Intent Spikes give you real-time visibility into which companies are most likely in-market right now. They highlight accounts that are actively researching products or services like yours, surfacing the exact moment buying intent increases.
By monitoring spikes across multiple intent sources, your team can prioritise outreach to the accounts most likely to convert — giving you a competitive edge and ensuring your sales efforts land when prospects are ready to engage.
What Are Intent Spikes?
Intent Spikes occur when there’s a measurable increase in activity across intent signals from multiple sources. These signals can include:
- Researching industry topics
- Visiting comparison or review sites
- Downloading whitepapers or case studies
- Engaging with competitor content
- Interacting with your own content or campaigns
To make intent easier to prioritise, spikes are categorised by the number of triggers detected:
- 1 Spike → typically 3 triggers
- 2 Spikes → usually 4–5 triggers
- 3 Spikes → 6+ triggers, showing the strongest buying intent
👉 Behind the scenes, a scoring model calculates and weights these triggers. You can customise this scoring to fit your business needs.
How Spikes Are Calculated:
Intent Spikes are based on the number of unique triggers detected within your scoring settings. Each type of signal (e.g. Topics, Keywords, Competitors) has thresholds that determine when activity becomes a 1, 2, or 3 Spike. You can adjust these thresholds in Settings → Intent Score.
Examples:
- 1 Spike
This company only showed one topic (“Deal Advisory”). Since it didn’t reach the higher thresholds, it counts as a 1 Spike.
- 3 Spikes
This company triggered around six topics in the same event, which meets the threshold for a 3 Spike, indicating much stronger buying intent.
👉 The more triggers a company generates within your scoring model, the higher the spike level.
Configuring Intent Scoring:
You can adjust how spikes are generated by refining the scoring model:
- Navigate to Settings in the top right corner.
- Select Intent Score.
- Adjust the weighting of different signals (e.g. topics, competitor engagement, events).
- Save your configuration — future spikes will reflect your custom settings.
This ensures that spikes prioritise the signals most relevant to your go-to-market strategy.
Accessing All Spikes:
The All Spikes page provides a centralised view of every company showing intent. From here you can:
- View company-level intent → see detailed breakdowns of which signals each account is generating.
- Filter by spike level → quickly focus on companies with 2+ or 3+ spikes (your highest-priority leads).
- Compare by source → toggle between a unified view or individual intent providers.
Best Practices:
👉 Focus on 2+ Spikes → these accounts typically show the most meaningful activity.
👉 Customise scoring → weight signals that reflect your ICP’s behaviour.
👉 Act fast → intent spikes are time-sensitive; engage prospects while they’re still researching.
👉 Layer with persona filters → combine spikes with job titles or functions to find the right buyers inside each account.
FAQs:
Do more spikes always mean higher intent?
Generally yes. Accounts with 2–3 spikes are more engaged and further along their research journey.
Can I change what counts as a spike?
Yes. You can adjust signal weightings in Intent Score settings to refine how spikes are generated.
Can I see which signals make up a spike?
Yes. The All Spikes page provides a breakdown of which topics, competitors, or events contributed to each spike.
Do intent spikes use credits?
No. Credits are only consumed when you reveal contacts, not when monitoring spikes.
What’s the best way to act on a spike?
Use our Intent Search Tool to surface decision-makers instantly, or push spiking accounts into workflows to ensure timely follow-up.