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What is a Trigger and how do I activate one?

Written by Camila

A trigger is a real-world signal that tells Spear when to reach out to a prospect. Instead of sending cold messages, Spear uses triggers to make every outreach timely and relevant.

Examples of triggers:

  • A prospect just got a promotion

  • Their company announced a new product

  • They engaged with a post related to your space on The Outreach Platform

Prerequisites

  • Access to Spear with an active campaign


How Spear finds triggers

Spear now uses an agentic search to look for triggers, which roughly doubles the match rate — from about 20% to about 45% of prospects. When it finds more than one relevant signal, it shows up to 3 triggers per prospect, ranked by strength, each with a short explanation of why it was surfaced. Pick whichever fits best — or, if auto-approve is on, Spear uses the strongest one automatically.


Where do I find Triggers?

In the left navigation menu, click Triggers.

You'll see two categories:

  • Predefined Triggers — ready-to-use, just toggle on

  • Personalized Triggers — custom triggers you configure with your own keywords or URLss.

  • Predefined Triggers — ready-made triggers that work out of the box with minimal setup.


How to activate a trigger

Step 1: Go to Triggers.

Step 2: Find the trigger you want to use.

Step 3: Click Activate (for Predefined) or Edit then Activate (for Personalized).

Step 4: Set the lookback window.

Expected result

Once activated, the trigger will start monitoring for the selected activity and surface matching prospects in your Suggestions tab.

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