TL;DR: A signal is something a buyer (or buying committee, or company) did that suggests they might want to talk to you. Replies, job changes, demo views, LinkedIn posts about your category, form fills posted to a webhook — all signals. Every lead in your workspace got there because of one.
The model
Unstuck Engine doesn't ask you to upload a list of accounts and run filters on them. It starts from the other end: buyer behavior in the wild → signal → qualification → record.
Each signal carries four things:
- Who — the person or company the signal is about
- What happened — the action (replied, viewed demo, posted, changed job)
- When — a timestamp
- Where — the source (LinkedIn, Vidyard, a webhook from your sequencer, a custom webhook)
A signal alone is not a qualified lead. The signal's payload gets piped into your ICP and Persona rules; the record qualifies only if it matches. This is why signals + ICPs + Personas are inseparable — each on its own does nothing.
Why this matters
Most "lead lists" are stale within a quarter. Companies move, people change jobs, the contact data goes bad. A signal-first pipeline produces a different shape of lead — every record has at least one recent observed behavior tied to it. That's what makes outreach work: the message can reference the signal.
What you actually do with signals
Three things, in increasing depth:
- Turn signals on. Each signal type has its own row on the Signals page. Toggle status to Running, point it at a source (LinkedIn account, a webhook from your sequencer), and it starts capturing.
- Wire signals to autoqualify. Each signal's
Autoqualifytoggle runs every captured record through your ICP / Persona rules automatically. Off, and you see the captures but no qualification runs. - Trace records back to signals. Open any lead detail — the
Activitypanel shows the signals that flagged this person, in order, with timestamps and the underlying source.
What's NOT a signal
Things that look like signals but aren't, in the Unstuck Engine sense:
- A firmographic field on a static list. "Companies with 50–500 employees" isn't a signal — it's a filter you'd apply inside an ICP or audience.
- An aggregate trend. "More activity in EMEA this quarter" is reporting, not a signal. Signals are per-record observations.
- A guess. Predicted intent without an observed behavior isn't captured as a signal. The system always traces back to a real event.