I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I can send personalized messages all day, but if I’m targeting the wrong people, I’m just wasting sequences on prospects who were never going to buy anyway.
Right now, my filtering is pretty basic: company size, industry, maybe a job title match. But I feel like I’m missing something. There’s probably a sweet spot where a prospect is actually in a buying mindset—maybe they just hired someone, or got new funding, or their LinkedIn activity spiked. Something that tells me they’re actually receptive to what I’m selling, not just a name that fits my ICP on paper.
I’ve seen mentions of “high-intent signals” in a few places, but I’m not totally clear on what that means in practice. Is it just looking at someone’s recent activity? Or is there a smarter way to filter before I even write the first message?
How are you guys deciding which leads are actually worth the follow-up sequence versus which ones you should just skip?
Copywriter take: your targeting is only half the battle. But here’s what I notice—a lot of people filter for the “right” prospect but then send a message that doesn’t give them a reason to engage.
The best filter isn’t just about finding high-intent prospects. It’s about finding prospects whose recent activity tells you what they’re probably thinking about. Someone who just got promoted? They’re thinking about proving themselves. Someone who just hired engineers? They’re thinking about execution.
So your filter should surface those signals, and then your message should speak to what they’re probably worried about. That’s the combo that works.
What kind of signals are you actually capturing right now? LinkedIn activity, company signals, job moves?
This is where the tech stack really shines. I pull data from a few sources:
- Hunter.io or RocketReach for company growth signals (funding, new hires, revenue change)
- LinkedIn API data on profile updates and engagement patterns
- Custom webhook that flags prospects who’ve viewed my company page or liked company posts
Then I upload that into a Google Sheet where I’ve built a simple scoring formula: +1 for recent job change, +2 for company funding, +3 if they engaged with your content, etc. Anyone scoring above a 4 gets prioritized in LiSeller.
It takes maybe 30 minutes to set up, but it saves weeks of wasted outreach. Are you open to adding a data layer to your filtering, or are you trying to keep it simple with just LinkedIn signals?
In recruiting, we call this “signal diversity.” One signal isn’t enough. I look for:
- Recent role change (moved into a management position, new company)
- Activity increase (started posting, engaging more, updating profile)
- Endorsement changes (skills that align with what we’re hiring for getting new endorsements)
- Connection patterns (started connecting with people in a specific domain)
The magic happens when you see multiple signals pointing in the same direction. Someone who just got promoted AND started following industry accounts AND updated their headline? That’s your target. Someone who just changed their job title? Might be a false signal.
You need at least 2-3 signals before that prospect moves into your “worth following up on” bucket. What signals are most relevant to your specific product or service?
From an account health perspective, smart filtering saves you from spam problems too. When you’re selective about who you reach out to, your engagement rate goes up, which trains LinkedIn’s algorithm to trust your account more.
If you’re blasting 500 people a day with low qualification, even if the messages are personalized, you’re training the algorithm to see you as a bot. But if you’re reaching out to 50 highly-qualified prospects a day, your engagement rate will naturally be higher, and LinkedIn will reward that.
So filtering isn’t just about ROI. It’s about account longevity. Make sure whatever system you build, you can scale it safely. What’s your current daily outreach volume?
Honestly, I’ve learned this the hard way. I used to filter just by company size and industry, and my ROI was terrible. Then I started looking at one additional signal: are they posting on LinkedIn?
It sounds simple, but if someone’s active on LinkedIn—even just liking posts occasionally—they’re more likely to see and respond to your message. If their profile looks inactive, I skip them. That one filter cut my unresponsive leads by like 40%.
Then I layered in funding news. I use Crunchbase for that, but there are free alerts too. Someone who just raised Series A is WAY more likely to be in buying mode than someone on a stable, mature team.
Start with one or two signals you can actually verify quickly. Don’t build a perfect system. Build something you’ll actually use.
LiSeller has smart filtering built in that looks at profile engagement and company firmographics, but most people aren’t using it to its full potential.
Here’s what I recommend: go into your account settings and enable the “engagement-based filtering” and “recent activity” flags. Then set your filters to show only:
- Profiles active in the last 7-14 days
- Companies with recent hiring activity (visible on company pages)
- Job titles that match your ICP and have been in role for less than 2 years
That combination catches people who are actively engaged and likely in a growth/change mindset. It’s more restrictive than just matching company size, but your conversion rate will be significantly higher.
Do you have access to the advanced filtering options in your LiSeller workspace, or are you on a starter plan?
This is critical to get right. In B2B sales, roughly 5-7% of your target market is actually in buying mode at any given moment. The other 93% might need what you’re selling eventually, but they’re not ready.
Your filtering job is to identify that 5-7%. Here’s what actually works:
- Behavioral signals (most important): Recent profile updates, new role, increased activity
- Contextual signals (secondary): Company funding, new hires, news mentions
- Intent signals (hardest to find): Engagement with your content or competitors’ content, specific searches
Start with behavioral signals since they’re easiest to identify. If someone just got promoted or moved companies, their mindset is changing, and they’re more open to new conversations.
What industry are you targeting? The definition of “high-intent” changes pretty dramatically by sector, and I can give you more specific benchmarks.