Use this workflow to monitor acquisition and merger events so you can reach companies when priorities shift, vendors are reassessed, and new operational needs emerge.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll know how to create an M&A activity watchlist, refine it with transaction criteria, limit daily volume, exclude irrelevant company lists when using All segments, and route identified signals into your outbound process.
Why this matters
M&A events often create the perfect window for outreach. When companies acquire or merge, teams may revisit tooling, operations, vendors, and headcount priorities, giving you a strong reason to start a relevant conversation at the right time.
This signal helps you act on those changes faster by surfacing new events you can use to trigger campaigns, create tasks, and personalize your messaging with event-specific context.
If you monitor All segments, you may otherwise receive signals for companies you already work with, such as current customers, partners, or accounts your team does not want to contact. Excluding company lists keeps your signal feed focused on net-new, relevant opportunities.
Prerequisites
You should already have access to Signals in lemlist.
You should already know the basics of creating and managing watchlists.
You should already have enough credits available to process identified signals.
If you want to exclude known accounts, you should already have the relevant company lists prepared, such as Current Customers, Partners, or Do Not Contact.
Core lesson: Build your M&A activity workflow
Phase 1: Start a new watchlist
Go to Signals, then click New watchlist. This opens the watchlist builder where you’ll choose the signal type and configure how new M&A events should be handled.
In the signal picker, select Mergers & Acquisitions. This is the signal type that tracks M&A activity and helps you identify companies experiencing acquisitions, mergers, leveraged buy-outs, or management buy-outs.
Phase 2: Configure the M&A signal
Name your watchlist, then optionally refine it with M&A-specific filters. You can set a minimum amount in USD and choose one or more transaction types: Acquisition, Merger, Leveraged buy-out, or Management buy-out. This helps you focus only on the types of deals most relevant to your outreach strategy.
Tip: Use a higher minimum amount if you only want to target larger, more strategic transactions. Use transaction type filters if your offer is especially relevant after a merger versus a buy-out.
Phase 3: Choose which companies to monitor
Select All segments to monitor across your available company universe. This is useful if you want broad coverage first and plan to narrow results with filters below.
When you use All segments, a new Exclude company lists option becomes available. Use it to remove one or more company lists from monitoring, such as Current Customers, Partners, or Do Not Contact. Signals from companies in those excluded lists will no longer appear in your results.
This is especially useful if you want the broad coverage of All segments without surfacing accounts your team already knows, already works with, or does not want to pursue.
Important: Exclusions work at the company list level, not at the individual contact level.
Then add filters for location, industry, and company size as needed. These filters apply to the buyer/acquirer company, which is important if you want to target only certain types of acquirers, such as SaaS companies in North America or enterprise businesses in a specific region.
For performance reasons, each signal watchlist currently supports a maximum of 10,000 companies/contacts. This limit may increase in the future based on user feedback.
Phase 4: Control daily signal volume
Set the maximum number of signals identified per day to control how many M&A events you want to process. This helps you balance coverage with budget and team capacity. Billing is 100 credits per identified M&A event, so your daily cap directly affects your expected credit usage.
If you want to start cautiously, choose a lower daily cap first. You can always increase it later once you see the quality and volume of identified events.
Phase 5: Decide how signals should be processed
Choose how you want identified signals to flow into your workflow. You can manually process them or create a task for each identified signal. Creating tasks is useful when you want your team to review events, qualify accounts, and personalize outreach before taking action.
If you select task creation, configure the task details such as:
Task type
Owner type
Fallback owner
Priority
Title
Instructions
This step matters because M&A events often require tailored messaging. Assigning tasks ensures someone reviews the context before reaching out.
Phase 6: Review and finalize the watchlist
Check the summary before confirming your setup. Review the selected signal type, M&A criteria, billing estimate, signal processing method, and your segment setup to make sure everything matches your intended workflow.
Once confirmed, finish creating the watchlist.
What data each M&A signal includes
Each identified signal can include the following details:
Acquirer name and website
Acquiree name, website, and location
Transaction type
Amount in both USD and native currency when available
Announcement date
Source links, such as news articles or Crunchbase when available
This gives your team enough context to prioritize the event and personalize outreach without needing to research every deal from scratch.
Practical application: How to use M&A signals in outreach
Once an event is identified, you can use it to trigger campaigns or build highly relevant messaging. M&A signals work especially well when your offer helps with consolidation, onboarding, integration, reporting, vendor rationalization, or operational change.
If you monitor All segments, a common setup is to exclude a Current Customers list or Do Not Contact list so your reps only see actionable, net-new signals instead of accounts that are already managed elsewhere.
Example: If a U.S.-based technology company acquires a French software business for $15M, you can personalize your outreach around:
The acquirer and acquiree
The transaction type
The deal amount
The announcement date
The likely post-deal challenge, such as integrating systems or standardizing vendors
Sample angle: “Congrats on the acquisition of [Acquiree]. Teams often revisit tooling and workflows right after a deal like this, especially across [location/region]. If streamlining [your category] is on your roadmap, I’d be happy to share how similar teams handled post-acquisition change.”
Best practice: Reference the event, but lead with the business implication. The signal creates relevance; your message should connect that event to a practical next step.
Troubleshooting & pitfalls
Issue: I’m getting too many signals.
Root cause: Your watchlist is too broad or your daily cap is too high.
Fix:
Increase the minimum amount
Limit the transaction types you monitor
Add narrower filters for industry, location, or company size
Reduce the daily cap
If you use All segments, exclude company lists such as Current Customers or Do Not Contact
Issue: The results don’t match the companies I expected.
Root cause: Segment filters apply to the buyer/acquirer company, not the acquiree.
Fix:
Review your criteria in the Segment to monitor step
Make sure your filters reflect the type of acquirer you want to target
Adjust location, industry, and company size filters accordingly
If needed, exclude company lists to remove known or irrelevant accounts from results
Issue: My team can’t keep up with new events.
Root cause: The processing workflow is too manual or the cap is too high.
Fix:
Create tasks automatically for identified signals
Assign a fallback owner so nothing is missed
Lower the daily cap until your team can handle the volume consistently
Issue: Credit usage is higher than expected.
Root cause: Each successful identified M&A event costs 100 credits.
Fix:
Use the daily cap to limit volume
Tighten your signal criteria
Review the summary page before activating the watchlist
Issue: I’m not seeing signals immediately.
Root cause: New watchlists may take time to begin surfacing events.
Fix:
Confirm the watchlist was created successfully
Check that your filters are not overly restrictive
Allow time for new matching events to be received from the M&A event source
Issue: I can’t exclude every company I want.
Root cause: Exclusions only work with company lists, and each signal watchlist currently supports up to 10,000 companies/contacts for performance.
Fix:
Make sure the accounts you want to exclude are grouped into company lists
Use the most relevant exclusion lists first, such as Current Customers and Do Not Contact
Reduce list size if needed to stay within the current supported limit
Key takeaways
M&A activity helps you identify companies during moments of change.
You can refine the signal with minimum amount and transaction type.
All segment filters apply to the buyer/acquirer company.
When monitoring All segments, you can use Exclude company lists to remove known or irrelevant companies from results.
Exclusions are based on company lists, not individual contacts.
A signal watchlist currently supports up to 10,000 companies/contacts for performance reasons.
A daily cap helps control both workflow volume and credit usage.
Each successful identified M&A event costs 100 credits.
Signals can be used to trigger campaigns or guide highly personalized outreach.