/prospecting

Prospecting Data Sources

Tool selection guide for prospecting across all three branches.

Tool selection by goal

Apollo

Use for: General B2B / SaaS firmographic + contact data. Best starting point if you don't already have a list.

Strengths:

• Large database (>200M contacts, >60M companies)
• Strong filtering UI (industry, size, technologies, signals)
• Integrated email + LinkedIn finder
• Pay-as-you-go and tiered plans

Watch out for:

• Data freshness varies — re-verify before scoring as "Hot"
• Email accuracy ~60–80% — always validate
• Bulk export limits apply

Integration: see apollo.md

Clay

Use for: Multi-source enrichment, waterfall lookups, custom scoring logic. When list quality matters more than list size.

Strengths:

• Waterfall logic: try Apollo first → fallback to ZoomInfo → fallback to Clearbit
• 100+ data provider integrations
• AI-powered enrichment (LLM-driven extraction from URLs)
• Custom columns + scoring formulas
• Native MCP server

Watch out for:

• Per-credit pricing can spike on large lists
• Complexity overhead — easy to over-engineer workflows

Integration: see clay.md

ZoomInfo

Use for: Enterprise B2B + intent data. Mid-market+ buyer profiles.

Strengths:

• Enterprise-grade firmographic depth
• Intent signals (companies searching topics relevant to your offer)
• Best-in-class for >$50K ACV B2B sales
• Native MCP server

Watch out for:

• Expensive ($15K+/yr starter)
• Overkill for SMB prospecting
• Locked into multi-year contracts typically

Integration: see zoominfo.md

Clearbit

Use for: Email → company enrichment, anonymous visitor identification (Clearbit Reveal).

Strengths:

• Strong company enrichment (industry, size, funding, tech stack)
• Email lookup by domain
• Reveal: identify anonymous site visitors at company level
• API-first

Watch out for:

• HubSpot acquisition (2023) — bundled into HubSpot Breeze Intelligence now
• Standalone API still available but pricing/access depends on tier

Integration: see clearbit.md

Hunter / Snov

Use for: Email pattern discovery + lightweight verification on small lists.

Hunter strengths:

• Domain-based email discovery
• Built-in deliverability verification
• Free tier reasonable for occasional use

Snov strengths:

• Email finder + drip campaigns (overlap with outreach tooling)
• Bulk verification
• Cheaper than Hunter at scale

Watch out for:

• Both are pattern-guessing tools — accuracy depends on the target company's email pattern being inferable
• Always run results through a dedicated validator (Truelist or similar) before outreach

Integrations: see hunter.md, snov.md

Truelist

Use for: Email deliverability validation before adding contacts to outreach lists. Critical safety step.

Strengths:

• Single-email sync verification (/api/v1/verify_inline) + bulk async (/api/v1/verify)
• Returns email_state (ok / email_invalid / risky / unknown / accept_all) + email_sub_state (email_ok / is_disposable / is_role / unknown_error / failed_smtp_check) + did-you-mean typo suggestions
• Catches catch-all domains, role accounts, spam traps, disposable providers
• Official MCP server for agent-driven workflows (Claude, Cursor, VS Code)
• Official SDKs in 7 languages + framework integrations (Django, Laravel, Next.js, Rails, React, Svelte, Vue, WordPress)
• Native integrations with Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Zapier, Make, n8n, Clay, Salesforce, more
• Pay-per-email pricing

Why this matters: Cold email reputation craters when bounce rates exceed 2%. Validating before sending is non-negotiable. Apollo/ZoomInfo/Hunter data is often 60–80% accurate — Truelist catches the rest.

Integration: see truelist.md

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Use for: Manual decision-maker discovery. The gold standard for B2B / SaaS prospecting but only when used as a research tool.

Strengths:

• Most accurate decision-maker data in the industry
• Real-time job changes, posts, signals
• Lead lists, alerts, saved searches
• Inmail credits (separate channel from cold email)

Hard rules:

• Never bulk scrape. LinkedIn aggressively bans scrapers. Account ban risk is real and permanent.
• Use Sales Nav as a research interface — open profiles, read, take notes, capture key data manually.
• Apollo and other tools claim LinkedIn data via partnerships / public mirroring — verify the source legitimacy before assuming compliance.

Integration: no MCP or API access at consumer level. Manual research only.

BuiltWith / Wappalyzer

Use for: Tech stack qualification (SaaS branch).

