288 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
288 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
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# Prospecting Data Sources
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Tool selection guide for prospecting across all three branches.
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---
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## Tool selection by goal
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| Goal | Primary tools | Notes |
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| **Build initial firmographic list (B2B / SaaS)** | Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clay | Apollo for breadth, ZoomInfo for enterprise + intent, Clay for custom workflows |
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| **Decision-maker mapping** | LinkedIn Sales Navigator (manual), Apollo, ZoomInfo | Sales Nav is the gold standard. Never bulk scrape it. |
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| **Tech stack qualification (SaaS)** | BuiltWith, Wappalyzer | BuiltWith has wider coverage + paid plans for bulk; Wappalyzer is lighter + free for small use |
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| **Funding signals (SaaS)** | Crunchbase, Pitchbook | Crunchbase free tier sufficient for early signals; Pitchbook for deeper investor data |
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| **Email pattern discovery** | Hunter, Snov, Apollo | Pattern guessing — followed by verification |
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| **Email deliverability verification** | Truelist, Hunter, NeverBounce, ZeroBounce | Always verify before adding to outreach lists |
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| **Visitor identification (warm intent)** | RB2B, Clearbit Reveal | Anonymous traffic → company identification |
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| **Intent data** | ZoomInfo Intent, 6sense, Bombora | Pre-warmed signals; mid-market+ pricing |
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| **Trigger event monitoring** | Google Alerts, Feedly, LinkedIn Sales Nav alerts | Free options are sufficient for most |
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| **Local business discovery** | Google Maps (manual), Yelp, Facebook Pages | Browser-assisted, not bulk-extracted |
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---
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## Apollo
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**Use for**: General B2B / SaaS firmographic + contact data. Best starting point if you don't already have a list.
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**Strengths**:
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- Large database (>200M contacts, >60M companies)
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- Strong filtering UI (industry, size, technologies, signals)
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- Integrated email + LinkedIn finder
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- Pay-as-you-go and tiered plans
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**Watch out for**:
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- Data freshness varies — re-verify before scoring as "Hot"
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- Email accuracy ~60–80% — always validate
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- Bulk export limits apply
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**Integration**: see [apollo.md](../../../tools/integrations/apollo.md)
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---
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## Clay
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**Use for**: Multi-source enrichment, waterfall lookups, custom scoring logic. When list quality matters more than list size.
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**Strengths**:
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- Waterfall logic: try Apollo first → fallback to ZoomInfo → fallback to Clearbit
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- 100+ data provider integrations
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- AI-powered enrichment (LLM-driven extraction from URLs)
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- Custom columns + scoring formulas
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- Native MCP server
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**Watch out for**:
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- Per-credit pricing can spike on large lists
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- Complexity overhead — easy to over-engineer workflows
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**Integration**: see [clay.md](../../../tools/integrations/clay.md)
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---
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## ZoomInfo
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**Use for**: Enterprise B2B + intent data. Mid-market+ buyer profiles.
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**Strengths**:
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- Enterprise-grade firmographic depth
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- Intent signals (companies searching topics relevant to your offer)
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- Best-in-class for >$50K ACV B2B sales
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- Native MCP server
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**Watch out for**:
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- Expensive ($15K+/yr starter)
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- Overkill for SMB prospecting
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- Locked into multi-year contracts typically
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**Integration**: see [zoominfo.md](../../../tools/integrations/zoominfo.md)
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---
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## Clearbit
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**Use for**: Email → company enrichment, anonymous visitor identification (Clearbit Reveal).
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**Strengths**:
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- Strong company enrichment (industry, size, funding, tech stack)
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- Email lookup by domain
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- Reveal: identify anonymous site visitors at company level
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- API-first
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**Watch out for**:
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- HubSpot acquisition (2023) — bundled into HubSpot Breeze Intelligence now
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- Standalone API still available but pricing/access depends on tier
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**Integration**: see [clearbit.md](../../../tools/integrations/clearbit.md)
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---
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## Hunter / Snov
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**Use for**: Email pattern discovery + lightweight verification on small lists.
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**Hunter strengths**:
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- Domain-based email discovery
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- Built-in deliverability verification
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- Free tier reasonable for occasional use
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**Snov strengths**:
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- Email finder + drip campaigns (overlap with outreach tooling)
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- Bulk verification
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- Cheaper than Hunter at scale
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**Watch out for**:
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- Both are pattern-guessing tools — accuracy depends on the target company's email pattern being inferable
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- Always run results through a dedicated validator (Truelist or similar) before outreach
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**Integrations**: see [hunter.md](../../../tools/integrations/hunter.md), [snov.md](../../../tools/integrations/snov.md)
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---
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## Truelist
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**Use for**: Email deliverability validation before adding contacts to outreach lists. Critical safety step.
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**Strengths**:
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- Single-email sync verification (`/api/v1/verify_inline`) + bulk async (`/api/v1/verify`)
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- 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
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- Catches catch-all domains, role accounts, spam traps, disposable providers
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- Official MCP server for agent-driven workflows (Claude, Cursor, VS Code)
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- Official SDKs in 7 languages + framework integrations (Django, Laravel, Next.js, Rails, React, Svelte, Vue, WordPress)
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- Native integrations with Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot, Zapier, Make, n8n, Clay, Salesforce, more
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- Pay-per-email pricing
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**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.
