Why ICP matters
Without an ICP, every engager is treated equally: a VP of Sales at your target account and an undergrad researching a paper both produce signals. With a tuned ICP, the VP makes it through and the undergrad gets filtered out before your team ever sees them.
A well-tuned ICP is the difference between a stream your team ignores and a tool that becomes your pipeline source.
The 5 dimensions
Every engager is scored across these five:
1. Title
The job title the engager holds. Match patterns:
- Inclusion list: titles that count as a match (e.g. VP of Sales, Head of RevOps, CRO)
- Exclusion list: titles that disqualify even if everything else matches (e.g. intern, student, recruiter)
- Seniority threshold: minimum seniority level (Manager / Director / VP / C-suite)
2. Industry
The industry of the engager's current company. Pulled from LinkedIn's classification; you can override with a custom inclusion list. Most teams allow 2–4 industries.
3. Company size
Headcount range of the engager's current company. Common settings: SMB (10–100), Mid-market (100–1,000), Enterprise (1,000+).
4. Market affinity
Does the engager's company look like a market fit beyond just size and industry? We score on signals like funding stage, tech stack (when public), recent press, and growth indicators. This is the dimension that catches buyers your title+industry+size filter would miss.
5. Location
Geographic filter. Common settings: country list, region list (Americas / EMEA / APAC), or specific metros. Defaults to no filter. Most teams add a location filter only if they have a clear geographic constraint.
Basic vs Advanced ICP
| Capability | Basic | Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Adjust inclusion / exclusion lists | ✓ | ✓ |
| Set thresholds per dimension | ✓ | ✓ |
| Weight dimensions differently | — | ✓ |
| Per-source ICP overrides | — | ✓ |
| Multi-ICP (e.g. SMB + Enterprise separately) | — | ✓ |
| Custom market-affinity rules | — | ✓ |
Basic is available on all plans. Advanced editing is Scale only. Most teams don't need Advanced for the first quarter.
Thresholds: tight vs loose
Every signal carries an ICP score (1–10) computed from how many dimensions matched and how strongly. Your threshold determines what makes it through:
- Loose (threshold 4+): Lots of signals, more noise, good for early discovery when you're still learning your market
- Default (threshold 6+): Balanced; what most teams run
- Tight (threshold 8+): Only high-confidence matches; lower volume, almost no noise
You can set a different threshold per destination. Common pattern: tight threshold on Slack (the team's attention), loose threshold on a Google Sheet (the audit trail).
The calibration loop
Don't tune your ICP on day one. Tune it on day seven. Let a week of signals flow against the defaults first; the patterns in your bad-fit signals tell you exactly what to adjust.
- Day 1: Accept the AI's suggested ICP. Set threshold to default (6+).
- Day 1–7: Let signals flow. Don't touch the config.
- Day 7: Open the Signal review view. Mark each delivered signal as good / bad fit.
- Day 7+: Look at the dimensions of the bad-fit signals. They'll cluster: wrong industry, too small, wrong region. Add those exclusions.
- Repeat weekly for the first month. After that, monthly is enough.
Common pitfalls
- Too narrow on day one: You'll see almost no signals, conclude the tool doesn't work, and churn. Start loose, tighten over time.
- Title list too literal: “VP of Sales” misses “Vice President, Sales” and “VP — Sales (NA)”. Use patterns, not exact strings.
- Ignoring market affinity: It's the dimension that catches your weirdest, best-fit buyers. Turning it off leaves money on the table.
- One ICP for two motions: If you sell to SMB and Enterprise differently, use multi-ICP (Scale only) instead of one wide config.
Where to go next
- Sources & monitoring → What sources work best with your ICP
- Signals & scoring → How ICP score combines with signal score to determine routing