Lemlist Partners with BirdDog: Custom buying signals are changing outbound

How custom buying signals are changing outbound and how to act on them with lemlist

Many outbound teams in 2026 have the same problem.

The tools are incredible, lemlist especially has made multi-channel outreach something a single rep can run at scale. But the problem is that everyone is reaching out to the same accounts at the same time for the same reasons.

"Congrats on the funding round!" Your prospect got that email from 47 other reps this week. "I saw you're hiring..." So did everyone with a LinkedIn Recruiter seat. "Your company is growing fast..." Yeah. They know.

The signals that power most outbound, funding, hiring, and technographics, are getting into the hands of everyone. Every major sales tool pulls from the same handful of data providers. If your trigger for outreach is something that shows up in Apollo, ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, and LinkedIn simultaneously, you're not early to the conversation. You may just be in line behind everyone else using the same data.

However, the teams winning right now aren't using just better outreach. They're using better signals. Signals that nobody else has. Signals that are specific to how THEY sell, who THEY sell to, and what actually indicates that an account is ready for THEIR product.

The solution to that is having your very own custom signals and the big news is that lemlist just partnered with BirdDog to add them, working in the background for you, on autopilot. The single biggest unlock most outbound teams haven't discovered yet.

What custom signals actually are

A custom signal is a buying indicator you define based on how your specific business operates.

Instead of relying on a pre-packaged list of events, funding, hiring, and technographics, you write a question in plain English that describes what you're actually looking for:

"Does {account} run ABM campaigns?"

"Is {account} building internal sales tooling instead of buying?"

"Has {account}'s CEO publicly discussed moving upmarket?"

"Does {account} mention MEDDPICC in their job postings?"

lemlist, powered by BirdDog's research engine, then monitors every account on your list against these questions. Daily. Across multiple data sources.

When the answer changes, when an account starts running ABM, when a CEO mentions an enterprise push in an earnings report, or when a company posts a role for building internal dashboards, you get an update. You can automatically push a lead to the campaign and ask the AI to craft personalized outreach based on the signal context. Not just "something happened." The what, the why, and the so-what.

This is fundamentally different from static signals. Funding rounds happen once. Custom signals are continuously monitored against criteria that only matter to your business. Nobody else is watching for the same things you are, because nobody else has defined the same questions.

Custom signals aren't magic. They're research at scale.

BirdDog's engine pulls from the same sources your best rep would check manually if they had 40 hours to research a single account. The difference is that it does it across hundreds or thousands of accounts, every day, automatically.

Job postings are the richest signal source most teams underestimate. A company's job postings tell you exactly what they're investing in right now. Not what they say on their website. Not what their CEO tweeted. What they're actually spending money on. If a company posts 6 SDR roles in a month, they're building an outbound engine. If they're hiring a "Revenue Operations Manager," they're formalizing their sales infrastructure. If they're looking for someone to "build internal dashboards and workflows for the sales team," they've decided to invest in sales efficiency, and they might not know a tool already exists that does what they're about to spend 6 months building.

Company websites and product pages reveal positioning changes, new market entries, and strategic shifts before they show up anywhere else. A cybersecurity company that just added an "Enterprise" page to its site is moving upmarket. A SaaS company that changed its homepage headline from "for startups" to "for growing teams" is expanding its ICP. These shifts create buying windows that no standard signal database captures.

News and press releases surface M&A activity, leadership changes, partnerships, and strategic announcements. But the value isn't in the headline, it's in what the headline implies. An acquisition doesn't just mean "Company A bought Company B." It means Company A is about to integrate two sales stacks, re-evaluate every vendor, and potentially double their account list. That's a buying window.

Earnings calls and investor presentations are goldmines for enterprise signals. When a CFO says "we're investing heavily in go-to-market efficiency this year," that's not a hiring signal or a funding signal. It's a strategic intent signal. It tells you the budget exists and the priority is set. Nobody else is monitoring earnings calls for these patterns because they don't fit into a standard signal category.

