How IO Technologies Reduced Non-ICP Leads by 47% and Improved Outbound Efficiency with Closely

Challenge

IO Technologies aimed to reduce the percentage of non-ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) leads in their outbound funnel. Non-ICP leads led to wasted time on discovery and demo calls and, in the worst cases, resulted in non-ICP sales. These sales often churned quickly, placing an additional burden on AEs (Account Executives) and Customer Success teams due to longer onboarding processes.

Solution

Closely helped IO Technologies automate the lead qualification process even before the first touchpoint. Using the AI Qualification Agent, they set up lead qualification rules to analyze not only prospect information but also conduct automatic research on company websites. This provided answers to key questions about each prospect’s business structure and content strategy.

Results

• 47% reduction in non-ICP leads while maintaining the overall number of demos.
• Time saved on manual lead list cleaning, allowing SDRs to focus on improving campaign personalization.

About the Customer

IO Technologies is a real-time analytics platform for online media. Their clients include some of the largest publications in Europe, Asia, and the USA. Outbound is the primary acquisition channel for IO Technologies, making continuous improvement essential. The team is relatively small—6 SDRs, 3 AEs, and 2 CSMs—requiring them to work smarter, not harder.

Over time, the team noticed patterns in their lead qualification process. In addition to standard ICP criteria, green flags for them include the type of content the publication produces, their business model, publication frequency, and whether they offer subscription-based content.

About Alex

Alex  is the Head of Growth at IO Technologies with over 8 years of experience building B2B outbound sales strategies for SaaS products with annual contracts starting at $20K.

Before Using Closely

Before adopting Closely, IO Technologies used the following tools:

• Sales Navigator for building lists
• Snov.io for lead extraction and email search
• Dripify for LinkedIn outreach
• Outreach.io for email campaigns

The main challenge was the lack of precise filters in Sales Navigator to segment companies by content type. While the platform offers broad categories like “Online Media,” it doesn’t allow filtering for specifics, such as publications focused on “business and technology news.”

As a result, SDRs had to manually review each website, leading to two key issues:

1. Time-consuming research
2. Human errors due to fatigue or oversight

Ultimately, this resulted in unqualified leads entering the funnel. These leads were less likely to convert, and even when they did, they often churned quickly while consuming significant CSM and AE resources.

How Closely Helped

The team exported lead lists from Sales Navigator directly into Closely. There, they enriched the data and created an AI Qualification Agent that checked each lead against their ICP criteria (position, geo, etc.). The agent also conducted real-time research on the prospect’s website to assess the type of content they publish and decide whether to proceed with outreach.

Once qualified, the leads received automated messages on LinkedIn and via email.

Key Benefits

• Time savings: SDRs were able to focus on campaign personalization.
• 47% reduction in unqualified leads.
• Optimized outreach limits: No more wasting message quotas on irrelevant leads, which boosted the pipeline.
• Churn reduction: A long-term trend of lower churn rates due to focusing on high-quality, targeted customers.

By leveraging Closely, IO Technologies transformed their outbound process, focusing on high-probability leads and improving overall efficiency and results.

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