Orchestrating Signal-Based Outbound Campaigns: A Tactical Playbook for B2B SaaS Growth
How Attention Use Data and Automation for Targeting and Pipeline Gen
Introduction
As we move towards 2025, capturing the attention of B2B buyers in outbound is as challenging as ever — it requires laser-focused targeting, messaging and timely relevance, and multiple touchpoints. Setting up RB2B and a Clay table just won’t cut it.
The explosion of MarTech tools for prospecting, signals, enrichment, and automation is not just creating lots of noise on LinkedIn, but also false promises that signal-based outbound is quick and easy. But it’s not.
With an overabundance of data and tools at our disposal — and email client servers cracking down on outbound as a channel — how can growth operators orchestrate effective signal-based outbound campaigns that generate sustained pipeline?
By strategically leveraging simple tools — LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Clearbit, Apollo.io, GetCargo.io, and Instantly.ai — Attention was able to create highly targeted, data-driven set of campaigns and effectively engage high-potential accounts — efforts that generated a staggering $1.2M in pipeline in just 4 months.
Because of the overabundance of outbound content on LinkedIn these days, most people think they can go from 0 to hero with outbound in a flash, regardless of your stage, budget, and persona. But again, it’s not that simple. So here’s a disclaimer.
This playbook provides a step-by-step guide on how Stewart and the Attention team — with the help of Loic from HyperGrowth Partners — implemented a tactical outbound strategy, maximizing outreach efficiency, and driving sustainable pipeline. It’s ideal for companies that target B2B buyers in a sales-led motion, with ideal customer profiles like Marketing & Sales living on LinkedIn.
To implement this playbook, it’s key to work back with the right resources. You need to have a sales team ready to engage prospects — be it BDRs or full-cycle AEs — and at least one growth marketer in-house to help run the program. Budget-wise, this setup would cost approximately $1,500 per month in SaaS subscription, making it best suited for businesses with an average contract value (ACV) above $6,000.
Ok, now that we’ve got this out of the way, let’s dive in!
Step 1: Define your ICP and messaging
Identify firmographics traits
To build an effective intent-based outbound strategy, the first step is to identify the key traits that define your ideal customers.
This involves determining:
Their geographic locations
Specific industry verticals they operate in
The size of their companies
The job titles of potential contacts
And the pain points they experience that your product can solve
By clearly defining these characteristics, you can focus your efforts on a target audience that is most likely to engage with your offering.
Create 1-3 buyer personas
Next, develop one to three detailed personas for each target role within your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). These personas should provide in-depth insights into:
The specific outcomes they’re looking to achieve in the context of your product
Motivations behind their outcomes
How they measure such outcomes, with relevant KPIs
Existing alternatives they’re using to achieve their outcome in absence of your product
Challenges, problems, and pain points arising from using such alternatives
Capabilities — what your product does — that help them achieve their outcome
Benefits of your product/features that come from using your capabilities
Differentiators that make your product better/different from current alternatives
Creating comprehensive messaging frameworks for each persona allows you to create conviction across marketing and sales, and tailor your outreach messaging and channel strategies to increase resonance and relevance with each segment.
“I recommend to focus on one persona per campaign — it enables you to be more targeted in your approach, making your tests more effective. Begin by targeting your economic buyer first — e.g. VP Sales/Revenue in the case of Attention — or the persona that is closest to the most significant pain point your product addresses.”. - Loic
By focusing on the key decision-maker who stands to benefit the most from your solution, you increase the likelihood of engagement and expedite the sales cycle. This focus ensures that your outreach is not only targeted but also more likely to convert into economically tangible results — pipeline!
Step 2: Build your TAM, SAM, and SOM lists in Apollo
Start from existing account data
Once you got your personas and messaging locked down, start by leveraging your existing account data. Retrieve current accounts from your CRM.
“Clean up the data to ensure accuracy of your seed list — validate their emails, websites, and phone numbers.” - Stewart, VP Growth
By starting with data you already have, you can build a strong foundation for your campaign and focus on prospects that are more likely to engage.
Alternatively, you can create a new list of target accounts on Apollo by importing your segmentation criteria outlined above.
Expand your initial list with ICP traits filters
Once you have your initial list, expand it by applying Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) trait filters to identify additional high-potential prospects.
“Attention used prospecting tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Clearbit, or Apollo.io to create highly targeted account and persona searches that matched our ICP.” - Stewart
Use lead scoring to tier your segments
Once you have identified all your traits, come up with segments for each trait, and assign a score to each bucket that will determine how good of a fit each bucket is. For example:
Geo: US might have a higher score than UK or France, because sales cycles are shorter
Industry: SaaS might also be higher fit than healthcare as MarTechs are more used
Company size: mid-market might have a higher fit due to higher ACV and lower churn
Job titles: as mentioned before, roles that are also budget owners might be score higher
By the end of this exercise, you should have 2-3 key prospect tiers — e.g. tier A, B, and C — each with a corresponding score range. This will inform various aspects of your outbound:
Align marketing and sales on what great looks like, focusing around a shared pipeline goals
Which prospects to prioritize with outreach
How to route various tiers through relevant sequences and sales hand-offs
Need help figuring out the best lead scoring and tech stack for your business? Our seasoned advisors can help.
