# Intent signals

> Turn LinkedIn engagement into pipeline with Ghost Signals: capture everyone who engages with competitor profiles, posts, company pages, events and searches, and track buying-intent keywords for free.

Source: https://www.growwithghost.io/docs/find/signals/

Signals turn other people's LinkedIn activity into your pipeline. Instead of guessing who might be interested, Ghost watches the profiles, posts and pages that matter in your market and captures the people who engage with them. Someone commenting on a competitor's post is the strongest buying signal LinkedIn gives you.

**Where to find it:** sidebar → **Leads → Signals**. The page has two tabs: **Audience Signals** and **Keyword Signals** (beta).

## Audience signals

### Add a signal source

Click **Add Source** and paste a LinkedIn URL. Ghost works out what it is:

| Source | Paste a URL like | Ghost captures |
|--------|------------------|----------------|
| **Profile** | `linkedin.com/in/…` | People reacting to and commenting on their recent posts |
| **Company** | `linkedin.com/company/…` | People engaging with the page's recent posts |
| **Post** | A single post URL | Reactions and comments on that post |
| **Event** | `linkedin.com/events/…` | People attending the event |
| **Search** | A LinkedIn or Sales Navigator search or list URL | The people in the results |

Then set:

- **Label**: a name you'll recognise.
- **Max contacts to retrieve**: 100, 200 or 500. The scan reserves that many credits up front.
- **Exclude employees from** (company pages): people with this company in their headline won't be messaged, so you don't pitch your competitor's own staff.
- **Geographic filter**: allow only certain countries, or block some. Blocked contacts are never saved.
- **Start scanning immediately** and, for profiles, **Also add to my Engagement feed watchlist**.

New contacts land in [Contacts](https://www.growwithghost.io/docs/find/contacts), tagged with the source. You can refresh a source by hand once every **48 hours**.

### Streamed signals

A streamed signal keeps a source running on its own and can feed a campaign directly. Click **Make Streamed Signal** on a source and choose:

| Setting | Options |
|---------|---------|
| **Refresh interval** | Daily, weekly (default) or monthly |
| **Contacts per refresh** | 50, 100, 200 or 500 |
| **Link to campaign** | New contacts are enrolled automatically, or just collected |

Ghost checks every few hours for streams that are due. Removing a stream stops the refreshes but keeps the contacts and enrolments it already created.

### Locations and country rules

LinkedIn engagement rarely comes with a location. Ghost keeps people whose location is unknown, looks it up for free in the background, and only enrols them into a linked campaign once it's confirmed they match your country rules. People clearly in the wrong country are dropped.

## Keyword signals (beta)

Keyword signals track LinkedIn posts that mention buying-intent phrases, such as "hiring an SDR" or "migrating off HubSpot". The people who wrote those posts become your leads.

- **Free**: they run on your connected LinkedIn account and use no credits.
- **Settings**: keywords (exact phrases score higher), words to exclude, how far back to look (1–30 days, default 7), and a weekly or daily cadence.
- **Auto-add high scorers**: link a campaign and Ghost adds authors who score above your minimum (default 70) automatically.
- Employees of the brands you track are filtered out.

Each post author gets a 0–100 relevance score based on keyword matches, whether their headline matches your ICP roles, location, intent keywords, how recent the post is and how much engagement it got. This is separate from [Lead Score](https://www.growwithghost.io/docs/find/lead-score).

## Credits

| Action | Cost |
|--------|------|
| Audience signal scan or stream refresh | 1 credit per **new** contact saved. Duplicates are free. The unused part of the reservation is refunded. |
| Keyword signals | Free |
| Location lookups | Free |

A scan won't start if you have fewer credits than its maximum contacts. Your credit log shows the reservation and the refund as separate rows. See [Credits](https://www.growwithghost.io/docs/find/credits).

## Tips

- Start with 3–5 competitor or peer profiles that post every week. That's where the warmest engagement is.
- Link streamed signals to a campaign so contacts flow straight into outreach.
- Set country rules if you only sell in certain markets.
- Review new signal contacts weekly and add the best to a list.

## FAQ

### Why did a scan need 500 credits when it found 40 people?

The scan reserves your maximum up front, then refunds whatever it didn't use. You're only charged for new contacts saved.

### How often do streamed signals refresh?

Daily, weekly or monthly, whichever you choose. Weekly is the default.

### Why can't I refresh a source?

Manual refreshes have a 48-hour cooldown. Turn the source into a streamed signal to refresh it automatically.