# Signals



The agent watches for buying triggers and writes them onto the lead as
`latest_signal` rather than leaving them in another tool.

## What Counts as a Signal [#what-counts-as-a-signal]

| Signal                | Why it moves a deal                                    |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Funding**           | New budget, and a mandate to spend it quickly          |
| **Hiring**            | Roles being opened in the function you sell into       |
| **Role change**       | A new VP re-evaluates the stack in their first 90 days |
| **News and launches** | A new market or product often implies new GTM tooling  |
| **On-site activity**  | Pricing page twice this week beats any external signal |

External signals are inferred from public pages. Activity on your own site is
observed, and it comes from the [Surface Tag](/platform/traffic/surface-tag)
rather than a data vendor.

## How to Use It [#how-to-use-it]

**As timing, not as fit.** A signal says who to contact this week. It does not
say who is worth contacting at all, which is what the
[score](/platform/lead-agents/scoring) is for.

**As the first line of an outreach.** A signal is context a rep can open with.

**As a reason to look again at a dead account.** A closed-lost account that just
raised has budget it did not have before.

## Freshness [#freshness]

`latest_signal` is the last thing the agent saw, not necessarily a recent thing.
Check the date on it before you build a campaign on timing, and check the source
it was attached with before you say it back to the buyer.

<Warning>
  Signals are inferred from public sources and are occasionally wrong or stale: an
  announced round that never closed, a job posting that was pulled. Treat one as a
  reason to look, not as a fact to state back to the buyer.
</Warning>

[Scoring →](/platform/lead-agents/scoring)