How Do I Get Emails for My Prospects? Try Waterfall Enrichment!

If you're a sales or marketing professional, you've been there: You spend hours honing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), build a list of seemingly perfect leads, and then realize your data is full of holes. You have identified the perfect lead, but you're missing their contact information—or worse,  the email you found is invalid.

This isn't just frustrating; it's a massive drain on resources. To reliably contact 100 prospects, you may feel the need to source a list of 250, as data gaps result in 150 potential customers being left uncontacted. Sales reps are often forced into the "Great Data Hunt," spending 12 hours or more per week searching LinkedIn, guessing at email formats, and hoping for the best.

If you rely on guesswork, your entire email marketing and outreach effort is only about 80% effective due to bounce rates caused by invalid email addresses.

There is a secret weapon that high-growth B2B companies are using to maximize lead enrichment coverage and access high-quality, verified contact details. It is called waterfall enrichment.

In this guide, we'll dive into how this layered, multi-source verification system works, why it is quickly becoming the new industry standard, and how to select the right tool to revolutionize your prospecting and B2B lead enrichment strategy enrichment strategy.

Decoding the Technology: What Exactly is Waterfall Enrichment?

What does it mean when data flows like a waterfall?

The term "waterfall" perfectly captures the essence of this solution. Waterfall enrichment is a step-by-step data verification system that flows through multiple providers in a planned sequence to build complete contact profiles. Unlike many traditional enrichment methods that depend on just one database, this technique leverages several data vendors sequentially to verify and fill in missing information.

Here is how the cascading process works:

1. Start: Your existing contact information begins its journey through a primary data provider.

2. Flow: If the first source cannot fill all the missing data gaps (such as a phone number or an industry tag), the system automatically moves to a secondary provider.

3. Complete: The process continues to a third, a fourth, and so on, until all designated sources have been checked, or until the contact profile is complete and accurate.

The goal is exhaustive coverage.

Crucially, quality waterfall enrichment includes an essential verification step, such as SMTP and catch-all validation, between providers. This layered approach ensures the data accuracy is high and guarantees deliverability once the lead information is finally accessed.

Why Single-Source Methods Cause a Leaky Funnel

In the past, sales teams relied on single-source tools, hoping one provider was the key to all their data needs. But is that realistic? Can any single vendor truly be the best for every geography, industry, and job title?

The reality is that specialization is the new standard. Every data provider has a specific strength in certain industries or geographies. For example, Apollo is often cited as strong for US prospects, while Cognism leads the market in the EMEA region data coverage. Relying on one vendor limits your reach and overall contact data coverage.

The Danger of the DIY Waterfall

Some ambitious teams try to replicate the waterfall process manually. They purchase several subscriptions and run their leads through them one by one. However, manually juggling multiple data subscriptions and API keys is highly inefficient and expensive.

Building this type of workflow in-house, even with the use of automation tools like Zapier or Make.com, creates a fragile system that requires constant maintenance. Building the system alone can take a week of development time, plus constant monthly maintenance, costing your business $1,000 to $10,000 in employee salaries just for upkeep.

A purpose-built waterfall enrichment solution avoids this chaos.

The Core Benefits of Waterfall Enrichment: Maximizing ROI

The shift from single-source enrichment to a dynamic multi-source system provides substantial, quantifiable benefits that impact the bottom line.

1. Explosive Increase in Contact Data Coverage

By leveraging multiple data providers, you exponentially increase your chances of finding accurate details, regardless of the lead's location or industry.

• Tools like Persana connect to over 75 data providers for maximum coverage.

• Lemlist reports finding 80% of emails and 50% of phone numbers on average, which significantly exceeds the 30–60% typically found by regular providers.

• Companies using these platforms see a 95% jump in qualified leads.

• FullEnrich users report finding phone numbers and emails for over 85% of their leads across all data sources.

2. Guaranteed Accuracy and Deliverability

Cross-referencing leads to much higher data accuracy. By running multi-layered verification checks (like SMTP validation) between sources, you reduce bounce rates substantially, protecting your email deliverability and crucial domain reputation.

For instance, BetterContact guarantees 99.5% accuracy in email verification. The use of verified phone numbers also enhances your overall B2B lead enrichment efforts.

3. Cost-Effective, Success-Based Pricing

Most modern waterfall platforms use a credit-based pricing model that ensures financial efficiency. In a "pay-for-success" model, you only pay when the enrichment succeeds (meaning valid and usable data is found and verified). Failed searches cost nothing.

This success-based approach means smaller teams with tight budgets can access comprehensive data coverage without the risk of paying for incomplete or invalid data.

Time Savings that Drive Revenue

Waterfall automation is a massive time-saver. Teams cut down 8–10 hours of prospecting work each week by automating data finding.

This eliminated manual research is worth around $3,120/month per rep in lost productivity.

This freed-up time allows reps to focus on actual selling, leading to proven pipeline growth. For example, Guideflow, a software company, saw its sales pipeline grow by more than 37% after adopting a waterfall approach.

Evaluation Criteria: What to Look for in a Best-in-Class Tool

Now that you are in the consideration phase, evaluating tools requires looking beyond the basic features. You need a platform that supports your growth strategy.

Core Requirements: The Non-Negotiables

• Robust Multi-Source Support: If a tool only taps into one provider, it is a trickle, not a waterfall. For complete contact data coverage, expert systems recommend platforms that provide access to a minimum of 15 to 20 providers. Some leading platforms connect to 75+.

