A signal is something a person does on LinkedIn that shows what they care about this week: reacting to a post about a problem, writing about it, or hiring for it.
What is a LinkedIn signal?
In WarmDogo, a signal is also the place Dogo looks for those actions: the posts of a person your buyers follow, a phrase they use, a competitor's page, a job title. You give an agent its signals, and Dogo reads who acted on each one, most of them daily. Each read is a run. A person becomes a lead only if they fit your ICP, and the lead comes with the action that brought them in, such as "Commented on a post by Priya Raman".
The nine signals
- VoicesPeople who react to or comment on posts by someone your buyers follow.
- Active people who fitPeople your ICP describes who posted on LinkedIn in the last 30 days.
- Engaged with posts aboutPeople who react to the most popular posts using a phrase.
- Posts aboutPeople who write posts using a phrase.
- Hiring forYour buyer at companies that posted a job for a title or keyword in the last week.
- CompetitorsPeople who react to a competitor's company posts.
- Comments onPeople who comment on a company's or a person's posts.
- One postEveryone who reacted to a single post you pick.
- Your own postsPeople who react to your company's posts.
They fall into three groups:
- Who engages with someone else's posts. Voices, engaged with posts about, competitors, comments on and one post. The post shows what they care about.
- Who says it themselves. Posts about finds people writing about a phrase, and your own posts finds people reacting to you.
- Who fits and is in motion. Hiring for finds your buyer at companies building the team you serve, and active people who fit finds people your ICP describes who posted this month.
Which signals bring the most leads?
Two numbers decide whether a signal is worth keeping: how many leads a run brings, and how many of those leads people keep rather than skip. The chart puts every signal with enough runs on both.
| Signal | Leads a run | Runs that find someone | Leads kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voices | 3.9 | 66% | 80% |
| Active people who fit | 6.6 | 90% | 62% |
| Engaged with posts about | 3.5 | 53% | 49% |
| Posts about | 1.1 | 37% | 43% |
| Hiring for | 0.57 | 27% | 34% |
| Competitors | 0.25 | 14% | 66% |
Voices lead. Almost four leads a run, and people keep 80% of them, the highest of any signal. The people who react to a practitioner's posts are mostly other practitioners, which is who you sell to.
Phrases bring volume, and need judging. Engagers on posts about a phrase bring 3.5 leads a run, and half get kept. A popular post draws a wide crowd, some of it nowhere near your market. Most of it doesn't fit your ICP and never becomes a lead; you skip the rest.
Competitors are the weakest source of volume. The advice that "people engaging with your competitor are in market" is everywhere. The data says otherwise: 0.25 leads a run, and only 14% of runs find anyone. Most people who react to a company's posts work there, partner with it or already buy from it. When a competitor signal does find someone, people keep two thirds of them, so it is worth keeping when the competitor is small and its audience is buyers, not staff.
How a signal becomes a lead
Every signal works the same way after the first step:
- Dogo reads the source. A voice's best recent posts, the most reacted posts using a phrase, the jobs posted this week. Each signal's page shows what it reads.
- Everyone who acted is checked against your ICP. Their headline, title, company, company size and region against what qualifies a buyer and who is not a fit.
- The ones who fit become leads, scored, with the reason they are here and the signal that found them.
- Your keeps and skips are credited to the signal. Signals that keep bringing people you want go first on the next run.
Most people a signal reads don't make it through step two. That is the point: the signal decides where to look, the ICP decides who counts.
How to choose signals
Start from your market, not from the list.
| If your situation is | Start with |
|---|---|
| A new agent, no history yet | Three to five voices, two or three phrases read as both posts about and engaged with posts about, and active people who fit |
| A niche market where few people post | Posts about and comments on: small, but each one is a direct statement |
| You sell into a team that is being built | Hiring for, with the role your buyer hires first |
| You or your company post on LinkedIn | Your own posts, checked every six hours |
| A one-off moment: a launch, a webinar, a thread that took off | One post |
| A small competitor whose followers are buyers | Competitors, alongside the rest rather than instead of it |
Then let the results decide. On the Agents page, every signal shows the leads it has brought, and the ones that aren't bringing any are grouped by why: people read but none fit, nobody to read, or every lead skipped. Swap those out first.
How many signals to run
Every signal has quiet weeks. A voice takes a holiday, a phrase stops trending, nobody posts the job. Running several kinds at once keeps leads coming when one goes quiet.
Signals are what WarmDogo's plans count: the Sniff plan runs 10 and the Hunt plan runs 30, across all your agents. A switched-off signal keeps its history and doesn't count, so you can keep spares switched off and swap them in. When a plan has room, Dogo switches on the signals with the best record first: the ones that found leads, then the kinds that find the most.
Ten is enough for one agent with a tight ICP. If you run several agents, or one agent across a broad market, thirty gives each agent room for all three groups.