List Quality Gate Before Outbound Launch (QA)

List Quality Gate Before Outbound Launch (QA)

1. 01

   Freeze the list against the approved targeting hypothesis before any enrichment spend

   Confirm the segment definition (firmographic filters, trigger event, contact seniority) matches the signed-off brief. Any drift between the brief and the built list is a scope change, not a QA note.

2. 02

   Run a deduplication pass at the domain level, not the contact level

   Two contacts at the same account with different titles will double-touch the prospect and inflate reply rates in reporting. Collapse to one primary contact per account plus one backup.

3. 03

   Validate email deliverability on a random 10 percent sample before full send

   Bounce rates above 3 percent on the sample mean the source data is stale. Re-pull from a second provider rather than scrubbing the same records twice.

4. 04

   Check field completeness against the CRM import schema

   Missing company size, industry, or source tag breaks downstream scoring and makes retainer reporting impossible to reconcile. Reject records that fail required fields instead of patching them by hand.

5. 05

   Score every record against the client's qualification criteria and document the rubric

   A written scoring rubric is the asset the agency owns. Without it, the deliverable is a spreadsheet and the client can replace the vendor in a month.

6. 06

   Suppress existing pipeline, current clients, and any account under active negotiation

   Outbound to a live opportunity damages the relationship the account team built. Pull suppression lists from the CRM at the moment of export, not at the moment of campaign build.

7. 07

   Log the source, pull date, and provider for every batch in a list provenance record

   Provenance is what lets an agency defend data quality in a renewal conversation and diagnose a bounce spike three months later.

8. 08

   Get written client approval on a 50-record spot check before the first send

   A five-minute review of real records catches targeting misreads that no filter description will surface. Keep the approval in the account file.