Account Intelligence
Account Intelligence: Know Who to Sell to, and in What Order
Every other part of a revenue system depends on a good account list. This guide covers how to write a testable ICP, size and build the list, enrich it, and tier it, and how Commercify can set this up in your own CRM and data tools.
What this page is, and isn't
Commercify does not sell revenue intelligence software. There is no Commercify dashboard, scoring engine or integration to log into. This page explains how the system is built, and what we can build for you in your own CRM, data and outreach tools as a done-for-you GTM engineering engagement. Engagements are scoped individually and currently run through a waitlist.
Write the ICP as rules you can test
An ideal customer profile written as a paragraph ("innovative mid-market tech companies") can't be used to build a list. Write it as rules that can be checked against data instead. For example: B2B software companies, 50 to 500 employees, selling to mid-market buyers, using HubSpot, with at least two open sales roles. Then add the situation that creates a need, because fit alone doesn't make a company ready to buy.
If you have customers, base the rules on the ones that closed fastest, pay the most and stay longest. Look at closed-lost deals too: the patterns in who didn't buy are often as useful as the patterns in who did. If you are pre-revenue, start with a hypothesis, keep it narrow, and treat your first hundred conversations as a test of it.
Size the market before you build the list
Before you spend on data, check whether the ICP is big enough to support your revenue goals and small enough to focus on. Total addressable market (TAM) counts every possible buyer. Serviceable addressable market (SAM) narrows that to buyers you can serve with your current product and channels, and serviceable obtainable market (SOM) is the share you can realistically win in the next few years.
The free market sizing calculator walks through TAM, SAM and SOM with both top-down and bottom-up methods. A bottom-up count, the number of companies that match your rules multiplied by a realistic contract value, is usually the more useful figure for planning outbound.
Build and enrich the list
List building usually starts in a database such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, ZoomInfo or Crunchbase, filtered by the firmographic rules in your ICP. Enrichment then fills in what those sources miss: technographic data, verified emails and phone numbers, and current role information.
No single provider has complete or fully accurate data, so many teams use an enrichment waterfall: query one provider, and for any record still missing a field, query the next. Tools such as Clay are built around this pattern. Two rules keep enrichment under control:
- Enrich only accounts that pass your fit rules, and only the fields you will use.
- Verify emails before they enter a sequence, and set a refresh schedule because people change jobs.
What a useful account profile contains
Firmographics
Industry, employee count, revenue band, headquarters and regions served, funding stage.
Technographics
The tools the company uses that matter to your product: a CRM you integrate with, a competitor you replace, a platform you sit on.
Buying committee
The economic buyer, the likely champion, and the technical evaluator, with verified contact details for each.
Situation and timing
Recent signals such as hiring in the relevant team, a new leader, funding or a product launch.
Relationship history
Past conversations, closed-lost reasons, existing users or former customers who now work there.
Fit score and tier
A score calculated from the fields above, and the tier that sets how much effort the account receives.
Score fit and assign tiers
A fit score turns the profile into a single number your team can sort by. Keep the first version simple: a few points for each ICP rule an account meets, extra weight for the one or two attributes most associated with your best customers, and points removed for disqualifiers such as a competitor contract you know is locked in.
Tiers then translate the score into effort. Top-tier accounts get one-to-one research and multi-threaded outreach. Middle tiers get segment-level messaging triggered by signals. The lowest tier gets no outbound at all. How each tier is worked is covered on the engagement automation page, and how signals move accounts between tiers on the signal orchestration page.
Revisit the scoring every quarter. Once deals start closing, compare the scores of won and lost accounts. If they look the same, the model isn't measuring what matters.
Keep the data clean
Account intelligence degrades quickly. Set up deduplication rules in the CRM, match contacts to accounts by domain, standardize industry and size values, and schedule re-enrichment for active accounts. Assign an owner for data quality, even if it is a few hours a month. Without one, the list that took weeks to build becomes unreliable within a few quarters.
What we can build for you
As part of a done-for-you GTM engineering engagement, Commercify can write your ICP as testable rules, build the account list, set up an enrichment waterfall in the data tools you choose, and add fit scoring, tiers and hygiene rules in your CRM. We document the logic and hand it over so your team can maintain it.
Engagements are scoped individually with no published price, and there are no client results to show yet because the service is new. Join the waitlist on the GTM engineering page, or map your current data tools in the free GTM Tech Stack Builder.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Commercify provide an account data platform?
No. Commercify has no data platform and no integrations with data providers. As a done-for-you GTM engineering engagement, we can write your ICP, build and enrich an account list using the data tools you choose, and set up fit scoring and tiers in your CRM.
What is the difference between TAM and the accounts we should target?
Total addressable market is every company that could ever use your product. Your target list is narrower: companies you can actually serve and reach now, given your product, price point and team. The free market sizing calculator works through TAM, SAM and SOM using top-down and bottom-up methods.
What is an enrichment waterfall?
It is a sequence of data providers queried in order for a missing field, such as a verified email. If the first provider has no result, the next one is tried. Waterfalls usually find more data than any single provider, and you pay only for lookups that are needed.
How many tiers should we use?
Three or four is common. The point is that each tier gets a clearly different level of effort, from one-to-one research for the top tier to no outbound at all for poor-fit accounts. More tiers than your team can treat differently add no value.
How much does it cost to have this built?
Engagements are scoped individually with no published price. Join the waitlist at /gtm-engineering#work-with-us to arrange a scoping call.
Want a scored, tiered account list?
Join the waitlist for done-for-you GTM engineering. We'll reach out to schedule a short scoping call as slots open.