BuiltWith:

• ~50K+ technologies tracked
• API + bulk lookups (paid)
• Historical data (when stack changed)

Wappalyzer:

• Free browser extension; paid API
• Lighter coverage than BuiltWith
• Faster for one-off lookups

Cross-reference both for high-confidence tech stack signals.

Crunchbase

Use for: Funding signals (SaaS branch).

Strengths:

• Free tier shows recent funding events
• Paid (Pro / Enterprise) unlocks alerts and deep history
• API access for paid users

Watch out for:

• Coverage is best for VC-backed companies; bootstrapped + small businesses underrepresented
• Self-reported data — verify funding amounts independently

GitHub (stargazers / forks / watchers)

Use for: Developer-intent prospecting. Especially powerful for dev-tool SaaS — stargazers of competitor or category-defining repos are in-market signal.

Strengths:

• Public API, no scraping concerns
• High signal quality (a starred repo = explicit interest)
• Forks are an even stronger signal (intent to modify, not just bookmark)
• Bundled github-prospects.js CLI handles pagination + enrichment + CSV output
• Free with 5,000 req/hr authenticated rate limit

Watch out for:

• Only ~5–20% of users publish email — pair with Apollo/Clay/Hunter for enrichment
• Very-popular repos (100K+ stars) are mostly noise; smaller targeted repos (5K–25K) give better signal density
• Most prospects are individuals, not company contacts directly — need to figure out their company from company field or LinkedIn

Integration: see github.md

Firecrawl / Browserbase (single-target site research)

Use for: Programmatically extracting content from a prospect's own website that you already found via discovery on platforms like Google Maps, Yelp, or LinkedIn. Not for scraping those platforms themselves.

Firecrawl

• Best for: "Just give me the page as markdown" — Local SMB website status checks, B2B company about/team page extraction, structured field extraction
• Strengths: Low overhead, returns clean LLM-ready markdown, handles most JS-rendered sites, has an MCP server
• API + MCP + SDKs: Node, Python, Go, Rust

Browserbase

• Best for: When you need real Chromium — JS-heavy pages, cookie consent dialogs, form submission to reach a contact page, session state
• Strengths: Full browser control via Playwright/Puppeteer; Stagehand provides AI-friendly natural-language extraction; session recordings for debugging
• API + MCP (Stagehand) + SDKs: Node, Python

Critical compliance line

Both tools can technically point at any URL. The hard rule:

• ✓ OK: extracting content from a single business's own website (joescoffeeshop.com) that you found through manual discovery
• ✗ NOT OK: pointing them at google.com/maps, LinkedIn search results, Yelp listings, or any platform whose ToS prohibits bulk extraction

Discovery happens on platforms (manual browser-assisted research). Extraction happens on individual public business sites.

Integrations: see firecrawl.md, browserbase.md

RB2B / Clearbit Reveal

Use for: Identifying anonymous site visitors as warm intent signals.

Strengths:

• Pixel-based visitor → company identification
• High-intent: they came to your site, they're already in research mode
• Slack / email alerts on key visits

Watch out for:

• Privacy/GDPR considerations — verify your privacy policy disclosures
• Person-level identification raises higher concerns than company-level

Integration: see rb2b.md

Free / browser-only fallbacks

When the user has no paid tools, lean on:

• Google Search — exact business name + city + role searches
• LinkedIn (manual, no scraping) — company pages, employee lookups
• Crunchbase free tier — funding events
• Wappalyzer browser extension — tech stack at a glance
• Hunter.io free tier — 25 lookups/month
• Google Maps — for Local SMB discovery
• Business websites + About pages — primary source for any claim
• News sites + press releases — trigger event monitoring via Google Alerts

Slower than tooled-up workflows, but produces high-quality smaller lists if the user is willing to do the work.

Sequencing recommendations

A typical full-stack prospecting workflow:

1. Define ICP from product-marketing context (no tools needed)
2. Initial list from Apollo or ZoomInfo (firmographic filter)
3. Enrich with Clay (waterfall: tech stack, funding, trigger events)
4. Decision-maker mapping in LinkedIn Sales Nav (manual)
5. Email pattern discovery with Hunter or Apollo's built-in
6. Email validation with Truelist before final list
7. Hand off to cold-email skill for outreach copy

Adapt this sequence based on which tools the user actually has.