Evaluating Direct Dial Providers, Tips, Tricks, and Traps

In today's B2B sales landscape, effective outbound outreach hinges significantly on the quality of direct dial numbers your team leverages. Evaluating multiple direct dial providers requires a structured approach, emphasizing key criteria like accuracy, coverage, and cost efficiency.

Step 1: Define Clear Evaluation Criteria

Before you start your evaluation, establish clear, measurable criteria:

• Accuracy: The likelihood of a number correctly connecting to the intended prospect.
• Coverage: The volume and geographic reach (NAMER, EMEA, APAC) of numbers provided.
• Cost Efficiency: Both direct costs per accurate number and indirect costs, such as time wasted on invalid numbers.

Step 2: Build a Representative Dataset

Start with a sufficiently large dataset reflective of your ideal customer profile (ICP), including diverse roles, industries, and geographic regions. Ideally, this set should cover:

• North America (NAMER)
• Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)
• Asia-Pacific (APAC)

Aim for a balanced sample to avoid skewing results toward any single market segment.

Step 3: Enrich and Deduplicate the Data

Enrich your baseline dataset using various direct dial providers:

• High-accuracy providers (e.g., Forager)
• Cost-efficient providers (e.g., Nimbler, Leadmagic)
• Volume-oriented providers (e.g., ContactOut, Datagma)

Ensure to remove duplicates, preserving unique number-contact pairs for accurate analysis.

Step 4: Rigorous Number Validation and Scoring

Employ a two-tiered validation system, similar to TitanX’s methodology:

• Manual Verification: Actual calls made to verify connections, checking responses, voicemails, and determining the correct contact.
• Signal-Based Scoring: Incorporate additional digital signals (e.g., call history, voicemail setups, response propensity) for further validation.

Classify validated numbers into categories:

• P1/Good: Verified, high response likelihood (>25% connection rate)
• P2: Verified, moderate likelihood (4-10% connection rate)
• P3/Unverified: Low likelihood (<1% connection rate)
• Invalid/Bad Numbers: Wrong contact, disconnected, or inactive

Use weighted scoring to quantify quality clearly:

Quality Score = (#P1 x 1) + (#P2 x 0.5) + (#P3 x 0.25) - (#Invalid x 1)

Step 5: Comprehensive Cost Analysis

Evaluate providers on:

• Direct Cost per Quality Number: Actual cost per verified, actionable direct dial.
• Indirect Operational Costs: Time and efficiency lost to invalid numbers.

Calculate total cost by factoring:

• Cost per number from each vendor
• Time spent per failed outreach attempt (in minutes or hours, translated into operational costs)
• Expected productivity increase from higher accuracy rates

Step 6: Regional and Industry-Specific Insights

Evaluate not only geographically but also by key industry segments relevant to your business. Vendors may have differing strengths in particular verticals.

Step 7: Construct Your Data Waterfall

Adopt a waterfall approach:

• Begin with the highest accuracy providers for foundational data (e.g., Forager, Prospeo).
• Move to providers with extensive coverage to fill gaps (e.g., ContactOut).
• Supplement with cost-efficient options for remaining contacts (e.g., Nimbler, Leadmagic).

Clearly document the waterfall order based on your findings to optimize costs and maximize coverage.

Best Practices:

• Prioritize Accuracy Over Volume: Higher accuracy significantly reduces operational inefficiencies.
• Combine Providers for Maximum Efficiency: No single provider excels across all criteria; a multi-provider strategy is essential.
• Regularly Audit and Refresh Data: Periodic validation keeps your database actionable and effective.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid:

• Ignoring Regional Differences: Vendor strengths vary significantly by geography; factor regional strengths into your decision.
• Focusing Solely on Initial Cost: Lower initial costs may hide high operational inefficiencies and indirect costs.
• Overlooking Signal Validation: Purely manual calling misses deeper insights provided by signal-based validation methods.

TLDR:

In today's competitive B2B sales environment, evaluating direct dial providers requires a structured approach focused on accuracy, coverage, and cost-efficiency. This guide outlines seven essential steps to effectively assess providers:

1. Define clear evaluation criteria: accuracy, coverage, and cost.
2. Build a representative dataset aligned with your ideal customer profile.
3. Enrich and deduplicate data from multiple vendors.
4. Validate numbers rigorously using manual verification and signal-based scoring.
5. Conduct a comprehensive cost analysis, considering direct and indirect costs.
6. Analyze regional and industry-specific strengths and weaknesses.
7. Implement a waterfall approach to strategically combine providers.

Best practices emphasize prioritizing accuracy, combining multiple providers, and regularly auditing data. Common pitfalls to avoid include neglecting regional differences, focusing solely on initial costs, and overlooking signal validation. Adopting these practices will optimize your sales efforts and enhance operational efficiency.