Quick answer
In Sales Navigator, buyer intent is a High, Moderate, Neutral or Negative label on an account. LinkedIn builds it from 180+ signals in four groups: people at that account engaging with your company and your sellers on LinkedIn (following or visiting your company page, viewing your profile, connecting), engaging with your ads, accepting InMails from your team and visiting your website if it runs the LinkedIn Insight Tag. So it measures attention to your company, not a budget or a project. It needs Sales Navigator Advanced or Advanced Plus. Use it to decide who to contact first inside a list that already fits your market, and act faster on events you can name, like a job change or a senior hire.
The intent signals Sales Navigator shows you
When I set up outbound for a B2B team, signals decide who gets contacted first, so I want to know what each one is made of. Here is what Sales Navigator offers, from LinkedIn's help pages on Buyer Intent, search filters and alerts, checked on 14 October 2026.
| Signal | What LinkedIn says triggers it | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer Intent label on accounts | 180+ signals, combined into High, Moderate, Neutral or Negative | Advanced, Advanced Plus |
| "Account has buyer intent" lead filter | People at accounts with high or moderate interest in your company in the past 30 days | Advanced, Advanced Plus |
| Buyer Intent alerts | Leadership or other employees at a saved account view your company page or website | Advanced, Advanced Plus |
| Category interest | An AI model reading recent LinkedIn activity, group membership and profile data for interest in a product category | Advanced, Advanced Plus |
| Viewed your Company Page recently | Members who viewed your company page in the past 90 days | Advanced, Advanced Plus |
| Following your company, viewed your profile recently | A lead follows your company page or looked at your profile | Core and up |
| Changed jobs, posted on LinkedIn | New job in the last 90 days, a post in the last 30 days | Core and up |
| Account alerts | Senior hire (director and up), money raised, more jobs posted in 90 days, merger, slowing growth | Core and up |
LinkedIn's help pages mark the intent features as Advanced-only. The other rows carry no plan restriction there, and LinkedIn's plan table lists alerts for Core. Buyer Intent also has to be switched on: if your team bought Advanced online, a Sales Navigator admin asks support to enable it.
How LinkedIn builds the buyer intent score
LinkedIn's Buyer Intent FAQ says the score combines "180+ distinct insight signals" in four groups: activity on LinkedIn (reactions, comments, profile views, following a page, new connections), activity on your ads (reactions, comments, clicks, lead forms), InMail (accepting or declining one from your team) and visits to your website, if it has the LinkedIn Insight Tag.
A separate help page lists the activities and whether you see who did them:
| Activity by someone at the account | What you see |
|---|---|
| Follows your company page | Their name |
| Visits your company page | Profile only, such as role and company |
| Views your profile, or connects with you | Their name |
| Connects with a colleague on your contract | Their name |
| Views the profile of a seller on your contract or of your leadership | Profile only |
| Fills in a lead form in your ad | Their name |
| Views or clicks your ads | Profile only |
| Accepts an InMail from a colleague on your contract | Their name |
| Visits your website (Insight Tag installed) | Profile only |
LinkedIn defines the four labels like this: High is "a very active expression of buyer intent" and a good time to reach out on LinkedIn, Moderate means they're likely to respond to outreach, Neutral means no active intent and Negative means "an active expression of disinterest".
Look at the list again. Almost every activity is someone paying attention to your company page, your ads, your website or your sellers. LinkedIn's own tip for getting more out of the feature points the same way: an active company page with sellers posting and engaging, plus an active ad account. If your page is quiet, you don't advertise and there's no Insight Tag on your site, the score has very little to work with.
What buyer intent doesn't tell you
- Whether there's a project. A High label says people at the account have been paying attention to you. It says nothing about budget, a problem or a deadline.
- Often, who. Private actions like page visits, ad clicks and website visits show a profile, not a name. LinkedIn's alerts FAQ says GDPR limits what it can show about people who visit your page or website, and details like location, job function or seniority stay hidden when fewer than 10 employees at the account share them.
- Why they looked. LinkedIn says its alerts can tell a job seeker browsing your page from a potential buyer. It says nothing about competitors, partners, existing customers or students. A competitor's rep studying your site does the same things a buyer does.
- How much of it is you. Accepted InMails from your team, new connections to you and visits to your profile are all on LinkedIn's list. An account you've been working will look warmer partly because of your own outreach.
The documentation is also old. The Buyer Intent FAQ was last updated three years ago and still calls the Buyer Activities section on account pages a Beta.
Rule of thumb. Read a High label as "people there noticed us", not "they're buying". It tells you where to look first, not what to say.
