Is your list worth calling? A 10-minute self-check

How to use this

Open your CRM export in a spreadsheet and work down the list. Most questions take a minute. You don’t need perfect answers. You’re looking for anything that would make a campaign a bad idea, and a rough sense of how big the usable list is.

If you’d rather not count by hand, Check your list does most of the counting in your browser. If you haven’t exported yet, start with How to export your old leads.

1. How many people are on it?

Count people, not records. One person who filled in your form three times is one lead. As a rough guide:

• Under 500: usually too small for a campaign to pay for itself.
• 500 to 1,000: workable, but too small for us to guarantee a number. It can run paid per appointment instead.
• 1,000 or more that can be contacted: enough for a dental practice to get a guaranteed number of booked visits. A real estate team needs 2,000 leads. Lists that are mostly two to four years old need more: 2,500 past patients, or 4,000 leads.

“Can be contacted” is the key phrase. Once opt-outs, bad numbers and people without the right permission come out, the usable list is always smaller than the raw count.

2. How old is it?

Sort by date created and look at the spread.

• Under two years: the strongest leads. Many still have the problem they contacted you about.
• Two to four years: still workable, especially for big purchases people postpone, like roofs, remodels and treatment plans. The guarantee is sized lower for these, and needs a bigger list.
• Over four years: many phone numbers will have changed hands, and many needs will have been met elsewhere. We don’t guarantee a number on lists like this.

Phone numbers are disconnected and reassigned to new people all the time. The FCC runs a Reassigned Numbers Database so callers can check whether a number has changed hands, and any careful campaign checks before it calls.

3. Where did the leads come from?

Look at the source column, or ask whoever ran your marketing.

• Your own website forms, ads, calls and referrals: the core of a good list.
• Events, home shows, door knocking: usable, but usually with fewer ways to contact them.
• Bought or shared leads: usually can’t be called in your name. Keep them separate.
• Lists from a business you bought, or from a partner: check the consent carefully. Permission given to one business doesn’t automatically carry over to another.

4. What did your form say?

Find the form people filled in, or a screenshot of what it looked like back then. Read the small print near the phone field and the submit button. You’re looking for:

• Your business’s name, not just “partners”.
• Calls and texts, mentioned explicitly.
• Words like “automated technology”, “autodialer” or “artificial or prerecorded voice”.
• A line saying consent isn’t a condition of purchase.

If those are there, the people who used that form can likely get calls, texts and email. If not, they can’t get AI calls, but may still be reachable another way. Consent, explained for owners goes through this in detail.

5. How many duplicates are there?

Sort by phone number, then by email, and scroll. Duplicates come from people resubmitting forms, typos, and imports from old systems. Some duplication is normal and isn’t a problem in itself; it just means the real count is smaller than it looks. What matters is that an opt-out on one record applies to all of that person’s records.

6. How many numbers look dead?

Scroll the phone column and watch for:

• Numbers with too few digits, or obvious fakes like 555-555-5555 and 123-456-7890.
• The same number on dozens of records, often your own office line or a placeholder.
• Lots of landlines, which can’t receive texts.
• Blank phone fields. Those leads can only get email.

7. Who has opted out?

Find every opt-out signal you have: unsubscribe flags, STOP replies, do-not-call tags, and notes like “asked us not to contact”. Keep those people in the file, flagged, so they’re excluded everywhere. Numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry need checking too. A campaign that skips that check isn’t one you want your name on.

8. Do you know what they asked about?

A column with the service, job type or estimate name makes the first line of every call specific: “the AC replacement estimate we gave you” rather than “your inquiry”. Without it, a campaign still works, but the opening is vaguer. Even a rough category helps.

9. Do you still do that work, there?

Filter out services you’ve stopped offering and ZIP codes outside your current area. Booking an appointment you can’t serve wastes your time and theirs.

10. Can you handle the bookings?

A campaign that works puts extra appointments on your calendar quickly. For the guarantee we ask for about ten open slots a week and someone who calls back the people we book. If your calendar is full for the next month, wait until it isn’t.

Adding it up

If you have 1,000 or more people you can contact (2,000 for a real estate team), most of them under two years old, from your own marketing, with forms that carried consent wording, the list is very likely worth a campaign.

If one of those is shaky, it may still be worth it, just smaller, or paid per appointment instead of guaranteed. If most of the list is bought, very old or opted out, it isn’t worth calling, and nobody should tell you otherwise.

On the free audit call we go through these same ten questions with you, using your actual file, and you leave with a number either way.