# Signals and keywords

> How buying signals work in Outscope: what a job posting can show, weights from one to five, signals that rule out, and the keywords that pick postings.

Canonical: https://outscope.co/docs/signals
Last updated: 2026-11-09

A signal is something a job posting can show about a company that makes it likely to need what you sell now. Keywords decide which postings get read; signals decide what we look for in them.

## What makes a good signal

A posting says what a team is about to do, in its own words. "Rebuild our demand generation and choose which agencies we work with" says more than the title "VP of Marketing". Good signals name a change a posting would describe:

| Kind | Example |
| --- | --- |
| **A team being built** | Hiring its first sales rep, or a new data team |
| **A project starting** | A migration, a new market, a rebuild of the website |
| **A tool or a problem named** | Moving off spreadsheets, replacing a vendor, "own our CRM" |

A signal a posting can't show won't match, however true it is. "Has budget" or "unhappy with their vendor" rarely appears in a job ad; "will choose our outbound tools" does. Write each signal as what the posting would say, not as what you hope is true.

## Weights

Each signal has a weight from one to five dots: how strong a sign it is that a company needs you. A posting that matches a five-dot signal counts five times one that matches a one-dot signal. Keep five dots for the signal that, on its own, would make you write to the company today.

![A campaign's Settings tab: who buys it, then the signals, each with its weight in dots and Look for or Rule out](https://outscope.co/docs/campaign-settings.webp "Signals for the Ballast campaign, as the analysis of ballast.to suggested them")

## Signals that rule out

A signal can also **rule out**. A company whose posting matches it ranks lower: a recruitment agency hiring for its clients, a team that already runs the thing you sell, a role that's an internship. Use **Include or rule out** on the signal to switch it.

## Keywords pick the postings

Before anything is read, we keep only the postings that use your keywords: words a matching posting would use, such as "outbound", "pipeline" or "SDR". Postings without them aren't read at all.

- **Too few keywords** miss companies that describe the same thing in other words.
- **Keywords that are too common** ("team", "growth") spend your plan's postings on ones that don't match.

## The rest of the search

A campaign's **Settings** tab holds the rest of what decides which postings are read, under **Which postings to read**:

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Words a matching posting uses** | The keywords above |
| **Leave out postings that mention** | Words that drop a posting before it's read, like "internship" or "recruitment agency" |
| **Teams the posting is for** | Only postings for some teams, such as Sales or Marketing |
| **Places** | A city, country or region, as postings write it, and whether remote roles count. Empty means anywhere |
| **Posted in the last** | How far back to look |

Under **Companies that buy** you describe your buyer: how many people work there, whether they sell to businesses or consumers, and their industries. These don't drop anyone. Each company is read from its homepage once, and one that looks like your buyer ranks higher.

**Who to find**, at the top of Settings, drafts all of this from a sentence, such as "software companies in Germany building their first outbound team, no recruitment agencies". Nothing is saved until you check the draft and save.

## Changing signals later

Edit what you sell, a signal or the keywords in the campaign's Settings tab. Today's results stay on screen until the postings are read again with the new ones: the campaign shows a banner, and **Read them again** reads them with the new signals. That uses postings from your plan's month, like any run.

> Morning updates wait while signals are edited and not yet read again, so the list never mixes results from old and new signals.