In the case of Attention:
Senior buyers like VPs of Sales/Rev Ops receive the highest scores, junior titles receive lower ones
They prioritize specific industries such as enterprise software and financial services
Sales headcount is another key factor — prioritizing accounts that have sales teams between 5-100
“We bucket these into three tiers — high quality, normal, do not contact. High quality leads receive both Linkedin messages and SDR phone calls. Normal leads just receive emails, and ‘do not contact’ are not engaged at all.” - Stewart
Get market size data to work back funnel projections
Next, gather data on your Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) sizes to understand the scope of your opportunity.
“We employed Apollo.io's Data Health Center to assess TAM/SAM sizes, identifying the best go-to-market opportunities across startups, mid-market, and enterprise segments — and tailor our focus and messaging accordingly” - Loic
You can use this data to decide whether you should focus on persona X or Y, considering factors like competition, your product's capabilities and feature parity, and your brand positioning — all of which impact your sales cycle and pipeline.
Use these estimates to further narrow down and size your ICP segment, and — based on your Average Contract Value (ACV) — work backward to determine the number of deals, opportunities, meetings or calls, and set pipeline/lead targets across your segments.
This GTM planning allows you to allocate resources effectively and set realistic goals for your outbound marketing and sales teams.
Step 3: Enrich and score your accounts in Cargo
Import and analyze SAM in Cargo
“Cargo is a next-gen AI growth engineering SaaS that allows you to automate and orchestrate your growth workflows at scale. At Attention, we use it to extract, enrich, prioritize, and trigger outbound campaigns on thousands of contacts.” - Loic
To effectively enrich and prioritize your Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), begin by importing your SAM account list from Apollo.io into GetCargo.io for enrichment.
Find lookalike accounts with Ocean
Within Cargo, use the Ocean.io integration to find lookalikes of your target account.
“Creating lookalike audiences based on your current customers allowed us to target prospects with similar characteristics and higher conversion potential.” - Stewart
Enrich accounts with waterfall research
Then, add another Cargo step to enrich your target account list. This step is twofold — account-level and contact-level.
Start with contact-level information such as:
Where your contacts live
The college they attended
Their LinkedIn career — including years of experience and previous roles or companies
Recent job changes or promotions
Any personal interests found on their profiles, like skiing or playing a sport in college
Then, layer in recent intent signals to tailor your outreach effectively. Examples include:
Recent revenue milestones, fundraising, product launches, or new market expansions
Purchase of specific technographics
Hiring or layoffs surges in their company
“We monitored a 20% increase in SDR hires in the last six months to identify accounts with a higher fit for Attention’s product. Or, we tracked champion job movements — when new hires joined key accounts who could advocate for us — and gain quick internal recognition from implementing Attention.”. - Loic
These signals can help you estimate a higher propensity to buy and an increased likelihood of expanding their go-to-market motions, in line with the need for Salestech products like Attention.
Then, use your ICP segments and lead scoring criteria to rank your accounts based on their fit and engagement potential.Score and rank accounts based on their fit and engagement potential to focus your efforts on the most promising opportunities.
Step 4: Set up targeted outreach waves
Group high-score accounts in themed waves
To maximize the effectiveness of your outbound campaigns, group your high-scoring accounts into targeted outreach waves.
Theme these waves based on your segmentation criteria — like industry, specific use cases or pain points, geography — or personas — such as VP Sales/CRO, Sales Director, or RevOps Lead.
For example, if you have a champion persona (Account Executive) and two decision-maker personas (Head of Sales and Head of Marketing) operating across three regions (US, EU, Asia), you can structure your outreach as follows:
US Campaign
Champion (AE): Test three messaging strategies around three specific signals.
Decision Maker (HoS): Test three messaging strategies around three specific signals.
Decision Maker (HoM): Test three messaging strategies around three specific signals.
Then, scale this template across all your key theme combinations, and progressively start creating messages from the highest-scoring segments.
Want to setup your outbound motion in a similar way to Attention? Let us help you scale your pipeline while standing out with your messaging.
Group high-score accounts in themed waves
For each wave, customize outreach messaging around the signals and personas identified in each wave. Assign each group a tailored messaging theme and value proposition that resonates with their unique characteristics and challenges.
This approach ensures that your outreach is highly relevant and personalized, increasing engagement and the likelihood of conversion.
