ICP vs. TCP vs. TAM: Cutting through the alphabet soup of B2B targeting

Marketers love acronyms. ICP. TCP. TAM. SAM. SOM. CCL. It sounds smart in meetings, but most of the time it’s just investor slide filler that won’t win you a single profitable customer.

Mason Cosby’s framework from CXL’s B2B Sales & Marketing Alignment course strips it all down to what matters: 

• Why most acronyms are distractions;
• How to spot and kill fake ICPs;
• Why TAM/SAM/SOM only exist to impress investors;
• How private equity drives profit by doubling down on the top 20% of customers; and 
• The exact system to tier accounts so sales stops wasting time. 

All of it geared toward the only outcome that counts: profit.

Most acronyms don’t matter. Profitability does.

Smart executives don’t care about your ICP definition or how pristine your persona decks look. They care about six things (and no, it’s not leads):

1. Sustainable growth: Clear, repeatable systems;
2. Efficiency: Less waste across teams;
3. Profit: Higher margins, not just revenue;
4. Talent attraction: Ability to hire and retain better people;
5. Culture: Customers who don’t hate you;
6. Innovation: Feedback from similar customers that’s actually actionable.

Leadership’s one request is always the same: “More.”

If you can’t tie targeting frameworks back to profit, you’re wasting everyone’s time. 

The right customers aren’t the ones with the flashiest logos or fastest close times. They’re the ones with the highest lifetime gross profit compared to acquisition cost.

And then there’s the rub. While leadership expects quick results, marketing knows brand equity takes time. 

“Fun fact: brand recall takes three to six months of dedicated effort. Just for someone to recognize your brand and actually be able to recall it when they think about the problem they’re facing.”

— Mason Cosby 

Although everyone wants the same outcomes, the disconnect is time horizons. This gap between leadership’s demand for instant revenue and the time it takes to create brand equity is why marketing struggles to prove its value.

The only way to align is reframing marketing in terms leadership understands: more high-margin customers, faster.

ICP, CCL, and TCP (The only 3 acronyms that matter)

Here’s the framework that drives profit:

• ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): Customers with proven product-market fit, high lifetime gross profit, and efficient acquisition;
• CCL (Current Customer List): Every customer you serve today, including bad fits you wish you could fire;
• TCP (Target Customer Profile): The overlap of ICP and CCL. The top 20% of your most profitable, happiest customers. This is where your programs should start.

That’s it. That’s the playbook.

1. ICP: Ideal, not idealistic

An Ideal Customer Profile or ICP is simply the small percentage of customers who deliver the most profit and stick around the longest.

Teams often treat ICP marketing as an executive dream exercise. But, that’s how you end up with marketing drivel like “Our ICP is Apple.” Suddenly, the ICP shifts toward Fortune 500 brands you’ve never sold to when, in reality, your pipeline is full of fragmented mid-market operators who actually return your calls. 

If you’ve never served enterprise at scale, Apple is not ideal; it’s idealistic. And idealistic ICPs drain resources.

A real ICP comes from your data:

• Lifetime gross profit vs CAC
• Churn risk and payback periods
• Onboarding success metrics
• Referrals and expansions

If you can’t prove it with numbers, it’s not an ICP.

“The easiest place to start is to look at your most successful case studies. If they all look similar, that’s a clear signal of who your ICP really is.”

— Mason Cosby 

Simple, but most teams skip this step. 

Action: Use your CRM to segment NPS, repeat business, referrals, and lifetime value. That’s your marketing ICP.

2. CCL: Your current customers are a mirror

Before you dream about your total market, start with the people already paying you. Your Current Customer List (CCL) shows who you already serve. It’s the harshest reality check you’ll get.

Look at:

• Who delivers the most profit?
• Who stays the longest?
• Who churns the fastest?
• Who refers new business?

Action: If your CCL is full of low-value, high-maintenance accounts, don’t repeat the mistake. Filter aggressively. Not every current customer belongs in your future.

3. TCP: The overlap that actually matters

Target Customer Profile (TCP) is the kill switch for bad targeting. It’s your ICP put through the reality filter of your Current Customer List (CCL), honing in on its best segments. Translation: more customers like your most profitable ones.

The beauty of TCP is that it forces you to stop chasing “dream accounts” and start building a pipeline around the accounts that are proven moneymakers. That overlap is where every smart ABM program starts.

TCPs create focused target account lists. They align sales and marketing because they remove opinion. If both sides know exactly which accounts look like proven winners, there’s no debate—just execution.

But targeting your best 20% does more than increase profit.

