Introduction

In our previous lesson, we introduced you to the world of signals in Clay and why they're such a game-changer for modern GTM teams. Today, we're diving deeper into the three types of signals available in Clay: Default signals, Always-On signals, and Custom signals.

Understanding these different signal types is crucial because each one serves a specific purpose and has unique capabilities that can transform how you identify and act on buying opportunities.

By the end of this lesson, you'll know exactly which signal type to choose for any given use case, understand their technical capabilities and limitations, and feel confident building the right monitoring system for your specific GTM strategy.

🎯 Default Signals: Your GTM Intelligence on Autopilot

Default signals are Clay's greatest hits—the most valuable business events that trigger buying decisions, with monitoring systems built out of the box. Clay handles the data sources, refresh rates, and filtering logic so you get enterprise-grade monitoring without setup complexity.

• Career Movement Signals: Track VP-level job changes, new hires, promotions, layoffs, and relocations across your target accounts. When your champion moves companies or a key decision maker joins a prospect account, you'll know within hours rather than discovering it weeks later through manual LinkedIn checks.
• News and Fundraising: Monitor funding rounds, mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, product launches, and leadership changes. These events create immediate opportunities—new budget from funding, tool evaluation during M&A integration, or fresh perspectives from new executives.
• Job Postings: Reveal expansion signals that predict buying behavior. Aggressive sales or marketing hiring indicates budget allocation and growth ambitions. Technical role postings show technology adoption plans and infrastructure investment. Clay analyzes job descriptions for urgency indicators and geographic expansion signals.
• LinkedIn Brand Mentions: Monitor competitor discussions, partnership opportunities, customer satisfaction signals, and thought leadership trends. This is social listening purpose-built for B2B sales intelligence, helping you identify prospects actively engaging with your category or expressing dissatisfaction with current solutions.
• Website Intent: Monitor page visits, content engagement, resource downloads, and pricing interactions for real-time buying signals. This reveals which accounts are actively researching solutions and how deep they are in their evaluation process.
• Customer Sentiment Analysis: Monitor reviews on G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius for competitive insights, feature requests in your category, and churn indicators from competitors' customers. This reveals prospects who might be open to switching solutions.

Practical Example: Marketing Automation

Let's say you sell marketing automation software. You'd set up a Default signal for job postings, filtering for companies hiring Marketing Operations Managers or Demand Generation roles. When a company posts these positions, it often signals they're scaling their marketing function and evaluating new tools.

The signal fires, you get notified, and you can reach out with messaging about how your platform helps growing marketing teams scale efficiently. The timing is perfect because they're actively thinking about their marketing infrastructure and likely evaluating technology to support their expansion.

🔄 Always-On Source Signals: Transforming Static Data

Always-On signals transform one-time research into continuous monitoring by watching a specific data source for when companies meet certain criteria. Instead of building a static list that becomes stale, you create ongoing alerts that catch companies at the moment they become relevant.

Key Monitoring Categories

• Tech Stack Changes: Detect adoption of any technology—CRM migrations, marketing automation implementations, security tool deployments, cloud platform switches. Each change represents an opportunity to offer complementary solutions or competitive alternatives.
• Compliance and Certifications: Monitor regulatory requirements, newly achieved certifications like SOC2 or HIPAA, and industry standards adoption. These events often trigger evaluation of related tools and services.
• Geographic Expansion: Identify new office openings, market entry signals, international hiring patterns, and localization efforts. Expansion creates needs for infrastructure, compliance, and operational tools.

Any data source in Clay can become an always-on signal. You're not limited to pre-built options—if Clay can enrich for it, you can monitor for changes in it. This flexibility enables monitoring for highly specific criteria that matter uniquely to your business.

🛠️ Custom Signals: Build Monitoring for Anything

Custom signals combine scheduled sources, AI analysis, and conditional logic to monitor virtually anything that matters for your specific market. This is where you build proprietary intelligence systems that competitors can't easily replicate.

Real-World Example: Vanta

Vanta uses AI signals to identify companies actively seeking SOC2 certification, then reaches out with compliance automation messaging. They analyze website content, job descriptions, and social media to identify certification intent before it becomes obvious through public announcements.

This early detection allows them to engage prospects during the research phase rather than the vendor evaluation phase, shaping the conversation and building relationships before competitors enter the picture.

Website Content Monitoring

Track pricing modifications that suggest positioning changes, feature updates revealing product evolution, team page additions indicating growth, and blog themes showing strategic focus. These changes reveal company priorities and potential needs.

Social Media Activity Analysis

Monitor executive LinkedIn posting patterns, company engagement levels with industry content, event participation showing active community involvement, and thought leadership themes revealing strategic priorities.

Financial Filings Intelligence

Analyze SEC filings for revenue guidance changes, executive compensation patterns indicating strategic shifts, and strategic announcements about new markets or product lines. Public companies telegraph their priorities through regulatory filings.

Engineering Density Metrics

Monitor GitHub activity levels, technical job postings, open source contributions, and developer community engagement. High engineering density often predicts technology adoption and infrastructure investment.

Technical Capabilities

Custom signals leverage Clay's full technical stack:

• API integrations for real-time data feeds
• Web scraping for content monitoring
• RSS feeds for news and blog tracking
• Database change detection for internal systems

🎯 Choosing the Right Signal Type

Now you understand the signal types that power Clay's monitoring engine. The key is matching signal type to your specific use case through a simple decision framework.

Decision Framework

• Start with Default Signals for common GTM triggers like job changes, funding rounds, or hiring patterns. These battle-tested signals work out of the box and cover the scenarios that drive results for most businesses.
• Use Always-On Signals when you need change detection on existing data sources. If you're monitoring for companies adopting specific technologies, achieving certifications, or entering new markets, Always-On signals transform static enrichment into continuous opportunity detection.
• Build Custom Signals when you need AI analysis or complex logic that isn't available in pre-built options. If your competitive advantage comes from detecting subtle patterns or combining multiple data points, custom signals let you build proprietary monitoring systems.

The most sophisticated GTM teams layer multiple signal types. They might use Default signals for career changes, Always-On signals for tech stack monitoring, and Custom signals for AI-powered content analysis—all working together to create comprehensive market intelligence.

✅ Key Takeaways

Clay offers three signal types, each designed for different monitoring needs: Default signals provide pre-built monitoring for common GTM triggers, Always-On signals transform static data into continuous change detection, and Custom signals enable sophisticated monitoring with AI and complex logic.

Default signals give you immediate value without configuration complexity, covering the business events that most reliably predict buying intent. Always-On signals ensure you never miss opportunities by continuously monitoring for companies entering your ICP. Custom signals create competitive advantages through proprietary intelligence that competitors can't easily replicate.

Next up, we're diving into the practical side: setting up signals step by step. You'll learn the exact configuration process, optimization techniques, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that can flood you with irrelevant notifications or miss critical opportunities.