> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.alvahq.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Signals > Find companies the moment something happens that makes them worth contacting — a funding round, a new hire, an expansion — and give your outreach a reason to write today. **Signals** find companies because of something that has *just happened* to them. You describe the event in plain English — "London fintechs that have just raised a Series A", "companies hiring a CTO", "large outdoor events coming up in the UK" — and Alva searches the web and the news for it every day, checks the evidence, adds the companies, and finds the right people to contact. Your BDR Agents can then use the event as the reason for getting in touch now. > [!NOTE] > > Signals is in **closed beta** and needs the **Pro plan**. To join the beta, ask Alva or contact support. Once Signals is on for your account, **Signals** appears under **Discovery** in the sidebar. ## Signals vs Search Agents | | Search Agent | Signal | | - | - | - | | **Finds companies by** | What they are — their type, sector, size, or location | What has just happened to them | | **Runs** | Until it has covered your area or reached its limit | Every day, looking for new events | | **Gives outreach** | A good-fit company | A good-fit company *and* a reason to write today | A Search Agent can't tell from a website that a company has just raised money or is hiring. When you describe something like that in a Search Agent, Alva offers **Create a signal instead**. ## Creating a signal Go to **Discovery → Signals** and click **New signal**. The wizard has four steps. **1. Describe** Answer **What event should make a company worth contacting?** in your own words, and choose **What would these companies be to you?** — customer, partner, vendor, or supplier. This decides which [pipeline](https://docs.alvahq.com/discovery/profile-types-explained.md) the companies join. **2. Check** Alva shows **Here is what I will look for**: its reading of your request, what counts and what doesn't, where to look, how far back the first search looks, and **How outreach should use this** — the outreach angle (see below). Edit anything that isn't right. If the web can't show what you've asked for, Alva says so under **The public web cannot show this directly** and suggests what it can find instead. **3. Preview** Click **Find examples** to see real companies that match, before anything is added. Alva tells you the cost before it starts. Mark any example that's wrong with **Not this kind** and say why — the signal learns from it and leaves that kind of company out next time. You can also **Skip the preview**. **4. Contacts and schedule** Choose who to contact and how many companies to add a day (see below), then save the signal as a draft or activate it. ### Who to contact Alva proposes job titles from what you sell. You can change: * **Primary job titles** — the people you most want to reach * **Backup titles** — used when no one with a primary title is found * **Usual decision maker** — flagged and prioritised, like an economic buyer * **What a good-fit company looks like (optional)** — a short brief used to score fit, as with a Search Agent ### Schedule * **Most new companies a day** — from 1 to 50 (10 by default). Anything over the limit waits for the next day. * **New companies** — **Import automatically** (verified companies go straight into your CRM) or **Hold for my review** (nothing is imported until you approve it). * **Weekly deeper search** — once a week, on Mondays, look further back for anything the daily search missed. On by default. ### Activating Click **Activate**. Alva tells you roughly what the signal will cost a month and when its first search runs. If you ran a preview, it offers to add the preview's companies straight away, so you don't wait for the first search. ## How Alva checks each company Before a company is added, Alva checks that: * **The source names it** — a page actually mentions the company, and it's the company the event happened to (not, say, its investor, recruiter, or venue) * **The event is genuinely new** — not an old story retold * **It happened inside the window** — since the last search, or within the dates you set for upcoming events * **It has a working website** — on its own domain Alva also leaves out your own company, your competitors, anyone on your [block list](https://docs.alvahq.com/email/email-block-list.md), and any company this signal has already found in the last six months. ## What happens to the companies * **New companies** are added to your CRM (or held for your review) and [enriched](https://docs.alvahq.com/discovery/enrichment.md) using the signal's job titles. People named in the story are captured too. * **Companies already in your CRM** get the event added to their record and timeline, but **no new outreach starts** because of the signal. Open a signal to see its tabs: | Tab | What it shows | | - | - | | **Companies** | Each company found, with the event, its urgency, and its contacts. Held companies have **Import** and **Dismiss** | | **Runs** | Every search: when it ran, how many companies were checked and kept, and the result | | **Contacts** | Who to contact — the job titles above | | **Settings** | The description, rules, area, outreach angle, and schedule | When you **Dismiss** a company, choose a reason — **Wrong company**, **Old news**, **Not relevant**, **Duplicate**, or **Other**. Like **Not this kind**, it teaches the signal what to leave out. Contacts with a mobile number on record show **Mobile available**. Click it to see the cost and reveal the number — you're only charged if a number arrives. ### Urgency Each company is rated for how soon it's worth acting on: | Urgency | Meaning | | - | - | | **Act now** | A deadline, decision, or opening within days or weeks — or news a day or two old | | **Soon** | A real, current event with no deadline | | **Background** | Older news, vague timing, or nothing time-bound | A one-line reason explains each rating, such as "Contractors are chosen at a board meeting on 3 November". Urgency is about timing, not fit, and nothing is sent or reordered automatically because of it — it helps you choose whom to contact first. ## Schedule and digest All your signals search once a day at the same hour. On the **Signals** page, the **Schedule and digest** card sets: * **Daily search hour** and **Timezone** (07:00 London time by default) * **Email a daily digest** — on by default. The digest arrives about an hour after the search, lists new companies by signal (most urgent first), then those **Already in your CRM**. A quiet day sends nothing. Recipients also get an in-app notification. * **Who receives it** — account admins by default, or the teammates you choose Use **Run now** on a signal to search immediately, and **Pause** or **Resume** to stop and start it. ## Using signals in outreach ### The outreach angle Every signal has an outreach angle — **How outreach should use this**. It explains why now is a good time to write and how the event connects to what you sell. Alva drafts it when you set the signal up, and you can edit it in the wizard, on the **Settings** tab, or by asking Alva. It guides the email; it's never pasted in word for word. ### One Personalised agent for all your signals A [Personalised BDR Agent](https://docs.alvahq.com/bdr-agents/personalised-outreach.md) linked to your signals writes to each company with that company's own event and its signal's angle, so **one agent can work every signal**. It leads with a recent event (from the last 45 days) in the first email, mentions it once, doesn't repeat it in follow-ups, never says how the company was found, and never invents details. On a signal's page, the **Outreach** card shows the angle and the agents working the signal. Click **Set up outreach** and Alva offers your existing signals agent first, or sets one up. When an agent already works your other signals, **Add to \[agent]** adds this one too. ### Templates [Template](https://docs.alvahq.com/email/email-templates.md) agents can use `{{signal.hook}}` (the event, in a short phrase) and `{{signal.date}}`. They use the company's latest event from the last 45 days. If a company has no recent event, the email is held rather than sent with a gap. ### Elsewhere in Alva * A company's page has a **Signals** card listing recent events found for it. * The [Lead Sheet](https://docs.alvahq.com/discovery/lead-sheet.md) shows a **Why now** badge on leads found by a signal. ## Costs and budget Signals are charged at the actual cost of each search, plus the usual costs of enrichment and outreach. Alva states the cost before every preview and **Run now**, and gives a monthly estimate when you activate. Set a monthly limit for Signals under **Settings → AI**. If the budget is used up, or your credit balance is very low, the day's search is skipped and the **Runs** tab says why. ## Managing signals with Alva You can do everything in chat. Ask [Alva](https://docs.alvahq.com/ai-assistant/talking-to-alva.md): * *"Set up a signal for UK construction firms that have just won a public contract."* * *"Show me examples before I switch it on."* * *"Who should I contact first from this week's signals?"* * *"Hold new companies from my funding signal for review."* * *"Set up outreach for my signals."* This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.