Outbound is tough.
It’s responsible for half the pipeline at most sales orgs, yet somehow, it’s the least sophisticated part of the go-to-market motion. Forecasting? That gets a full-on data science operation. Inbound?
There are attribution models that are so complex.
This came up in a recent newsletter written by CEO, Hayes Davis, where he calls out this exact issue—everyone measures activity going in and pipeline coming out, but the middle? Total black box. Reps get a patch of accounts, are told they’re “the CEO of their territory,” and off they go, dialing and emailing their way to an arbitrary quota.
And when it doesn’t work? The answer is always the same: Do more activity.
But what if the problem isn’t how much activity is happening, but where it’s happening?
That’s what this three-part series is about—fixing outbound measurement so we stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and start running outbound like the strategic pipeline engine it’s supposed to be.
There are three key metrics that can change the game:
- Account coverage – Are we working the right accounts?
- Opportunity creation rate – Are we turning those accounts into pipeline efficiently?
- Incubation period – How fast does outbound convert effort into meetings?
And we’re kicking things off today with account coverage. Because before we talk about conversion and speed, we need to make sure we’re even hunting in the right places.
The problem: Outbound activity ≠ outbound strategy
Ask most sales managers how outbound is going, and they’ll probably give you some stat about activity volume.
“We made 5,000 calls last month!”
We sent 20,000 emails!”
Cool. But where did all that effort go? Here’s the real question:
What percentage of your best-fit accounts actually got worked?
If you don’t know, you’re not alone—most outbound teams have no idea.
They know how much activity is happening but not where it’s being applied. Which means:
- A huge percentage of ICP accounts probably never even get touched.
- Reps are spending time on random accounts instead of strategic ones.
- Your outbound motion is more luck than process.
That’s how you end up with pipeline that looks like Swiss cheese—big gaps where reps didn’t engage the right accounts, missed opportunities hiding in plain sight, and a GTM strategy that doesn’t match what’s actually happening on the front lines.
What is account coverage?
Account coverage is the percentage of accounts in a given segment that have been meaningfully engaged over a set period of time.
It’s a simple concept—if you’ve got 1,000 target accounts but your team only engages 300 of them in a quarter, that means 70% of your market got zero attention. That’s a problem.
Think about it this way—would you ever let inbound leads sit untouched? Probably not. Yet most outbound teams let massive chunks of their ICP go completely unworked, simply because they don’t track coverage. And when reps aren’t covering the right accounts, all kinds of bad things happen:
🚩 Reps work the wrong accounts. They chase old accounts, warm leads, or whatever feels comfortable—rather than the accounts that actually matter.
🚩 Market expansion efforts stall. You tell reps to start going upmarket, but without tracking coverage, they just keep working the same mid-market accounts they know.
🚩 Pipeline problems become unsolvable. If outbound pipeline slows down, you can’t tell if it’s because reps aren’t doing enough, or because they’re working the wrong accounts.
How to implement account coverage today
Fixing this doesn’t require some massive tech overhaul. You don’t need AI. You don’t need a RevOps SWAT team. You just need to start tracking where outbound effort is actually going.
Here’s how to get started:
✅ Define engagement – Decide what counts as “engaged” for your team. Three+ touches? A meeting booked? Etc.
✅ Run a quick CRM report – Filter for ones that hit your engagement threshold in the last 90 days. Divide by total ICP accounts.
✅ Compare against your outbound pipeline – Are you engaging enough accounts to support the pipeline goals you set?
✅ Make it a core metric – Start tracking account coverage like you track activity and pipeline.
How Gradient Works helps
If you’ve ever tried pulling account engagement reports from Salesforce, you already know—it’s painful. That’s why Gradient Works automatically tracks account coverage for you. We show you where reps are spending time (and where they’re not), so you can actually see the gaps in your outbound coverage. Instead of waiting until pipeline dries up, you can fix it before it becomes a problem.
The bottom line: Stop measuring just activity—start measuring coverage
Next up: Opportunity creation rate – are you actually turning engagement into pipeline? Now that we’ve covered who reps are working, next time we’ll talk about how well that effort converts. Stay tuned.