4. The hidden benefits of focusing on TCP

Targeting isn’t just a marketing play. It’s a growth strategy for the entire business:

• Better culture: Teams like working with customers who like them. Toxic accounts kill morale;
• Attract top talent: Higher margins let you pay above market and recruit better people;
• Real innovation: Similar customers give similar, actionable feedback. That focus makes your product stronger

Cosby’s own agency saw a 40% profit increase within one quarter by focusing on best-fit customers. That margin allowed them to raise salaries 10% above market and offer bonuses, instantly improving retention.

Action: Take your CCL. Subtract the bad fits. Overlay your ICP. That intersection is your TCP. Build your campaigns around it.

How to prioritize accounts inside TCP

Not all TCP accounts are equal. Cosby breaks them into three tiers:

• Tier 1: Perfect ICP fit + already engaged. Expect pipeline within 3–6 months;
• Tier 2: Good fit with some engagement. Nurture with product-aware content;
• Tier 3: Great fit but no engagement yet. Long plays, often 12–18 months out.

Sales should focus on Tier 1 and 2. Marketing should run programs for Tier 3.

We need to stop pretending sales can work hundreds of accounts. A dedicated outbound rep can handle about 30 accounts per day. A full-funnel AE? Closer to 15. 

Anything beyond that is unrealistic.

TAM, SAM, SOM: Fancy math for pitch decks

If you’re not reporting to a board or investors, forget about TAM/SAM/SOM. Period.

• TAM (total addressable market) = everyone you could possibly sell to.
• SAM (serviceable addressable market) = companies that could realistically use your solution.
• SOM (serviceable obtainable market) = the slice you can realistically close today.

These numbers look sexy on a fundraising slide. But they don’t help you prioritize accounts tomorrow. If you’re bootstrapped, ignore them. 

If you’re funded, calculate them to keep investors happy, then go back to focusing on ICP, CCL, and TCP.

If you’re trying to understand the difference between TAM and SAM, here it is: TAM is theoretical. SAM is practical. SOM is what you can actually grab now. That’s it.

Marketers also confuse addressable market vs target market. TAM is your addressable market. Your TCP is your real target market. Don’t mix them up.

For investors, it’s always total addressable market vs SAM. For operators, it should always be ICP vs TCP.

This is the essence of TAM marketing and SAM marketing: only useful if you’re fundraising. Otherwise, it’s wasted effort.

Stop chasing leads. Start chasing profit.

Here’s where most marketing teams mess it up: they optimize for leads instead of profitability. The smarter question is: “How do we get more profitable customers?”

Example: A company closes a massive enterprise deal. Everyone celebrates. But the deal is a nightmare to deliver, margins are thin, and the customer churns within a year. That’s not a win.

Compare that to mid-market accounts with high expansion potential, fast onboarding, and strong referral patterns. Smaller deals, but massively more profitable. That’s who should define your ICP.

Action: Go to finance. Ask them: “Who are our most profitable customers?” If you’ve never asked, you’re missing the data that matters most.

The private equity playbook: Fire 80%, double down on 20%

Private equity firms like BlackRock squeeze billions in returns by buying companies, identifying the 20% most profitable customers, and reorienting the entire business around them.

“If you replace the 80% that are not the most profitable customers with the top 20%, you end up with 100% of what used to be your best customers—without adding to overhead. That makes the business exponentially more valuable.”

— Mason Cosby 

That’s how PE firms build exits.

You don’t need to sell your business to run this play. Use it now. Cut unprofitable customers, target accounts that look like your top 20% and build marketing programs around them.

Why most account lists fail

Here’s the ugly truth: most companies build a target account list, then let it rot in a spreadsheet for six months. Data decays fast—22.5% of CRM data is outdated within a year.

If your list isn’t updated regularly, it’s worthless. Your ICP shifts. Markets change. People leave jobs.

Action: Update your TCP and target account list quarterly. Bake it into your process. Otherwise, your “strategy” is stale before campaigns even launch.

Build frameworks, not campaigns

87% of marketers say ABM outperforms every other program. It creates larger deals, faster cycles, and cheaper expansion revenue. But the real power isn’t in the campaign; it’s in the framework.

A TCP-driven account strategy gives you repeatability. It creates predictable pipeline, certainty, and focus. Campaigns come and go. Frameworks compound.

The takeaway: Kill the soup, keep the signal

If your go-to-market is defined by acronyms, you’ve already lost. TAM, SAM, and SOM are distractions unless you’re fundraising. Personas without profit data are vanity projects.

The only targeting acronyms worth your salt are ICP, CCL, and TCP.

• ICP = who’s best for us and for them
• CCL = who we already have
• TCP = who we want more of

So stop swimming in alphabet soup. Run the private equity playbook, double down on the top 20% of your customers, and fire the rest. Build marketing that finds more of the profitable ones.

Want to master this? Take CXL’s B2B Sales & Marketing Alignment course and learn how to build targeting frameworks that drive profit.