The signals I act on first
The best lead is the one who just did something. In Sales Navigator, the most useful signals are single events you can see and name:
- A job change. The "Changed jobs" filter covers the last 90 days, and saved leads trigger an alert when they move company or change role. A new Head of Sales has a reason to look at how things are done.
- A senior hire at a saved account, director level and up. Same logic, one level removed.
- Money raised, or more jobs posted. Funding and "preparing to grow" alerts tell you the company is about to spend and hire.
- A recent post. "Posted on LinkedIn" covers the last 30 days. These people are active, so they'll probably see your message, and the post gives you something real to reply to.
- Viewed your profile or follows your company. This is the person-level part of intent, and it comes with a name.
All of these work on Core, and each one gives you something specific to say. The account score is better for sorting a list than for writing a message. I go through more signal types and how to score them in signal-based outreach: turning signals into meetings.
How to use intent signals without overreading them
- Fit first. Filter by your market (industry, size, region, roles) and let intent change the order. A High account outside your market is still outside your market. The filter order I use is in Sales Navigator search filters that actually find buyers.
- Open the activity, not just the label. On the account page, the Decision makers filter shows what decision makers did in the last 30 days and the 7 days filter shows everything from the past week. One ad click and three visits from the sales team are different stories.
- Discount accounts you've already contacted. Some of their intent is your own outreach coming back.
- Write to the role, not to "the visitor". If all you see is "a VP at [Company] viewed your page", pick the two or three people whose job matches your offer and write about their situation.
- Never mention the tracking. "I saw someone from your team on our pricing page" feels like being watched, and you're often guessing who it was. Use something public: the new job, the hire, the funding.
- Move inside the window. The intent filter looks back 30 days and the job change filter 90. A signal from two months ago is a weak reason to write.
A message built on a named event:
"Hi Laura, congrats on the move to [Company]. New sales leaders usually look at where pipeline comes from in their first months. Is outbound something you plan to rebuild, or is it working well already?"
And one for a High-intent account where you don't know who looked. It uses a public fact and leaves the tracking out:
"Hi Marco, [Company] has opened three SDR roles in the last month. Teams hiring SDRs in a batch often find the lead lists aren't ready on day one. Is that already sorted on your side?"
This is how I set it up for clients: a signal adds the person to a sequence where email and LinkedIn run together, and a reply on either channel stops both. After a month or two, compare replies by signal type and keep only the signals that earn them.
Is Advanced worth it for buyer intent?
LinkedIn's plans page lists Core from $119.99 a month and Advanced from $159.99 (USD, before tax, checked 14 October 2026). That's $40 a seat a month for Buyer Intent, TeamLink, shared lists and a few other team features. Prices vary by region and billing period, so check the checkout page.
Upgrade if your company page is active and you run LinkedIn ads or can add the Insight Tag to your site. It also helps to have enough saved accounts for the score to sort.
Stay on Core if your page is quiet and you don't advertise. The score will have little to measure, and Core's job change and account alerts give you more to act on. The rest of the plan differences are in Sales Navigator pricing plans, and if you're still choosing a first seat, see Sales Navigator vs Premium Business.
Key takeaways
- Buyer Intent is a High, Moderate, Neutral or Negative label on accounts, built from 180+ signals, on Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus only.
- Almost all of those signals are attention to your company: your page, your ads, your website (with the Insight Tag) and your sellers.
- It can't show a budget or a project, often hides who looked and counts some of your own outreach.
- Job changes, senior hires, funding, recent posts and profile views are named events that Core covers too, and they're easier to write to.
- Filter by fit first and use intent to set the order. Never mention the tracking in your message.
FAQ
What is buyer intent in LinkedIn Sales Navigator?
It's a label (High, Moderate, Neutral or Negative) that Sales Navigator puts on accounts to show how much people there are engaging with your company. It's available on the Advanced and Advanced Plus plans.
How does LinkedIn calculate buyer intent?
LinkedIn combines 180+ signals into one score: LinkedIn activity such as following or visiting your company page and viewing your sellers' profiles, engagement with your ads, accepted or declined InMails from your team and website visits tracked by the LinkedIn Insight Tag.
Which Sales Navigator plans include buyer intent?
Only Advanced and Advanced Plus. Core doesn't have it, though it does have job change filters and alerts. If you bought Advanced online, an admin has to ask LinkedIn support to switch Buyer Intent on.
Can Sales Navigator show who visited my website?
Not by name. With the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your site, Sales Navigator shows a general profile of the visitor, and buyer intent alerts hide details when fewer than 10 employees at the account share them.
What does negative buyer intent mean on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn says Negative means the account shows an active expression of disinterest and is unlikely to respond to outreach on LinkedIn. If the account fits your market well, try email or a different person before you write it off.