn’t legal advice.

• Angle: don’t mention the page visit. Offer what the visit implies they want: “Happy to walk you through how pricing works for a team of your size.”
• Question (Decision): “What would you need to see to put this in front of your team?”
• Expires: fast. Act within a few days, or treat the visit as a warming signal instead.

8. A closed-lost account reaches its timing

A deal lost on “timing” or “budget” usually comes with a date: next financial year, after the merger, when the contract renews. Check the account’s financial year-end: a deal lost in the middle of last year may now be in budget season. It’s all in your CRM, which makes this the cheapest signal on the list. See closed-lost deals for a full triage method.

• Angle: reference the last conversation honestly: “When we spoke in March, the timing wasn’t right because of X. Has that changed?”
• Question (Critical event): “Is [the reason from last time] still the thing holding this back?”
• Expires: the budget cycle it was pushed to. If there’s no reply, return it to warming until the next one.

9. A merger, acquisition or restructure

When companies combine or reorganise, they review systems and suppliers. For JSE-listed companies, these are published as SENS announcements; for private companies, business press and LinkedIn are the main sources. Sales Navigator also offers an “Account merger or acquisition event” alert.

• Angle: “Bringing two teams onto one [process] is often the first integration headache.”
• Question (Decision): “Who decides which system each team keeps?”
• Expires: about 6 months; integration decisions tend to come early.

10. An industry deadline: regulation, compliance date or tender

A date set outside the company (a regulatory deadline, a compliance audit, a public tender) forces a decision that internal priorities don’t. If you sell to the public sector, the National Treasury’s eTenders portal^{Source 8} publishes public sector tender opportunities in one place. For private-sector buyers, industry regulators and associations publish the dates.

• Angle: “With the [deadline] in [month], it’s worth checking now whether [process] will hold up.”
• Question (Critical event): “What has to be true by [deadline], and what happens if it isn’t?”
• Expires: on the deadline. Start well before it; afterwards, the buying decision has been made.

How big is your signal and warming gap? Ten questions, three minutes, and the three gaps to fix first. Take the 3-minute signal gap scorecard

How should you combine signals? Fit first, then timing

A list of signals is only useful if your team knows what to do when one fires:

1. Filter by fit first. Only watch accounts that look like the customers you already win. That means building the market from your own closed-won history (see TAM, SAM and SOM from your CRM).
2. Give each signal a weight and an expiry. Start with the strength ratings above, then adjust them with your own data.
3. Look for stacking. Two signals at the same fit account within about 30 days (a new leader and a hiring push, say) are usually a stronger reason to call than either one alone.
4. Turn every qualifying account into a brief. The rep should get the signal, the date, the why-now, the angle and three questions: a sales-ready lead brief, not an alert.
5. Test the weights on your own sales history. Look back at the last 20 to 30 deals you won. Which of these signals happened in the six months before the first meeting? Raise the weight of those that did, and lower the ones that didn’t.
6. Review monthly. Log which signals led to conversations, drop the ones that don’t, and add signals that are specific to your market.

Notice that Brackmoor has the most public signal (a funding announcement) and is still the one account the team should leave alone, because it doesn’t fit.

Fit first, then timing

Which signals look useful but usually aren’t?

• Generic “intent” topics with no date or source. If you can’t say what happened and when, a rep can’t use it.
• Social likes and profile views on their own. They show attention, not a reason to buy. Treat them as warming signals at most.
• Anonymous website visits matched to a company. Accuracy varies, the rep has no person to contact, and there are privacy questions to settle first.
• Signals at accounts that don’t fit. They create activity without pipeline.