I’ve been thinking a lot about lead quality lately, and I realize I’m probably being too liberal with who I target. My current filter is basically “anyone with ‘sales’ or ‘marketing’ in their title at a company with 50-500 employees.” That’s… a lot of people.
The problem is obvious in hindsight: I’m sending follow-up sequences to people who are never going to respond. Maybe they’re passive, maybe they’re not actually in a buying position, maybe they just ignore all LinkedIn messages. Either way, I’m burning through my outreach allotment on dead weight.
I’ve started wondering if I should be way more aggressive about filtering upfront. Like, only target people who’ve been active in the last 30 days, or who’ve engaged with content in their industry. Or maybe I should look at company metrics—only message sales leaders at companies that have raised Series B or higher funding.
But here’s my hesitation: if I filter too aggressively, I’m going to miss a ton of potential opportunities, right? Like, maybe that founder who hasn’t updated their profile in 6 months is still valuable. And I don’t want to spend so much time on targeting strategy that I never actually send anything.
I’m also not sure which signals are worth filtering by. Company size? Recent activity? Job title specificity? Role changes? There are so many variables, and I don’t have enough data yet to know which ones actually correlate with reply rates.
So my question is: are you filtering aggressively upfront and seeing better conversion rates, or are you casting a wider net and just accepting lower quality on the follow-up end?
Filter aggressively. Every dollar you spend on a dead lead is a dollar you’re not spending on a warm one. Here’s the math: if you’re at 3% reply rate across a broad audience, you can probably hit 8-10% with a narrower, more targeted list.
Start with this framework: ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) first, volume second. Define exactly who buys from you. For sales tools, that’s usually “VP of Sales at a B2B SaaS company with 20-100 reps, Series B funding minimum.”
Then add behavioral signals: updated LinkedIn profile in the last 60 days, engaged with sales content in the last 30 days, working at a company with 50+ headcount growth in the last year.
Yeslimit your audience. But you’re filtering to accuracy, not to reach. Smaller list, higher conversion—that’s the play.
Start with 1,000 highly filtered prospects and run a tight campaign. Track conversion. Then expand from there as you validate that targeting works.
From a safety perspective, aggressive filtering is great because it means fewer messages overall, which keeps your account healthier. You’re sending 500 targeted messages a week instead of 2,000 random ones. That’s way safer.
But here’s what I’d caution: don’t filter so hard that you’re only sending to people who are actively job hunting or in crisis mode. Those folks are expecting outreach and getting hit up constantly. They’re flaky responders.
The sweet spot: people who are probably not actively looking but are in a role where your solution matters. They won’t respond immediately, but when they do, they’re serious.
Also, be careful with the “activity filter.” Inactive profiles aren’t always dead weight. Some senior people just don’t care about LinkedIn. Judge them on company metrics instead.
I’ve gone through this journey, and here’s what actually worked: I started broad (like you), realized my conversion was trash, then went hyper-narrow. Like, I was only messaging CTOs at SaaS companies that had raised Series A or B in the last 6 months.
Conversion went up, sure. But volume was so low that I wasn’t actually building a pipeline. I had to find the middle ground.
Now I filter by company quality (Series A+, 50+ employees) and role specificity (Sales leaders mostly), but I don’t worry too much about activity. I just accept that maybe 60-70% of my list won’t respond, and that’s okay.
What changed my game was personalizing better for the segment I chose, not filtering it tighter. Once my hooks were sharp, the broader list performed.
You can actually set up dynamic filtering if you want to get fancy. Like, automatically pull a prospect list from LinkedIn, cross-reference it with company funding data from Crunchbase, filter for headcount and growth metrics, then feed that into LiSeller.
I’ve got this whole thing automated with Zapier. Saves me hours a week. The data quality is way higher when it’s pulling from multiple sources instead of just LinkedIn.
For the specifics: I’d definitely filter by company size and funding. Recent activity is nice but not essential. Job title changes are a good signal though—if someone just became a sales leader, they probably need tools.
In LiSeller, you can use the smart lead filtering feature to layer multiple criteria at once. Start with company funding and size, add in title keywords, then layer on activity if you want. The system will show you how many prospects match your filters, so you can adjust until you hit a sweet spot (usually 2,000-5,000 people for a good campaign).
Here’s my workflow suggestion: create 3 segments—“High Quality” (narrow filters), “Mid Quality” (standard filters), and “Experimental” (broader filters). Run each segment as a separate campaign and track conversion separately. That way you actually have data on which filtering strategy works best for you.
Don’t try to guess—test it.
In recruitment, I’ve learned that aggressive filtering upfront saves a ton of recruiting time. If I filter for people who’ve changed jobs in the last 6 months and are actively engaging on LinkedIn, my response rate is easily 3-4x higher.
But the flip side: I sometimes miss sleeping talent who are passive but perfect for a role. So I run two campaigns—one tight, one broader—and see which returns better ROI.
I’d suggest the same for your sales outreach. Test a narrow list first, prove the conversion, then run a broader campaign. You’ll actually understand the data.
Filter for relevance, not activity. A quiet prospect who’s in your actual ICP is way more valuable than an active prospect you’re not aligned with.
Here’s what I’d focus on: their actual buying context. Are they at a company that would actually use your solution? Are they in a role where your solution matters? That’s the filter that counts.
Activity is a distraction. Focus on who you can actually help, and your copy will be stronger because you’ll be writing to someone real.