Signals and data

Signal half-life

Definition

Signal half-life is how long a buying signal stays useful before the reason to reach out has faded, been acted on, or been answered by a competitor.

Signal half-life in practice

Every signal decays at its own rate. A funding round stays relevant for months while the money gets allocated. A pricing page visit goes cold in days. A new executive is most open to change in their first weeks, before their plan is set. If you treat all signals as equally fresh, you send late on the fast ones and early on the slow ones.

Half-life decides your detection cadence. Fast decay signals need daily checks and same day routing. Slow decay signals can run weekly. In the scoring IV builds, trigger age is its own input, so an old signal loses points automatically instead of relying on a rep to notice.

Buying signalSpeed to leadLead scoringJob change signalIntent dataSignal half-life
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Last updated 2026-10-14 by Ishan Vats.

Free 30 minute signal audit

See where signal half-life fits in a real build.

Book the free 30 minute signal audit. We map the buying signals for your ICP live on the call, and show you where signal half-life sits in the system we would build.

Pick a time in the calendar below to schedule a 30 minute call with me.

  1. 01You talk. Who you sell to and what you send today.
  2. 02We map. The signals that fire for your ICP and the two to start with.
  3. 03You keep it. The signal map and a budget range, whether or not you build with us.

Ishan Vats, founder of IV Consulting. We run our own outbound on the same system.

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