An outbound engine that runs on intent
Outbound was a volume game with a falling reply rate. We rebuilt it around enrichment and trigger signals, so sequences fired because something happened rather than because it was Tuesday.
Scaffolding. This case study is a template showing the structure that works. Rewrite it with a real engagement and real figures, then remove template: true from its frontmatter.
- 1.1% → 4.6%est
- Reply rate
- −58%est
- Cost per qualified conversation
- −70%est
- List size needed
What was broken
The team was sending more email every month and getting fewer replies. The instinct was to buy a bigger list. The actual problem was that nothing in the sequence knew anything about the recipient beyond their job title.
Worse, outbound had no connection to the CRM’s lifecycle model, so a prospect could be in an active sales conversation and simultaneously receive a cold sequence.
What I built
- An enrichment layer in Clay. Firmographic and technographic data resolved per account, with a scoring model that decided who was worth contacting at all.
- Trigger signals instead of a calendar. New hires in the buying committee, tooling changes, funding events, content engagement. A sequence fires on an event, not a date.
- Suppression that works. Two-way sync with the CRM so anyone in an open deal, an active support thread, or a recent lost-deal window is excluded automatically.
- Deliverability as a first-class concern. Domain separation, warm-up, volume ceilings per inbox, and monitoring that flags reputation drift before it costs you the domain.
What changed
Volume went down and results went up, which is the correct direction and an uncomfortable thing to present. The list shrank by roughly two thirds while qualified conversations increased.
The signal is the product. Strip it out and this becomes spam with better formatting.