Step 5: Enroll prioritized accounts into multi-channel outreach with La Growth Machine or Instantly
Enhance deliverability
To enhance email deliverability, use Instantly.ai's warm-up features. These tools build credibility for your sending domains, increasing the likelihood that your emails land in inboxes rather than spam folders.
Email clients provider like Google are cracking down on outbound as a channel, alerting recipients of potential spam from suspicious domains and emails including links or pictures — so deliverability has never been more important. Some providers like Smartlead are even discouraging tracking open rates of emails because of this crackdown.
“We do track open rates. It leads to slightly worse deliverability, but we think the ability to retarget people who open an email multiple times is worth the trade-off.” - Stewart
Automate sequence enrollment
To streamline your outreach process, automate enrollment by pushing your prioritized contacts from GetCargo.io directly into La Growth Machine for cross-channel outreach on both email and LinkedIn, or Instantly for just emails.
This integration automatically enrolls them into multi-touch email sequences, ensuring timely and consistent engagement without manual effort.
Messaging is always paired to the most recent signal related to the contact or org. So if someone was recently hired into their role, we will reach out and congratulate them on the role. We're testing the combination of multiple signals in the email copy, like someone was recently hired and recently followed our linkedin page — there’s a ton of opportunities for stacking signals here.” - Stewart
Personalize messaging with AI
Personalization is crucial for capturing your audience's attention.
Leverage ChatGPT within Cargo to craft compelling, personalized emails that address each account's specific pain points and potential use cases. This level of customization makes your messaging more relevant and increases the chances of eliciting a positive response.
“We personalize copy in Cargo and then send it to Instantly via an API.” - Stewart
Strive for simplicity and relevance in your outreach emails:
Use first name in salutation
Lead the opening with a tailored, relevant one-liner based on a recent signal or event
Transition to a second one liner mentioning an alternative, or your value prop
Close with a soft CTA, like “Can I show you a 15-min demo?” or “Can I share more info?
Avoid using links or images to hurt deliverability, especially on first touches with cold contacts.
Set up automated nurturing by establishing follow-ups and touchpoints that guide prospects through the sales cycle.
“We aim for a minimum of four touchpoints. If we see no engagement from someone in the first few touches, we'll remove them from the sequence. We keep follow-ups short and sweet — we're more trying to ‘bump’ the thread” - Stewart
Integrate notifications via Slack to keep your team informed of key replies or self-serve signups from specific high-score accounts, and update scoring attributes via Cargo right into your CRM to identify higher-potential leads.
Send physical letters or gifts via Sendoso
To stand out from competitors, add a Cargo step to send physical sales letter or gifts via Sendoso to the highest-value prospects.
“A tangible item can make a memorable impression, differentiating your approach and providing meaningful conversation starters.” - Loic
This combination of automated digital engagement and personalized physical outreach creates a multifaceted strategy designed to capture attention and drive sustainable growth.
Step 6: Monitor, analyze, and optimize your campaigns
Track key metrics
To maximize the effectiveness of your outbound campaigns, it's crucial to track key metrics diligently. Monitor:
Open rates — mostly influenced by your list health, deliverability, and subject line
Reply rates — mostly impacted by a combination of your list composition and messaging
Meetings booked — again, influenced by list, messaging, and CTA, but also timing
Opportunities logged — more impacted by their SDR/BDR meeting experience
Pipeline value of total opportunities — a combination of all the above factors
Learn signal/messaging/persona fit
This continuous monitoring provides invaluable insights into how your campaigns are performing and where adjustments may be needed.
“Understanding the fit between signals, messaging, and personas is essential for success. Evaluate which messaging strategies, target personas, and engagement signals yield the best results.” - Loic
By analyzing this data, you can determine which combinations resonate most with your audience, allowing you to tailor your approach for maximum impact.
Testing
Iterate on your campaigns by testing new approaches, refining your targeting criteria, and adjusting your messaging based on data-driven insights. This proactive strategy ensures that your outreach remains dynamic and effective, ultimately leading to better engagement and higher conversion rates.
“We operate on two-weeks sprint cycles — we'll re-evaluate messaging after every couple of weeks, or when an experiment hits a stat sig level of volume. However, in the early stages of setting up the outbound motion, net-new list building is more important as volume is lower. The opposite is true for messaging — when you have larger list, you can focus on testing that.” - Stewart
Conclusion
By implementing a signal and intent-based outbound strategy, leveraging simple yet effective tools, and enriching your existing datasets with lookalikes, B2B SaaS companies can significantly enhance their outbound efforts. This step-by-step playbook empowers VPs and growth operators to:
Execute a tactical, data-driven approach that targets high-potential accounts with precision.
Personalize outreach and continuously optimize based on real-time feedback to improve engagement.
Drive sustainable pipeline growth and gain a competitive edge in the market.
By focusing on these strategies, businesses not only improve engagement but also position themselves for long-term success in an increasingly competitive landscape.
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