Definition
Waterfall enrichment is a way of filling in missing data, such as a work email or phone number, by asking several data providers in turn. If the first provider has no answer, the request falls to the next, and so on. You pay for answers, and coverage rises well above any single source.
Why it matters when you sell B2B
No data provider has everyone. One is strong in the US and weak in Germany. Another has good phone numbers and poor emails. Teams used to pick one and live with the gaps. A waterfall stacks them, so the gaps of one are filled by the next.
It matters most at the contact stage. Once you know which companies to approach, you need a way to reach the right person at each one.
A worked example
Say you need work emails for 1,000 contacts, and you have three providers.
1,000 contacts through three providersExample
- 1,000contacts
Need a work email. All of them go to provider 1.
- 450still missing
Provider 1 found 550. The other 450 fall to provider 2.
- 250still missing
Provider 2 found 200. The other 250 fall to provider 3.
- 160still missing
Provider 3 found 90. These 160 need another route, or a decision to skip them.
Order matters. Put the most accurate provider first, not the cheapest, because a wrong email that looks right is worse than a gap. And verify what comes back: a found email can still bounce.
Enrichment fills in fields. It does not tell you why a company should hear from you now. That still takes a trigger event, and checking that the company fits on firmographics.
The formula
Coverage = records found ÷ records submitted
In the example, 840 ÷ 1,000 = 84%. Track it per provider too: provider 2 found 200 of the 450 it was sent, or 44%.
Common mistakes
- 1Ordering by price, not accuracy. The cheapest provider first saves money and fills the list with errors the next provider never gets to fix.
- 2Skipping verification. Run every found email through a verifier before you send, or the bounces will hurt your sending domain.
- 3Counting finds, not correct finds. Check a sample by hand. A provider that finds a lot but is often wrong is a poor first step.
- 4Enriching everyone. Enrich the accounts you will actually contact. Paying to fill in companies you will never email is waste.
- 5Treating fields as a reason. A name, title and email tell you who to write to. They do not tell you what to say.
Set up a waterfall in five steps
- Pick the one field you need, such as work email.
- Test each provider on the same 100 records where you already know the answer.
- Order the providers by accuracy, then by cost.
- Add a verification step at the end.
- Track coverage and bounces per provider every month.