# High intent leads: what they are and how to find them

> High intent leads are companies showing they need what you sell now. The signals that prove it, a four-question test, and how to find them, with examples.

Canonical: https://outscope.co/blog/high-intent-leads
Last updated: 2026-11-10

Published 10 Nov 2026. By Alex, founder of Outscope.

A high intent lead is a company that has shown, recently, that it needs what you sell now. The strongest signs cost the company something. On your side that's a demo or pricing request. Outside it, it's a job posting for the problem you solve, a new leader hired to fix it, or a budget set aside for it.

Interest is cheaper to show: a page view, an ebook download, a like on a post. Those tell you someone was curious. A high intent lead has committed time, money or people to the problem, and you can point at where.

## What makes a lead high intent?

A lead is high intent when three things are true at once: the company has the problem you solve, it has decided to act on it, and it decided recently. Fit alone gives you a list of companies that look right. A list tells you who exists. A signal tells you why now.

That's also why we say "companies" more than "leads" in the rest of this guide. The thing worth finding is a company's need, and the person to email comes after it.

## Two kinds of intent

Intent comes in two kinds, and most guides mix them up.

- **They're looking at you.** Someone visits your pricing page three times, books a demo, or compares you with a competitor on a review site. Strong, but you only see the companies that already found you, and often only as an anonymous company name.
- **They've committed to the problem.** A company posts a role to fix it, hires a leader to own it, or announces the project. They may never have heard of you. You see it in public, with a date, before they start comparing vendors.

The first kind is inbound with better data. The second is where outbound starts.

## High intent signals, and where you see them

| Signal | Where you see it | What it shows | Cost to read |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Demo or pricing request | Your own forms | They want you, specifically | Free, it's yours |
| Repeat pricing page visits | Your analytics, a visitor identification tool | Someone at a company is comparing | A tool to name the company |
| Category research on review sites | Review sites that sell buyer intent | They're shortlisting in your category | Paid, from the site |
| Topic intent scores | Third-party intent data vendors | Many people there read about a topic | Paid, and you rarely see the source |
| A job posting for the problem you solve | The company's own job board | They've decided to fix it and are paying a salary to | Free, public and dated |
| A new leader in the function | Announcements, LinkedIn | A new owner, often with a mandate to change things | Free, slow to collect |
| A funding round | News, funding databases | Money, but not where it goes | Free |

Nobody writes "we have no idea how to do outbound" in a press release. They do put it in a job posting. That makes postings one of the few signals that says, in the company's words, which problem the money is for.

## How do you tell if a lead is high intent?

Ask four questions of any signal. Each yes is a point.

1. **Is it specific to what you sell?** "Hiring a Head of Content" is specific if you sell SEO. "Hiring" on its own isn't.
2. **Is it recent?** A signal from this month is a reason to write this week. One from last year is history.
3. **Did it cost them something?** A salary, a budget, a leader's mandate. A download costs nothing.
4. **Can you see who owns it?** A posting usually names the role it reports to. That's who you write to.

Four points: write today. Two or three: keep watching, a second signal often follows. One or none: it's a company that looks right, which is a different list.

## Three high intent leads, from real postings

Here are three lines Outscope kept for our own products, Ballast (a cold email tool) and Picked (AI search visibility). Each is word for word from the posting, with the link and the date.

> Hiring first or additional SDRs, at Gumloop: "recruit, develop, and lead a high-performing team of approximately four SDRs in San Francisco or Vancouver"
>
> [Founding SDR Manager](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Gumloop/21b4f0f8-dfb8-498b-951c-1a2857d7ae0e), posted 3 Nov 2026.

Gumloop is building a team of SDRs, so cold email is about to become a daily job there. All four questions score: specific to a cold email tool, posted this month, a salary committed, and the role named. A first line could start from their own sentence about leading a team of about four SDRs.

> New outbound or demand gen leader, at Airwallex: "Build the outbound SDR strategy for UK Enterprise, from target account selection and sequencing through to multi-channel prospecting and qualified pipeline creation."
>
> [Manager, Sales Development Enterprise UK](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/airwallex/7fc0f49a-3fa4-4dec-8e92-bb167e484dc0), posted 3 Aug 2026.

A manager to "build the outbound SDR strategy" for one region. Specific and costly, with the owner named. It was posted in August, so by now the strategy may be set: three points, worth a careful look rather than a cold template.

