Waterfall Enrichment: +80% Valid Emails With One Click

You keep seeing that other sales reps who use waterfall lead enrichment get better results than you do.

An there you are, wondering what it is, how to use it, and if it’s suitable for your business.

We’ve got your back.

We’ll explain what waterfall enrichment is, how it benefits your company, and the best tools you can use to make sure your lead list is packed with valid information.

What is Waterfall Enrichment?

Waterfall enrichment is a process in which you complete and verify (AKA enrich) your leads’ data with several providers.

On the other hand, lead enrichment is a process in which you verify and complete the data with one unique data source. This process helps businesses obtain valid and full lead data to send targeted campaigns and get a higher success rate.

The major downside of regular lead enrichment is its reliance on a single data source, which often results in data gaps and inconsistencies, ultimately harming your sales pipeline.

Waterfall enrichment, named for its cascading process, offers a more robust alternative.

Essentially, waterfall enrichment consists of a combination of several data sources that check and verify your lead data. It ensures you have correct and complete contact information, such as verified emails or phone numbers.

If one provider fails to find accurate information, it moves to the next provider, and so on, until the lead information is confirmed to be valid.

Out with the old, in with the new

Enrichment used to be done using only one data provider. Although some lead information was completed and verified, there were still many gaps and leaks because the data was not fully verified, and if your provider failed to find the data you needed, that was that.

Some sales reps saw this issue and tried to remedy this by using different providers. Here comes the birth of manual waterfall lead enrichment.

The only downside to manual waterfall enrichment was that running your data through different finders, verifiers, or other providers yourself could be expensive and time-consuming.

However, for most companies, the end result (checking and verifying data thoroughly) was still a priority.

The manual waterfall enrichment method had a lot of issues, including:

It was expensive as people would have to invest in several different tools and pay multiple subscriptions
You wouldn’t always have to use every single tool, which meant lots of missed credits
It cluttered your browser with too many Chrome extensions that would interfere with one another
It was very time-consuming to check with multiple providers and go through the entire verification process many times
Some tools would take longer to deliver the results than others, further slowing down the verification procedure.

Therefore, companies needed a more advanced and robust solution that could verify huge amounts of lead contacts automatically and that they’d receive the most accurate data without delays.

And thus, they new waterfall lead enrichment was born. Instead of checking one unique data provider (the old way), some email finder services implemented a new method: Automated waterfall enrichment.

Method	Lead Enrichment	Automated Waterfall Enrichment
Use	Manually gather lead data through a single source	Extract verified lead data automatically according to your ICP via multiple data vendors
Pros	(Limited) lead data	Only verified and accurate lead data, very fast, cheap
Cons	Very time and resource-consuming, slow, inefficient, prone to errors, frequent data leaks	If your current tool does not support it, you may need to switch
Best tool	Emailable	lemlist

With an automated waterfall lead enrichment, you simply have to define your ICP and find your leads’ emails and phone numbers.

Once you have an initial list of leads, you can run it through an automated waterfall enrichment process.

This new system guarantees saving time and resources since it takes care of repetitive tasks for you and delivers verified results simultaneously. Even when different providers check the data, you get immediate results.

How does waterfall enrichment work?

Waterfall enrichment follows a sequence where it checks data with as many providers as the tool can hold. For example:

1st provider: This provider is typically the most capable data source. First, it runs the data but doesn’t offer the required information.
2nd provider: The data then moves on to a second data source; the data can be found, but it may be incomplete (missing phone number or email), or it can be considered risky.
3rd provider: To complete or verify the information, a third data source checks the current contact information. If the information is verified, this will be your final result. If the results are inconclusive, it will move on to a 4th provider, and so on.
Once the enrichment process has been completed, the system will check your entire list to ensure no duplicates and run lead qualification.

In lemlist’s case, this is how the waterfall enrichment process could look like:

This is how the waterfall lead enrichment process in lemlist could look like, bear in mind that sometimes an email can be found and verified with the first provider, and sometimes it takes all 8 providers to track down the correct information:

You found a lead that fits your ICP perfectly, for example: “Charles Tenot,” CEO at lemlist.
You type the name and company in the Email Finder.
First, lemlist sends a request to DropContact, but they don’t find the correct email.
lemlist then automatically tries Prospeo next. They find an email, but when it’s tested, it appears risky.
Finally, lemlist checks with Icypeas. They find the email, and it’s then verified by lemlist.

In a few seconds, you’ll have a verified email address and a phone number if your tool allows it.

Why is waterfall enrichment better?

With regular email finders or basic lead enrichment processes, you may still be bumping into issues such as:

Low reply rates
Incomplete and inaccurate data
Deliverability issues
Low conversion rates
Leaks and gaps in your sales funnel
Wasted time and resources

As you can imagine, all of these issues can really harm your sales, it doesn’t matter if you have the best product or the best approach.

However, with waterfall enrichment you will receive many different benefits, including:

Build a list of leads with complete information

By accessing several providers, your chances of filling in any gaps or leaks are much higher.

One provider may not have all the information you require, such as email, LinkedIn, phone number, job title, industry, etc. But by combining several providers, you can fill up all the boxes.

