How to build an outbound pipeline for payment processing companies

Cormac Repman
4 hours ago
5 min read

Building an Outbound Pipeline for Payment Processing Companies

Payment processing is one of the most competitive verticals in fintech. You're not selling a nice-to-have. You're asking merchants and enterprises to rip and replace their current processor, migrate transactions, retest integrations, and update payment flows. Cold outbound for payment processing works, but only if you build it like you're selling enterprise software instead of a commodity.

I've built outbound campaigns for payment processors targeting everyone from SMB e-commerce stores to mid-market SaaS platforms. The difference between 12% connect rates and 45% comes down to pipeline structure, not volume.

Define Your Actual ICP, Not Your Marketing ICP

Most payment processors think their ICP is "any company that processes payments." That's not an ICP. That's a market.

Your real ICP has four dimensions: company size (ARR or revenue range), payment volume threshold, pain point (decline rates, chargebacks, processing time, integration complexity), and tech stack compatibility.

Example ICPs I've seen work:

High-volume e-commerce: Shopify stores doing 50k+ monthly transactions, paying 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, bleeding 3-5% to processing fees

SaaS platforms: Companies processing recurring payments in 6+ currencies, living with 2-3 day settlement windows and chargeback rates above 1%

Marketplace platforms: Platforms that split revenue across sellers and take a cut, stuck with payment processor APIs that don't support dynamic split routing

Enterprises: Mid-market logistics, subscription software, or financial services replacing legacy processors with 10+ year contracts

Pick one. Build your campaign around it. Your messaging, targeting, and proof points all change based on which ICP you're hunting.

Map the Buying Committee, Not Just the Title

For payment processors, the title match trap is real. You'll find CFOs, VP Finance, VP Engineering, and sometimes VP Operations all owning the payment processor relationship. None of them necessarily have budget power, and they rarely decide together.

The order of influence:

Finance owns the contract, payment terms, and chargeback handling (CFO, VP Finance, Controller)

Engineering owns the integration work, API stability, and webhook reliability (VP Engineering, Tech Lead)

Product owns feature parity and customer-facing capability gaps (VP Product, Head of Growth)

Build sequences that acknowledge this split. Your first touch should surface a pain that all three feel. Your follow-ups should ladder into role-specific proof points.

Channel Mix: Phone and Email Are Not Interchangeable

Payment processor cold outreach typically follows a 40/40/20 split: 40% phone prospecting, 40% email sequences, 20% LinkedIn engagement.

Phone works because:

Connect rates for payment processing titles are 25-35% when you call during their core hours (Tue/Wed/Thu, 10-11am and 2-3pm their local time)

Most payment processor decision-makers don't screen calls from unknown numbers if you're calling a business number

A 4-minute conversation beats 8 email opens for qualifying deal shape

You can ask if they're under contract, what they're paying, and their volume in one call

Email sequences should go deeper on proof:

Decline rate benchmarks by industry

Settlement speed comparisons

Cost calculators showing the monthly savings at their transaction volume

Technical spec sheets that speak to integration burden

Customer logos from their industry (this matters disproportionately for payments)

LinkedIn is relationship insurance. You're not closing deals there. You're reducing the perceived risk of a cold call by having 50-100 relevant connections as proof.

Build Sequences Around Their Workflow, Not Yours

Payment processing decision cycles are long. Most companies don't shop for a new processor until three triggers hit simultaneously:

Chargeback rates spike or regulatory pressure increases

Current processor raises rates or caps settlement velocity

They're scaling and the current solution is bottlenecking revenue (settlement delays, decline handling, split payout complexity)

Your outbound sequences need to surface one of these triggers and create urgency around it. Generic "we're faster and cheaper" doesn't work because everyone says that.

Effective sequence angles:

Lead with a specific chargeback benchmark for their industry, then ask if they're above or below it

Reference a recent rate increase from a major processor and ask if they've been hit

Lead with a technical barrier: "Most platforms doing 100k+ monthly transactions hit limitations with X processor around Y feature"

Lead with social proof: "We just onboarded [similar company in their vertical], and they're saving $X/month in processing fees alone"

Metrics That Actually Matter

Track these for payment processor outbound. Vanity metrics like "emails sent" and "calls attempted" tell you nothing.

Reply rate on cold email: Target 8-12% for well-researched sequences to payment processor decision-makers

Phone connect rate: Target 25-35% when calling the right person at the right time

Qualified conversation rate: Target 40-60% of connects becoming 15+ minute conversations

Pilot rate: Target 8-15% of qualified conversations moving to a pilot or technical evaluation

Cost per qualified pipeline: Track the fully-loaded cost (your tools, prospecting time, calling, email infrastructure) divided by qualified opportunities created. For payment processors, this is usually $150-300 per qualified conversation

You'll know your pipeline is healthy when qualified conversation rate stays above 40% and your cost per qualified opportunity stays below $300.

Avoid the Common Mistakes

Payment processors typically kill their own outbound by:

Targeting too wide: "We work with any payment processor" means your messaging works for nobody

Leaning too hard on product features: "We have 99.9999% uptime" doesn't persuade. "Your chargeback rate will drop because we handle VCN re-use" does

Ignoring the integration burden: Payment processing companies know that switching processors means 40-60 engineering hours to migrate. Your sequences should acknowledge this and make the case that it's worth it

Selling to only one buyer: The CFO likes lower fees. The VP Engineering likes stability. The VP Product wants new features. Your campaigns need all three voting yes

Not tracking to pilot: You'll get lots of "we'd like to evaluate" responses. Track whether those move to actual POCs or if you're getting ghosted at the soft yes stage

Build Your Pipeline With People Who Do This Every Day

Payment processor outbound is specialized work. The call scripts, email sequences, and targeting play different than for general SaaS. If you're building this in-house and your team has never cold-called fintech, you're competing on price and learning curve at the same time.

That's why we built Glencoco and Nurturance. We run dedicated cold-calling teams for fintech and insurtech companies. Our team runs payment processor campaigns constantly. We know the objection flows, the ICP playbooks, and what messaging actually moves CFOs and engineers.

If you want to build outbound for payment processing and you want it to work in Q3 or Q4, not Q2 next year, let's talk.

[Schedule time with us](https://cal.com/nurturance) to walk through your ICP and see what a real pipeline could look like for your processor.