> Owning AI search presence, at Campfire: "You'll own both for Campfire, growing qualified organic traffic and pipeline while making Campfire the source that answer engines cite when buyers ask questions in our category."
>
> [SEO & AEO Manager](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/campfire/368c109a-9934-4b1e-b2f5-c032b1be9276), posted 21 Sept 2026.

For a tool that tracks AI search visibility, this is as direct as a signal gets: the company wrote that it wants to be the source answer engines cite. Four points.

## How to find high intent leads by hand

You can find these yourself with a search engine and an afternoon. It works for ten companies a week.

1. **Write the problem the way they would.** Not your category, their task: "cold email", "outbound from zero", "SOC 2", "answer engines".
2. **Search the job boards companies post on.** Most startups and many larger companies post on an ATS with public pages. Try `site:jobs.lever.co "cold email"`, then the same with `jobs.ashbyhq.com`, `job-boards.greenhouse.io`, `apply.workable.com` and `myworkdayjobs.com`. Set the date filter to the past month. Results are patchy: some boards are indexed better than others, and reposts on job sites get mixed in.
3. **Open each posting and copy the sentence that names the problem.** If you can't find one, it isn't a signal for you.
4. **Score it with the four questions.** Keep the threes and fours.
5. **Find who owns it.** The posting often says who the role reports to. Write to that person, not the new hire.
6. **Write the first line from their sentence.** It reads like you did the reading, because you did.

At a hundred companies a week this becomes a job. That's the job Outscope does: it reads new postings on Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Workable and Workday job boards every day, scores each against the signals you set from your website, keeps the line that matched, and finds who to email. The [list of companies hiring by role](https://outscope.co/hiring) is free if you want to start with the raw postings.

## Common mistakes with high intent leads

- **Counting interest as intent.** A whitepaper download is curiosity. Score it, but don't write to it as if they're buying.
- **Acting on old signals.** A posting that's been open for months may already be filled, or the project may have moved on.
- **Using signals that aren't about you.** A company that's hiring is growing. A company hiring for the problem you solve needs you. Only the second is high intent for you.
- **Writing to the new hire.** The person in the posting hasn't started yet. Their manager owns the problem today.
- **Hiding the reason.** If your first line could go to any company, you've thrown the signal away.

## When high intent doesn't help

- **Your buyers don't leave public signs.** Small local firms and companies under about ten people rarely post roles or announce projects.
- **You need a sale this week, not a conversation.** A signal shows a company is about to decide. Whether it buys from you is still up to your offer and your email.

## How we checked

The three examples are real lines Outscope kept for Ballast and Picked, each linked to its posting with the date it was posted. The search operators in the by-hand method were tried on 10 Nov 2026. The table describes kinds of signal, not any vendor's product or price; for the tools that read these signals and what they cost, see [the best hiring signal tools, compared](https://outscope.co/blog/hiring-signal-tools).

## Questions

### What is a high intent lead?

A company that has shown recently that it needs what you sell now, through something that cost it time, money or people: a demo request, a job posting for the problem you solve, a new leader hired to fix it.

### What's the difference between high intent and low intent leads?

A low intent lead fits your market and may have shown curiosity, like a page view or a download. A high intent lead has decided to act on the problem and you can point at the evidence, with a date.

### What are high intent buying signals?

Public or private signs that a company is about to spend on a problem: pricing and demo requests on your side, and job postings, new leaders and announced projects outside it. Outscope is built around the public ones: [high intent buying signals with the evidence](https://outscope.co/).

### Are MQLs high intent leads?

Sometimes. A marketing qualified lead usually means someone engaged with your content enough to pass a score. If the score counts downloads and visits, it measures interest. If it counts pricing visits and demo requests, it's closer to intent.

### Where can I find high intent leads for free?

On your own site, in pricing and demo requests. Outside it, on company job boards: a posting for the problem you solve is public, dated and free to read. The by-hand method above works for a handful of companies a week, and our [free list of companies hiring by role](https://outscope.co/hiring) shows fresh postings without a sign-up.

### Is intent data the same as high intent leads?

No. Intent data is one way to find them: scores that say a company reads about a topic. A high intent lead is the company itself, once you know why it needs you now and who owns the problem.

### How fast should you contact a high intent lead?

While the signal is fresh, ideally the week you see it. A public signal is public for everyone, so the first useful email has the advantage over the tenth.

[Start from your website](https://outscope.co/signup): the first preview reads up to 100 of today's postings for you, free and with no card.