# Buying Signal Watcher — New B2B Tool Adoption Alerts (`0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher`) Actor

Watch company domains and get alerted the moment one adopts a new high-value tool (Stripe, Intercom, HubSpot, Calendly, Salesloft...) - a real buying-intent signal: fresh budget, right timing to reach out. Run on a schedule; only genuinely new adoptions are reported after the first baseline check.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher.md
- **Developed by:** [0xGollum](https://apify.com/0xgollum) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$250.00 / 1,000 buying signals

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Buying Signal Watcher — New B2B Tool Adoption Alerts

**STATUS: published, $0.25/result (PAY\_PER\_EVENT).** See "Known limitation" below — Playwright
rendering fixed the original plain-HTTP coverage gap (1/6 → 4/6 real test sites), not a 100%
guarantee (some sites still won't show a signal even when Playwright-rendered, e.g. custom
in-house widgets with no known signature, or truly no high-value tool present).

Watch a list of company domains and get alerted the moment one of them adopts a new
high-value tool (Stripe, Intercom, HubSpot, Calendly, Salesloft...) — a real buying-intent
signal: fresh budget, right timing to reach out. Run on a schedule; only genuinely new
adoptions are reported after the first baseline check, not the same tools every time.

### Why this angle

Existing "website technology detector" actors on Apify (5+ found in market research,
08/08/2026) do a **one-off inventory scan** of 130+ generic technologies. This actor is
narrower on purpose: a **curated list of ~15 high-value B2B signal tools**, checked on a
**recurring schedule**, reporting only what **changed since last time** — an alert feed, not
a static lookup. Persists per-domain state across runs via a named Apify key-value store.

### Input

- **Domains** (required) — company websites to watch, e.g. `acme.com`.
- **Categories** — filter to `payment`, `chat_support`, `marketing_automation`,
  `sales_scheduling`, `sales_engagement`, `data_infra`. Leave empty for all.
- **Request timeout**.

### Output

One row per detected tool: `domain`, `tool_detected`, `category`, `change_type`
(`baseline_first_check` on the first-ever run for a domain, `newly_added` on every run after
that — only `newly_added` rows are the real buying signal).

### Known limitation, and the fix actually shipped (08/08/2026)

First version used plain HTTP (`httpx`, no headless browser, same design as the rest of this
portfolio). Tested live against 6 real company homepages (close.com, gumroad.com, buffer.com,
clearbit.com, loom.com, zapier.com): **only 1 of 6** showed a detectable tool. Root cause
confirmed by inspecting the raw HTML: most of these sites load third-party tags (Intercom,
HubSpot, etc.) **dynamically through Google Tag Manager**, invisible to a static fetch.

**Fixed by switching to Playwright** (`apify/actor-python-playwright:3.11` base image,
headless Chromium, `wait_until="networkidle"` so GTM has time to inject before we read the
DOM). Retested against the same 6 sites: **4 of 6** now show a detectable tool. First deploy
also hit a real infra bug — the base image's preinstalled Chromium build didn't match the
pinned `playwright` pip version (`Executable doesn't exist at /pw-browsers/...` in prod) —
fixed by adding `playwright install chromium` explicitly in the Dockerfile after `pip install`,
so the browser always matches whatever playwright version pip resolves, regardless of what's
baked into the base image.

**Why $0.25/result, not the portfolio's usual $0.02**: this actor only bills on a genuine
`newly_added` signal (never on an empty/no-change run, matching the rest of the portfolio's
"never charge for nothing found" rule) — but most scheduled checks *won't* find a new signal
(companies don't add tools every week), and Playwright rendering costs real compute on every
check regardless of outcome. Priced to cover the amortized compute cost across the "silent"
checks that lead up to one billable signal, not just the compute of the one that hits.
Estimate, not measured — revisit once real usage data comes in.

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Website domains to check (e.g. 'acme.com'). Run this on a schedule (daily/weekly) - each run compares against the last one and reports only newly adopted tools, a fresh buying-intent signal.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Which categories to check: payment, chat\_support, marketing\_automation, sales\_scheduling, sales\_engagement, data\_infra. Leave empty for all.

## `request_timeout_secs` (type: `integer`):

HTTP request timeout per domain.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "zapier.com",
    "loom.com",
    "typeform.com"
  ],
  "request_timeout_secs": 20
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "domains": [
        "zapier.com",
        "loom.com",
        "typeform.com"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "domains": [
        "zapier.com",
        "loom.com",
        "typeform.com",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "domains": [
    "zapier.com",
    "loom.com",
    "typeform.com"
  ]
}' |
apify call 0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,0xgollum/buying-signal-watcher"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/JUjPveegPUyMYYULh/builds/gGAjJmnMpexUP7BG1/openapi.json