The persona step is where you tell Wyra who to reach — and how precisely to find them. Get this right and your campaign starts with the right people. Get it wrong and volume won't save you.
When this step appears
Wyra Intelligence path only.
The persona step only appears when you've chosen to use Wyra's Intelligence database as your contact source. If you're running a campaign from a list you uploaded, your contacts are already defined — this step is skipped entirely.
The five fields
Each one narrows the pool. Use them together.
Job Titles
The roles you want to reach. Add multiple titles to cast a wider net within the same seniority band — the more specific you are here, the more relevant your prospects will be. You can also exclude specific titles to filter out roles that match your keywords but aren't your target audience — e.g. excluding "Assistant" or "Intern" when targeting VP-level roles.
e.g. VP of Engineering, Head of Platform, Director of Infrastructure
Industries
The verticals you want to target. Select one or more. Narrower industry selection means higher relevance — but going too narrow can limit your prospect pool significantly. If you're targeting a niche vertical, consider pairing it with broader related industries to maintain volume.
e.g. Healthcare & Life Sciences, Financial Services, Technology & SaaS
Locations
Where your target prospects are based. Can be a country, region, or city. Leave broad for your first campaign.
e.g. United States, United Kingdom, Southeast Asia
Company Size
Employee count range of the companies you want to target. Useful for separating enterprise, mid-market, and SMB audiences who have fundamentally different buying dynamics. This field is optional — and company size is estimated from publicly available data, so treat it as a directional filter rather than a precise count.
e.g. 201–500 employees for mid-market, 1001+ for enterprise
Keywords
The most powerful field in persona setup — covered in full below.
Keywords — the power filter
Find prospects by what they know and use — not just their title.
Job title and industry tell you who someone is at an organizational level. Keywords go deeper — finding prospects based on the specific technologies, platforms, skills, or services they've mentioned in their professional profiles. This means you can target people who are actively working with a specific tool, have experience in a particular domain, or are currently using a competitor's product.
Two ways to use keywords effectively:
Competitor targeting
HerokuFind users of a competing platform
If you offer a cloud hosting alternative, targeting prospects who mention Heroku surfaces people actively working with the platform you're displacing.
Technology targeting
AWS LambdaFind practitioners in your ecosystem
If you sell services that extend AWS capabilities, targeting prospects who mention AWS Lambda finds engineers already operating in your ecosystem.
How to think about keywords
Think about what your ideal prospect would have written about themselves professionally — the tools they use, the platforms they've worked on, the skills they've listed. A keyword that appears in the profile of your best current customers is a keyword worth targeting.
Keywords narrow your pool significantly
Keywords are a precision filter — powerful because they're specific, but specificity reduces volume. If your other filters are already narrow, adding keywords may result in too few prospects. Start with broader filters and use keywords to sharpen.
The sample prospects panel
A live preview — not the final list.
What you're seeing
As you adjust your filters, the panel on the right updates in real time to show a sample of matching prospects from Wyra's database. Use them as a gut-check: do these look like the right people?
The sample is not the final shortlist
The prospects shown match your filter criteria. Outreach scoring is deeper research that runs post-launch. The final set of prospects your campaign reaches may differ — Wyra selects those with the strongest fit based on scoring that happens after launch.
Getting the persona right
Four principles that separate good targeting from great targeting.
Start broader than you think
Your first campaign is a learning exercise as much as an outreach exercise. A broader persona gives you more data to work with — you can always narrow based on where replies come from.
Match the persona to the offering
The offering's industry and function should align with your persona filters. A cybersecurity offering targeted at HR directors is a mismatch — the messaging won't land.
Use company size deliberately
Enterprise and mid-market prospects have different pain points, different buying cycles, and different objections. A single campaign trying to serve both usually serves neither.
One strong keyword beats five weak ones
Don't use all five keyword slots just because they're available. One highly specific keyword that describes your ideal prospect precisely will outperform five generic terms.
Where to go next