Multiple providers and manual workarounds can lead to inflated budgets and duplicate records. A smarter strategy involves using a primary provider for enrichment to maximize data coverage without unnecessary expenses. Implementing a streamlined workflow with standardized practices reduces reliance on secondary sources and minimizes costs. The benefits are significant, leading to predictable spending, cleaner data, and enhanced team performance across sales, marketing, and finance. Regular audits and clear provider hierarchies are essential for maintaining efficiency and proving ROI.
RevOps leaders are under constant pressure: deliver clean CRM data, keep reps productive, and control spend across the tech stack. Enrichment is one of the hidden cost centers. When multiple providers, waterfall models, and manual workarounds stack up, budgets can balloon fast.
The challenge is simple: how do you maximize coverage without paying for the same record multiple times?
Why enrichment gets expensive
- Waterfall models: Passing every record through three or four providers means you pay for duplicates.
- Manual exports/imports: Teams spend hours enriching the same lists in different systems.
- Inconsistent rules: Without confidence scoring or field prioritization, CRMs fill up with duplicate or low-value data.
The result: higher costs, lower trust, and frustrated revenue teams.
Smarter strategy: Primary-first enrichment
The most cost-efficient approach is to start with one trusted provider as your default enrichment step. Most records will be complete after this pass, dramatically reducing reliance on secondary lookups.
- Primary provider: Lusha, with verified phones, emails, and firmographics.
- Fallbacks: Only route incomplete fields (not the entire record) to a secondary source.
- Normalization: Standardize job titles, industries, and company size to avoid duplicates across providers.
This approach keeps enrichment predictable, accurate, and far cheaper than “spray-and-pray” waterfall setups.
Example: A RevOps enrichment cost-control workflow
Lead enters CRM via form or list import.
Lusha enriches with phone, verified email, company data.
Confidence rules determine whether the record syncs directly or requires a fallback.
Only missing fields are routed to secondary provider.
Normalization rules keep all fields consistent in CRM.
Result: 70–80% of leads are enriched in one pass, reducing waterfall spend dramatically.
Benefits for RevOps and GTM teams
- RevOps: Predictable enrichment spend, fewer disputes over duplicates, clean reporting.
- Sales: Verified direct dials mean fewer wasted calls.
- Marketing: Lower bounce rates protect domain reputation.
- Finance: Controlled vendor costs, no hidden waterfall waste.
Best practices for reducing enrichment spend
- Audit your enrichment workflows quarterly—where are you paying twice?
- Set a clear provider hierarchy: primary first, fallback only if required.
- Use confidence scores to avoid syncing low-quality data.
- Track enrichment cost per lead as a KPI to prove ROI.
Coverage matters, but so does cost control. By designing enrichment workflows that lean on a trusted primary provider like Lusha, and only using fallbacks when absolutely necessary, RevOps teams can keep data accurate, reps productive, and budgets under control.
FAQs
Because every provider charges for each lookup, even if the record was already resolved by another source.
By covering most enrichment needs in one pass with verified, compliant data — reducing reliance on secondary lookups.
Not necessarily. A fallback is useful for niche or international cases, but it should only handle what your primary provider cannot.
Cost per enriched lead, percentage of records completed on first pass, and bounce rate reductions.
Yes. Using CRM rules, webhooks, and automation tools, you can route enrichment steps automatically without manual intervention.