Prospect activity and digital footprint conference appearances, interviews, and published content all reveal what a company's leaders are thinking about and investing in. A VP of Sales who just had an interview about "the death of the SDR model" is probably open to a conversation about how signals can replace spray-and-pray outbound. You can adjust that search better to reflect the relevance to your product/service.

The point isn't any single data source. It's that custom signals let you ask any question and get the answer from wherever the answer lives. The engine does the research. You define what matters.

What this looks like for real businesses

The power of custom signals is that they're different for every company. What counts as a buying signal for a cybersecurity company has nothing to do with what matters for a construction equipment manufacturer.

Here are real examples across different industries to show the range of what's possible.

If you sell marketing services

Your buyers are CMOs, VPs of Marketing, and Heads of Demand Gen. The standard signals everyone uses, "company raised funding", don't tell you much. Plenty of funded companies don't need marketing help.

Examples of custom signals that we've seen tracked:

"Does {account} run ABM campaigns?" — If they're already doing account-based marketing, they understand the motion. You're not educating from zero. You're offering to make their ABM better or run it for them.

"Has {account} recently hired a new CMO or VP of Marketing?" — New marketing leaders come in with a mandate to change things. The agency relationships they inherited are up for review. If you're there in week 2, you're part of the conversation.

"Is {account} posting an unusually high number of marketing roles?" — If a company has had an open "Director of Demand Gen" role + 6 "Marketing Specialists" when they normally only have one or two roles, they might be restructuring the way they do marketing. This trend goes deeper than just "they hired for a role" and says a lot more.

"Does {account}'s website mention 'partner program' or 'channel sales'?" — Companies with partner programs often need co-marketing support. This signal finds accounts where marketing services plug directly into an existing growth strategy.

Let's say you sell building equipment or construction tech

Your buyers are project managers, operations directors, and fleet managers. They don't live on LinkedIn. The standard B2B signals are nearly useless.

Custom signals that actually matter:

"Has {account} pulled a building permit in the last 90 days?" — This is the ultimate timing signal for construction. A new permit means a new project. A new project means equipment needs. No standard signal tool tracks building permits.

"Is {account} mentioned in any awarded government contracts?" — Government contract awards are public record but buried in databases nobody monitors. A company that just won a $50M infrastructure contract is about to scale up fast.

"Does {account} have job postings for heavy equipment operators?" — If they're hiring operators, they're either expanding their fleet or have projects that require more machinery. Either way, they need equipment.

"Has {account} announced any new facility construction or expansion?" — Press releases about new facilities, warehouses, or plant expansions signal months of equipment purchasing ahead.

Let's say you sell cybersecurity

Your buyers are CISOs, CIOs, and IT security directors. The challenge is that every company "needs" cybersecurity, but the ones actually ready to buy right now are those with a triggering event.

Custom signals that actually matter:

"Has {account} been mentioned in a data breach or security incident?" — Obvious, but the timing is everything. The 30 days after an incident are when security budgets get emergency approval. After 90 days, the urgency fades. This signal needs to be fast.

"Is {account} hiring their first CISO or dedicated security role?" — A company that's hiring its first security leader is formalizing security for the first time. That person will need to build a stack from scratch. You want to be in front of them before they start evaluating.

"Does {account} mention SOC 2, ISO 27001, or compliance frameworks in job postings?" — Companies pursuing compliance certifications have deadlines and budgets. They need tools that help them get certified. This is a signal with a built-in timeline.

"Has {account} recently expanded into regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government)?" — Moving into a regulated vertical forces a company to immediately upgrade its security posture. It's not optional. This signal catches companies at the exact moment when security becomes a hard requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

Let's say you sell AI automation

Your buyers are ops leaders, GTM engineers, and increasingly, founders and CEOs who want to do more with fewer people.

Custom signals that actually matter:

"Is {account} hiring for a 'GTM Engineer' or 'Revenue Operations' role that mentions AI?" — This person is being hired specifically to automate go-to-market workflows. They're going to be evaluating every AI tool on the market in their first 60 days. You want to be on their list before they start.

