ICP Overview
An ICP in TrailSpark is a scoring model for one go-to-market motion. A workspace runs several of them — an acquisition ICP, an expansion ICP, a renewal ICP, and so on — each with its own account profile, personas, signals, and scoring rules. They are priority-ordered. When an account matches more than one ICP, the highest-priority match becomes its Primary ICP and the rest surface as Also matches.
There is no longer a choice between three creation methods. You build every ICP through one adaptive builder.
The adaptive builder
You pick a motion preset at Setup. The preset prefills your account criteria, contact personas, signal definitions, evaluation cadence, and — for buying-group motions — a starter set of roles. From there, three toggles decide which steps you actually see:
| Toggle | Effect |
|---|---|
| Individual lead scoring | Adds an Ideal Fit step and a scoring-filters (Qualification) step so you score contacts, not just accounts |
| Buying group intelligence | Adds a Roles step to define who fills each role in the buying group |
| Renewal motion | Surfaces this ICP in the At-Risk Renewals view |
Each motion preset sets sensible defaults for these toggles. Flip one off and its steps disappear; flip it on and they reappear, with the step counter renumbering so you never land on a gap.
Step flow
The full builder runs Setup → SparkSense → Eligibility → Ideal Fit → Behavior Signals → Scoring filters → Buying group roles → Review. SparkSense, Ideal Fit, Scoring filters, and Roles are conditional, so most ICPs are shorter:
| Step | Always shown? | Appears when |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Yes | Pick the motion, name the ICP, set the toggles |
| SparkSense | No | A CRM is connected and you turn it on — learn traits and roles from won deals |
| Eligibility | Yes | Define which accounts this ICP covers |
| Ideal Fit | No | Individual lead scoring is on — account firmographics and contact personas |
| Behavior Signals | Yes | Account activity signals, workspace attributes, and (advanced) cadence |
| Scoring filters | No | Individual lead scoring is on — Qualification rules |
| Buying group roles | No | Buying group intelligence is on |
| Review | Yes | Preview the generated rubric, then create the ICP |
SparkSense only appears when a CRM is connected. It reads your closed-won deals, surfaces the company traits, common titles, and buying roles that show up most, and lets you keep what fits. Everything it suggests lands in editable fields — you can deselect any of it, or skip the step entirely and fill the fields yourself.
The first ICP you create is automatically the default. The default scores any target organization that doesn't match another ICP's eligibility rule. For later ICPs, a toggle on Setup decides whether this one takes over that role.
Eligibility vs. Qualification
These two are easy to conflate, so the builder keeps them as separate steps.
- Eligibility decides which accounts an ICP covers. It's how an account gets assigned to this ICP in the first place.
- Qualification (the "Scoring filters" step) decides which covered accounts and leads are worth scoring, so you skip the rest and don't burn effort on low-value records.
Same fields can show up in both, but they answer different questions. See Eligibility and Qualification for how to set each one.
Motion presets
Five presets seed criteria, roles, and cadence so you start from a working model instead of a blank page:
| Preset | What it scores |
|---|---|
| PLG Acquisition | Self-serve trials converting to first paid contract |
| PLG Expansion | Existing customers upgrading to a larger tier |
| Sales-led Enterprise | Committee-driven cold enterprise deals |
| Renewal | Account-health signals that flag renewal risk |
| Cross-sell | Customers likely to adopt an additional product |
Re-selecting a motion after you've edited fields prompts before it overwrites your eligibility rules, criteria, and roles — switching is destructive, so the builder confirms first.
What an ICP includes
Every ICP carries:
- Account profile — firmographic criteria and the signals that mark an account as account-level ready
- Contact personas — titles, seniority, and function for the people you sell to (when lead scoring is on)
- Behavioral signals — account activity, workspace attributes, and user-level intent
- Eligibility scope — the rule that decides which accounts this ICP covers
- Buying-group roles — for buying-group ICPs, the roles that make up the group and how they're filled
For how roles get filled from signals and demographics, see Signal and Role Attribution and the Buying Groups overview.
Next steps
- Eligibility and Qualification — scope an ICP and set its scoring filters
- Managing multiple ICPs — priority order, Primary vs. Also matches, scope conflicts
- Editing an ICP — change criteria, roles, and signals after creation
- Buying Groups overview — how role-aware buying groups work