Reach higher accuracy levels

By cross-referencing information from various sources, the enriched dataset is more reliable and precise.

Avoid the spam folder

By sending your emails to the correct addresses, you can keep your bounce rate and deliverability in check, therefore ensuring that you won’t be flagged as spam further down the line.

Reach your leads on any channel

Having complete data essentially means that you have your leads’ verified email, phone number, and LinkedIn (at least).

This means you can send multichannel sequences and campaigns that will reach their target every step of the way.

It is a cost-efficient method

By using a tool that implements automated waterfall enrichment, you’ll be cutting down on monthly subscriptions for external verifiers and additional email finders.

This can reduce your monthly costs by half.

Always keep your lists clean

Most waterfall enrichment features having the ability to clean and update your lists regularly so your data will always be accurate.

Achieve better results

On average , lemlist waterfall enrichment finds 80% of emails and 50% of phone numbers.

This compares to 30-60% with a regular provider.

Higher find rate means more business opportunity, less time spend to jungle between tools and of course, no more guessing the emails to end up in the spam folder.

Increased personalization features

By having correct and complete data, your personalization can be much more accurate, cleaner, and you can include many more details.

Reach all industries

Data providers can have more information on specific niches, or locations, by combining several providers you’re guaranteed to access a much larger database and not be restricted to just one location or industry.

Tools with waterfall enrichment

There are several different tools you can use, such as:

lemlist

Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

G2 4.5/5 (264 reviews) | Capterra 4.6/5 (385 reviews)

Overview

lemlist‘s waterfall lead enrichment was introduced as a solution to gaps many businesses found in other lead generation and automation tools.

lemlist runs your data through the top 8 providers in the market verifying your lead data simultaneously. This ensures +80% of verified data and a verified, accurate, and full lead contact list is a game-changer for lead conversions.

lemlist’s waterfall enrichment finds emails and phone numbers while verifying email validity; it also offers separate LinkedIn enrichment.

After running thousands of tests, we’ve built the best waterfall enrichment system at lemlist to build your lists of leads and run your multichannel outreach campaigns from one app.

We tested 117 data providers to select the best ones for lemlist waterfall system. For each provider, we analyzed over 2,500 leads across different industries and regions. It's safe to say that we have the most comprehensive lead coverage in the market.

Charles Tenot

CEO @lemlist & lempire

The waterfall lead enrichment feature is very simple. You can complete it with three quick and easy steps.

Step 1: log into your lemlist account, or start your free trial

Step 2: Search for your leads on LinkedIn, the Email Finder and Verifier, or the database

Step 3: Enrich and import your leads directly to your campaign with the Chrome extension if you’re using LinkedIn as your source; if you’re using the database or the Email Finder, simply push them to your contact list or the campaign of your choice.

Once you have your list of leads, you can check the enrichment status to make sure you always have valid data.

Building a waterfall enrichment system is complex, especially when trying to make it as simple as possible without using API keys, but lemlist has managed to give you the best email finder possible.

For more information on how it works, check out this video.

The best thing about this system is that by having access to the top 8 providers, you’re guaranteed to expand your search since different providers excel in different areas depending on your industry or location, among others.

Pricing

There’s no extra cost. With lemlist, you’ll get the waterfall enrichment feature built into the app as soon as you sign up to any of the three pricing plans available starting at $55 per month.

By simply enriching your leads regularly, lemlist will run it through different providers and data sources to offer you the best contact information possible.

Thanks to lemlist’s massive scale, users get access to the best provider rates, making it particularly affordable.

In fact, with the lemlist waterfall lead enrichment method, you don’t pay for a contact it doesn’t find.

lemlist works on a credit system with the following credit costs:

Verified emails	5 credits per lead
LinkedIn enrichment	2 credits per lead
Email verifier	1 credit per lead
Phone numbers	20 credits per lead

If you’re wondering more about how credits work and how much you would be spending on each lead, you can check out more details about pricing.

Don’t forget you can also purchase credits separately, and they will roll over to the next month, so you won’t be wasting them.

You won’t waste credits if you haven’t found the data you need either!

At lemlist, we work with millions of leads monthly. lemlist's scale lets us negotiate better rates with providers so that our users can save more money. Plus, lemlist only charges for a found email. If we don’t find it, you don't pay.

Charles Tenot

CEO @lemlist & lempire

✅ Pros

On average, lemlist Waterfall Enrichment finds 80% of emails and 50% of phone numbers.

A higher find rate means more sales opportunities, less time spent jungle between tools, and no more guessing the emails end up in the spam folder.

Aside from this, lemlist offers many more benefits, including:

You don’t have to invest in extra tools. lemlist connects with up to 8 different providers on its own. All are included in the same price.
Credits roll over from one month to another, meaning that you will be not throwing money away, rather you’ll be saving it on the long run.
You’ll be saving a lot of time, as you can check several providers with just one click.
lemlist also provides accurate and verified data in the database
Find, enrich, and contact leads with multichannel sequences directly from the same platform
Track all interactions in one Unified Inbox
Includes LinkedIn enrichment

❌ Cons

Since there are many features, the learning curve can seem steep
Does not support unlimited email accounts

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