You've noticed a "high buyer intent" label next to one of your prospects on LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Exciting, right? But what does it actually mean? And more importantly—can you trust it?

If you're confused about LinkedIn's buyer intent signals, you're not alone. Many sales professionals find themselves wondering if these indicators are valuable insights or just "LinkedIn BS."

"It constantly shows me high buyer intent (whatever that means...)," one frustrated sales professional shared on Reddit. This sentiment echoes throughout the sales community—there's a significant gap between LinkedIn's promise of intent data and the practical application of these signals in daily prospecting.

What is Buyer Intent in Sales Navigator?

At its core, buyer intent refers to signals that indicate a prospect's readiness to purchase. LinkedIn defines this as actions potential customers take during their research phase, including:

• Searching for specific keywords related to challenges they're facing

• Clicking on product ads

• Engaging with company pages and resources

• Posting questions seeking recommendations

• Visiting product-specific websites

LinkedIn classifies buyer intent into two main categories:

1. Active Buyer Intent: Reflects prospects currently in the buying process, demonstrated by direct engagement with your content, products, or services.

2. Passive Buyer Intent: Indicates prospects who might be using competitor products or experiencing pain points, but aren't actively searching for solutions.

The confusion often stems from LinkedIn's somewhat opaque explanation of how these signals are captured and measured, leaving many users wondering exactly what triggers a "high buyer intent" label.

How LinkedIn Determines Buyer Intent

Sales Navigator's intent signals come from a combination of sources that track how accounts and individuals interact with your company across LinkedIn's ecosystem. As one user succinctly put it, "It's a signal, not a guarantee."

According to insights from users and LinkedIn's documentation, high buyer intent is typically triggered when:

• Someone from a target account visits your company website

• Prospects click on your ads

• Individuals engage with your employees on LinkedIn

• People from an account view content related to your solutions

• Multiple stakeholders from the same company research similar topics

"Once I start reaching out to companies, their score goes up. Which works against me," noted one sales professional on Reddit. This highlights an important limitation—your own outreach activities can influence the intent signals, making it difficult to determine what represents genuine interest versus a reaction to your prospecting efforts.

The Reality Behind the Signals

One of the most common misconceptions about buyer intent is assuming that all tracked interactions indicate actual purchase interest. As one skeptical user pointed out, "Intent is just interaction, there may be no intent."

This is a crucial distinction. Someone might engage with your content for various reasons:

• Research for a blog post

• Competitive analysis

• General industry education

• Accidental clicks

• Job search research

None of these necessarily indicate purchase intent, yet they might trigger LinkedIn's algorithms to flag "high buyer intent."

Practical Ways to Interpret Buyer Intent Signals

Despite the limitations, Sales Navigator's buyer intent signals can be valuable when properly interpreted and combined with other prospecting approaches. Here's how to make sense of them:

1. Look at Engagement Patterns

"Look at engagement patterns—views, interactions, job changes—to gauge real intent," advised one experienced LinkedIn user. Rather than focusing solely on the "high intent" label, dive deeper into the specific activities that triggered it:

• Profile Views: Are decision-makers from the account viewing your team's profiles?

• Content Engagement: Are they engaging with solution-specific content?

• Recency and Frequency: Has engagement increased recently or remained consistent over time?

• Multi-person Engagement: Are multiple stakeholders from the same account showing interest?

These patterns provide more context than the simple intent label alone.

2. Utilize Sales Navigator's Account Hub

The Account Hub in Sales Navigator provides a dashboard that highlights accounts showing buying signals. Here you can:

• Sort accounts by engagement level

• View specific activities that indicate intent

• Track content engagement across your company

• Monitor job changes that might signal new buying cycles

"Good question! LI buyer intent is based on how individuals within that company engage with LinkedIn activity from you, your colleagues, or the company itself," explained one user responding to questions about intent metrics.

3. Act Quickly on Strong Signals

When you do spot legitimate intent signals, timing is critical. "The trick? Act fast and strike while the interest is hot," shared a marketing professional discussing conversion rates.

Research consistently shows that response time dramatically impacts conversion rates—prospects who receive outreach within minutes of showing strong intent signals are far more likely to engage than those contacted days later.

"When you align outreach with strong intent signals, conversion rates go up big time," noted the same marketing professional.

4. Understand "Negative" Intent

One particularly confusing aspect is LinkedIn's "negative buyer intent" label. "They are pretty vague about what constitutes 'negative intent' — does anyone know if that means they have blocked or muted you or your company in LinkedIn?" asked one confused sales navigator user.

Based on community insights, negative intent typically means:

• Declined InMails

• Unresponsiveness to outreach

• Blocked or muted content

• Disengagement from previously engaged accounts

As one user clarified, "Negative buyer intent usually means they are non-responsive - averse to you."

The Limits of Buyer Intent: What to Remember

While buyer intent signals can be valuable, it's important to maintain realistic expectations:

1. High Intent ≠ Ready to Buy: "My experience was that the first account I reached out to was super engaged but since then I have had very little interest from the supposed 'high' intent accounts," shared one sales professional, highlighting the gap between signal and reality.

2. Intent Data is Contextual: The same actions that indicate buying intent for one product might simply represent industry research for another.

3. Algorithm Limitations: LinkedIn's algorithms cannot distinguish between genuine interest and casual browsing.

4. Supplementary, Not Primary: Use intent data to enhance your prospecting strategy, not replace critical thinking and relationship building.

Maximizing the Value of Buyer Intent

To make the most of Sales Navigator's buyer intent signals:

1. Combine Intent Data with Other Insights: Use intent signals alongside traditional qualification criteria like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing).

2. Test and Measure: Track which intent signals actually lead to conversions in your specific market.

3. Personalize Based on Specific Activities: If a prospect has been viewing content about a specific solution, reference that in your outreach.

4. Prioritize, Don't Limit: Use intent data to prioritize outreach, but don't exclude prospects lacking high intent signals.

Conclusion

LinkedIn's buyer intent signals in Sales Navigator are valuable data points in your prospecting toolkit—but they're just that: data points, not guarantees. As the sales community aptly puts it, "It's a signal, not a guarantee."

By understanding what these signals actually represent, how they're triggered, and their limitations, you can use them effectively to enhance your prospecting strategy rather than being misled by their promises.

The most successful sales professionals use buyer intent as one component of a comprehensive approach to identify, qualify, and engage potential customers. When combined with thoughtful outreach, genuine relationship building, and proper qualification, these signals can help you focus your efforts where they're most likely to yield results—even if they don't guarantee a sale.