We cut 30% of our lead list before launch and campaign got better

Before one recent outbound campaign, we did something that usually makes teams nervous: we deliberately made the list smaller. Like we removed 30% of the records before sending anything.

Most of the cuts came from duplicate contacts, outdated job titles, inactive domains, generic inboxes, and companies that looked close to the ICP but didn't actually fit. Well, results showed it was worth it

Reply quality improved because more of the responses came from people who were actually relevant to the buying process. This just proves that list hygiene is not an admin task, but actually part of the campaign strategy.

A lot of teams spend hours optimizing copy while sending to weak data. In many cases, cleaning the list has a bigger impact that rewriting the email. Do you agree? How much of your prospect list usually gets removed before launch, and what filters make the biggest difference?