Form fills and PDF downloads indicate curiosity, not intent. Treat forms as supporting evidence inside a broader pattern. Route on patterns for speed. Use causality to decide where to invest.
Takeaways
Form fills ≠ intent: completed forms may show interest, not intent to buy.
As decisions get real, more time can pass and more stakeholders can show up.
The part many still miss: a contact form fill or a gated PDF download doesn’t change any of that. It’s a weak signal until it’s part of a bigger picture.
“Would love to see a follow up on buying signals. Something tells me ‘filling in a form to download a lead magnet’ is guaranteed to be on the list.”
She’s right.
An eBook gate, by itself, is weak. It proves someone traded an email for content. It does not prove buying intent.
Some forms can be strong: demo request, pricing/config quote, security questionnaire, RFP upload. They get stronger when surrounded by hotter activity in a short window.
Read signals as a story
Buyers don’t march left-to-right when we want them to.
They loop. They backtrack. They add and remove people. They rinse and repeat on their time, not ours.
Read the pattern across people, content, and time, not a sequence.
Compression: related activity bunches up inside 7–14 days (and often repeats later).
Escalation: things heat up (Case Studies/ROI > Pricing > Security/Integration > Procurement/Legal).
Expansion: more stakeholders from the same domain join in (as many as 11 or more when it's time to sign)
Loops matter: Procurement can bounce back to Security; Security can bounce back to Pricing; ROI can ping-pong with Pricing.
Our job is to spot momentum, not enforce a linear path.
Routing rule (make it binary):
IF two or more stakeholders from the same domain hit pricing at least twice in 7-14 days,
AND any one views security, integration, or implementation docs,
THEN alert the AE and set a four-hour follow-up SLA.
Everything else goes to nurture until the pattern appears.
“We need to stop tossing early interest over the fence. Marketers must own that signal until it’s contextualized, confirmed, and validated.”