"Does {account}'s leadership post about AI adoption or automation on LinkedIn?" — A CEO who's publicly excited about AI is signaling internal buy-in from the top. That makes procurement easier and sales cycles shorter.

"Has {account} recently reduced headcount while maintaining or increasing revenue?" — Companies that just did a layoff but are still growing are doing more with less. That's the exact profile that buys automation tools. They've already proven they can operate lean — now they want to make it permanent.

"Is {account} using Clay, Zapier, or Make in their current workflow?" — Companies already using workflow automation tools have the mindset. They understand the value of automation. You're not convincing them to automate — you're offering a better way to automate what they're already doing manually.

Why the best teams treat signal-sourced accounts as their core focus

Here's the shift happening right now at the best outbound teams: signals aren't a "nice to have" add-on to their existing list. Signal-sourced accounts ARE the list.

Think about it. A rep has 40 hours a week. They can either spend those hours working a static list of 500 accounts, most of which aren't in-market right now, or they can spend those hours on the 30-40 accounts that had a buying event THIS WEEK and going deep on them.

Same rep. Same skills. Same tools. Wildly different results.

The teams that get this are reorganizing their entire outbound motion around signals:

Monday morning briefing: Instead of "here's your territory, good luck," the manager reviews the week's signals and assigns the hottest accounts to reps. "Snowflake just hired a new CMO from Salesforce, and they're also posting for RevOps, Sarah, that's your account, reach out today."

Sequences built around the signal, not the persona: Instead of one generic "VP of Sales" sequence, they have a "new sales leader" sequence, a "post-funding" sequence, and a "building internal tools" sequence. The signal determines the message. The persona determines the channel.

Multi-channel execution through lemlist: This is where lemlist shines and makes the whole thing work at scale. When you have 30 signal-sourced accounts to work on this week, reaching out to them on the multiple channels they are most active on increases your reply chances. You can add LinkedIn touchpoints, phone calls, WhatsApp, SMS, and other timed follow-ups - all coordinated. .emlist's multi-channel sequences let you build the full surround-sound play:

- Day 1: Relevant email referencing the specific signal

- Day 3: LinkedIn connection request with a note about what you noticed

- Day 5: Follow-up email with a relevant case study

- Day 7: Phone call with signal context in the script

- Day 10: Final email, direct ask

Every touchpoint references the same buying event. The prospect doesn't feel spammed, they feel understood. Someone noticed a specific issue with their business and reached out with a relevant solution. That's not cold outreach. That's warm outreach at a cold-outreach scale.

Signal performance tracking: The best teams don't just track reply rates by sequence. They track reply rates by SIGNAL TYPE. They know that "new sales leader" signals convert at 14% while "funding round" signals convert at 6%. They double down on what works and sunset what doesn't. Over time, the signal configuration gets sharper, and the conversion rates climb.

How to run this with BirdDog + lemlist

The actual setup takes less than 15 minutes.

Start with your signals. Think about what actually indicates a company is ready for what you sell. Not the generic stuff. The weird, niche, specific things that only matter for your business. The examples above should get your brain going. lemlist has created an extensive signal library, but the best signals usually come from your own sales intuition, the patterns you've noticed in deals that closed fast versus deals that stalled.

Build signal-specific sequences. This is the key. Don't use one sequence for every signal. A "new CRO" signal should trigger different messaging than a "building internal tools" signal. The reason for reaching out IS the personalization. Build 3-5 sequences in lemlist, each tied to a specific signal type, each with multi-channel touchpoints.

Review weekly. Adjust monthly. Every Monday, look at what signals fired and which accounts are hottest. Every month, look at which signal types drove the most replies, meetings, and pipeline. Add new signals. Retire the ones that don't convert. The system gets smarter because you get smarter about what to watch for.

The teams that will dominate outbound in the next year aren't the ones with the best email copy or the most sophisticated sequences.

They're the ones with the best information.

Custom signals give you information nobody else has. lemlist lets you act on it faster than anyone else can.

That's the edge, and lemlist + BirdDog is making it happen.