🧠 Outbound Reinvented: The Tiering Model That Changes Everything

Outbound is broken.

Not because people don’t want what you’re selling.

But because you’re emailing the right titles - at the wrong time.

Most teams still operate on static assumptions:

• “Hiring developers” = they need help

• “Recently raised” = they have budget

• “New CTO” = they’re in decision - making mode

But what if these signals stop working?

What if everyone is targeting them, and your messages get buried?

This is where Relevance - Based Tiering comes in.

It’s a new way to think about who gets what level of effort in your outbound - and why it should constantly evolve.

🎯 The Real Problem with Traditional Targeting

Let’s say you’re reaching out to companies “hiring developers.”

Sounds promising, right?

They’re growing. You offer dev services. It should work.

We tried it. At scale. Across multiple campaigns.

Results? Low reply rates.

So we dug deeper.

We segmented companies by location and behavior and found something surprising:

→ Companies hiring developers in Eastern Europe had way better reply and conversion rates.

Why?

Cultural alignment. Remote - friendly workflows. A higher openness to outsourcing and external partnerships.

A subtle shift in signal - but a massive impact in outcomes.

This is why relevance criteria must evolve.

🔍 Why Static Signals Fail Over Time

There are 3 key forces that make traditional signals unreliable:

1. Buyer Behavior Changes

What worked 6 months ago may be irrelevant now.

Example: A funding round used to mean new tools and aggressive hiring. But in a capital - constrained market, that same signal might just mean they’re extending runway - not buying.

You need to ask:

→ Are our current signals still linked to conversion intent?

2. Market Saturation

Every competitor is using the same scraping tools and targeting the same data.

So when everyone emails “companies hiring devs,” those leads get 30 similar messages a week.

Overused signals become background noise.

To stand out, you must find overlooked or evolving indicators that still mean something.

3. Real - World Feedback

Outbound gives you live feedback - every reply (or lack of it) is a data point.

If one cohort outperforms the rest, double down.

If another flatlines, drop it.

This is how you shift from guesswork to evidence - based targeting.

🔁 The Principles of Relevance Evolution

If you want to evolve your outbound, live by these 3 rules:

✅ Always challenge assumptions

→ What worked last quarter might flop now.

✅ Test and rank signals by performance

→ Only prioritize what drives replies and conversions.

✅ Revisit your criteria monthly

→ Set a regular cadence to optimize outreach.

🔓 The Tiering Framework (And Why It Matters)

You can’t give every lead the same treatment.

They don’t deserve it.

That’s why we created a tiering model:

🚀 Tier 1: High Relevance

→ Matches ICP + 3 - 5 strong signals

→ Multi - channel (email, LinkedIn, calls)

→ Hyper - personalized messages (+ video personalisation)

Effort: Maximum

Outcome: High conversion rate, low volume

📈 Tier 2: Medium Relevance

→ Matches ICP + 1 - 2 signals

→ Email + LinkedIn

→ Light personalization (specific to trigger)

Effort: Medium

Outcome: Balanced volume - to - conversion

📉 Tier 3: Low Relevance

→ Matches only ICP

→ Cold email only

→ Minimal personalization, automated scale

Effort: Low

Outcome: Low conversion, high coverage

🧠 Example: Finding the Real Trigger

We once analyzed a lead working on a travel tech platform.

The initial relevance guess?

→ “They raised funding”

→ “They’re hiring”

But neither mattered.

After a 10 - minute deep dive, here’s what we found:

→ Their product relied on real - time data sync

→ They lacked a large internal engineering team

→ Their website hinted at tech pain (“we simplify complex integrations”)

That was the signal.

We pivoted messaging around technical complexity and external partnerships - and replies shot up.

Lesson: Real relevance isn’t always obvious. You have to dig for it.

🧪 Build Your Own Relevance Engine (in 30 Minutes)

STEP 1: Do a 10 - Minute Deep Dive

Pick any prospect from your CRM.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and research them from scratch:

→ Check their website: Look for product complexity, pricing, pain points

→ Look at their LinkedIn: Job changes, posts, hiring

→ Search funding announcements

→ Check job boards (Indeed, Glassdoor) for team size and skill gaps

List every potential signal that could tie into your value proposition.

STEP 2: Score Signals by Impact

For each signal, ask:

• Does it consistently correlate with replies?

• Is it still underused by the market?

• Does it align with our ideal customer journey?

Then prioritize the top 3–5 and drop the rest.

STEP 3: Tier Your Prospect List

Use those top signals to split your list:

→ Tier 1: Gets video outreach, personalized emails, and multichannel flow

→ Tier 2: Gets semi - custom emails with LinkedIn follow - ups

→ Tier 3: Gets templated cold email campaigns at scale

You can use tools like Clay to enrich and automate this structure.

📈 Why Tiering Drives ROI

• You focus manual effort where it has the highest payoff

• You save time and SDR bandwidth

• You stop guessing -

  and start optimizing

Instead of 1,000 generic emails, send:

• 10 Tier 1s with max effort

• 50 Tier 2s with strategic effort

• 500 Tier 3s with scalable effort

Same time. Better results.

💡 Want the Template?

We built a full Google Sheet Relevance Criteria Tracker that shows:

→ How to brainstorm signals

→ How to run tiered scoring

→ How to build your own Relevance Engine in Clay

Let’s rebuild outbound with better data, better signals, and smarter effort.

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With 🫰 to your Growth,

Ilya (let’s connect on LinkedIn)