• Seamless CRM Integration: To ensure your revenue operations team is not copy-pasting data, the tool must automatically sync enriched data to major CRM systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive. Apollo, for example, will automatically sync primary emails and phone numbers to your CRM after waterfall enrichment runs.

• Compliance-First Design: As data flows through a multi-source system, adherence to global regulations (GDPR, CCPA) is critical. Compliance lapses can lead to regulatory penalties. Cognism, for instance, was built with GDPR and CCPA compliance from the ground up.

Advanced Capabilities for Maximum Results

• Smart Automation and AI: Look for machine learning algorithms that intelligently analyze your lead list (e.g., industry, geography) and tailor the sequencing of providers to optimize for quality and cost. BetterContact uses its BetterID algorithm to tailor the best provider sequence based on the list's demographics and industry. Persana uses PersanaVecto Technology for relevance scoring.

• Configuration Control: Does the platform allow you to control the data flow? Platforms like Persana and Clay offer a Waterfall Configuration Control, allowing you to customize the order of providers and define what constitutes a "successful" result.

• Quality of Verification: Look beyond basic checks. Advanced systems, like Cleanlist, use Triple Email Verification. Tools like BetterContact guarantee high email verification accuracy (99.5%) through multi-layer verification.

• Data Types: Effective waterfall enrichment should provide comprehensive coverage for work emails, personal emails, and mobile numbers. Cognism excels in phone-verified data, for example.

Spotlight: Leading Waterfall Enrichment Tools

Selecting the right tool depends entirely on your specific focus—whether that is maximum coverage, guaranteed accuracy, or geographical strength.

Persana

Persana maximizes contact data coverage by accessing a massive number of providers. The platform connects to over 75 data providers, resulting in match rates that are better than Apollo and ZoomInfo combined. Persana utilizes advanced features like Rule-Based Enrichment Logic and Waterfall Configuration Control. Their AI agent, Nia, handles up to 90% of sales development tasks.

• Best For: SDRs and BDRs who need AI-powered workflows and unparalleled provider volume to scale outreach.

• Insight: Users cut down 8–10 hours of prospecting work each week.

BetterContact

BetterContact stands out for its emphasis on superior data accuracy. It links to over 20 premium data providers within its multi-source waterfall enrichment system. Its core strength is achieving 99.5% email verification accuracy. The platform intelligently tailors the provider sequence using its machine learning algorithm, BetterID, based on the lead list's demographics and industry.

• Best For: Teams focused on high-accuracy b2b lead enrichment projects that need verified data for pipeline generation, reporting a 37% increase in pipeline generation.

• Insight: Cofounders of BetterContact were among the first to bring the waterfall enrichment technique to the market as a service.

Clay

Clay operates as an "all-in-one" data marketplace, unifying access to 75+ enrichment tools (including ZoomInfo and Clearbit). It provides a Custom waterfall configuration to let users define the sequence and supports complex, multi-point enrichment. Clay offers a valuable pay-for-success feature: it refunds credits for data providers that fail to find emails. The Claygent AI assistant can even find esoteric data points that traditional providers miss, like certifications or podcast appearances.

• Best For: RevOps and Account-Based Marketing (ABM) teams needing maximum data flexibility and complex, multi-point enrichment from various vendors through a single subscription.

Cognism (The Alternative Approach)

Cognism offers a different approach to B2B lead enrichment. It does not rely on sequentially stacking third-party providers. Instead, it uses a proprietary, internal database that is constantly maintained and verified by human researchers and AI. This approach focuses heavily on compliance and quality, especially in the EU, where it leads in EMEA region data coverage. Cognism features Diamond Data®, which refers to phone-verified mobile numbers.

• Best For: Companies expanding in Europe that must prioritize data compliance (GDPR/CCPA) and verified phone numbers.

Lemlist

Lemlist provides a unified platform that combines outreach functionality with a dedicated waterfall enrichment system. It runs data through the top 8 providers simultaneously. On average, Lemlist finds 80% of emails and 50% of phone numbers. The waterfall enrichment feature is included in all subscription plans.

• Best For: Sales teams seeking a single tool for seamless data enrichment, campaign creation, and multichannel outreach, simplifying their tech stack.

Apollo

Apollo natively integrates waterfall enrichment by allowing administrators to define the sequence of external data sources and validation services. Admins can set Global settings so enrichment runs automatically when team members access contacts. It supports enriching up to 10,000 records at once. Apollo allows users to connect to available data sources or validation sources listed in their marketplace.

• Best For: Teams already heavily utilizing Apollo for sequencing and needing seamless internal access to the waterfall enrichment process using their defined vendors.

Your Next Step in Contact Data Mastery

Waterfall enrichment is not just an optional feature; it is rapidly becoming the new industry standard for achieving high contact data coverage.

By moving away from fragile, single-source systems, you dramatically reduce bounce rates, boost data accuracy, and streamline your entire prospecting workflow. These systems provide the multi-layered safety net required to ensure every qualified prospect receives your outreach. Teams utilizing this technology save 8–10 hours each week on manual research, and their bounce rates drop substantially.

If you are currently evaluating your options, move beyond the manual hustle and invest in a dedicated, purpose-built solution. Evaluate platforms based on your specific needs: maximum coverage (Persana/Clay), hyper-accuracy (BetterContact), or compliance-first EMEA data (Cognism). Leverage their free trials or pay-for-success pricing models to confirm the best fit for your revenue goals.

The quality of your data will determine the quality of your sales outcomes. Waterfall enrichment provides you with the reliable, verified contact data you need to focus on building genuine relationships instead of chasing unproductive leads. Aspiration Marketing is here to help.