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**Integration**: see [truelist.md](../../../tools/integrations/truelist.md)
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---
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## LinkedIn Sales Navigator
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**Use for**: Manual decision-maker discovery. The gold standard for B2B / SaaS prospecting but only when used as a research tool.
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**Strengths**:
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- Most accurate decision-maker data in the industry
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- Real-time job changes, posts, signals
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- Lead lists, alerts, saved searches
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- Inmail credits (separate channel from cold email)
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**Hard rules**:
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- **Never bulk scrape**. LinkedIn aggressively bans scrapers. Account ban risk is real and permanent.
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- Use Sales Nav as a research interface — open profiles, read, take notes, capture key data manually.
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- Apollo and other tools claim LinkedIn data via partnerships / public mirroring — verify the source legitimacy before assuming compliance.
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**Integration**: no MCP or API access at consumer level. Manual research only.
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---
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## BuiltWith / Wappalyzer
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**Use for**: Tech stack qualification (SaaS branch).
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**BuiltWith**:
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- ~50K+ technologies tracked
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- API + bulk lookups (paid)
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- Historical data (when stack changed)
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**Wappalyzer**:
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- Free browser extension; paid API
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- Lighter coverage than BuiltWith
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- Faster for one-off lookups
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Cross-reference both for high-confidence tech stack signals.
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## Crunchbase
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**Use for**: Funding signals (SaaS branch).
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**Strengths**:
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- Free tier shows recent funding events
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- Paid (Pro / Enterprise) unlocks alerts and deep history
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- API access for paid users
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**Watch out for**:
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- Coverage is best for VC-backed companies; bootstrapped + small businesses underrepresented
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- Self-reported data — verify funding amounts independently
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---
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## GitHub (stargazers / forks / watchers)
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**Use for**: Developer-intent prospecting. Especially powerful for dev-tool SaaS — stargazers of competitor or category-defining repos are in-market signal.
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**Strengths**:
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- Public API, no scraping concerns
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- High signal quality (a starred repo = explicit interest)
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- Forks are an even stronger signal (intent to modify, not just bookmark)
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- Bundled `github-prospects.js` CLI handles pagination + enrichment + CSV output
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- Free with 5,000 req/hr authenticated rate limit
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**Watch out for**:
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- Only ~5–20% of users publish email — pair with Apollo/Clay/Hunter for enrichment
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- Very-popular repos (100K+ stars) are mostly noise; smaller targeted repos (5K–25K) give better signal density
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- Most prospects are individuals, not company contacts directly — need to figure out their company from `company` field or LinkedIn
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**Integration**: see [github.md](../../../tools/integrations/github.md)
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---
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## Firecrawl / Browserbase (single-target site research)
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**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.
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### Firecrawl
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- **Best for**: "Just give me the page as markdown" — Local SMB website status checks, B2B company about/team page extraction, structured field extraction
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- **Strengths**: Low overhead, returns clean LLM-ready markdown, handles most JS-rendered sites, has an MCP server
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- **API + MCP + SDKs**: Node, Python, Go, Rust
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### Browserbase
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- **Best for**: When you need real Chromium — JS-heavy pages, cookie consent dialogs, form submission to reach a contact page, session state
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- **Strengths**: Full browser control via Playwright/Puppeteer; Stagehand provides AI-friendly natural-language extraction; session recordings for debugging
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- **API + MCP (Stagehand) + SDKs**: Node, Python
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### Critical compliance line
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Both tools can technically point at any URL. The hard rule:
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- ✓ **OK**: extracting content from a single business's own website (`joescoffeeshop.com`) that you found through manual discovery
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- ✗ **NOT OK**: pointing them at `google.com/maps`, LinkedIn search results, Yelp listings, or any platform whose ToS prohibits bulk extraction
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Discovery happens on platforms (manual browser-assisted research). Extraction happens on individual public business sites.
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**Integrations**: see [firecrawl.md](../../../tools/integrations/firecrawl.md), [browserbase.md](../../../tools/integrations/browserbase.md)
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---
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## RB2B / Clearbit Reveal
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**Use for**: Identifying anonymous site visitors as warm intent signals.
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**Strengths**:
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- Pixel-based visitor → company identification
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- High-intent: they came to your site, they're already in research mode
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- Slack / email alerts on key visits
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**Watch out for**:
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- Privacy/GDPR considerations — verify your privacy policy disclosures
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- Person-level identification raises higher concerns than company-level
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**Integration**: see [rb2b.md](../../../tools/integrations/rb2b.md)
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---
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## Free / browser-only fallbacks
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When the user has no paid tools, lean on:
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- **Google Search** — exact business name + city + role searches
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- **LinkedIn** (manual, no scraping) — company pages, employee lookups
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- **Crunchbase free tier** — funding events
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- **Wappalyzer browser extension** — tech stack at a glance
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- **Hunter.io free tier** — 25 lookups/month
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- **Google Maps** — for Local SMB discovery
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- **Business websites + About pages** — primary source for any claim
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- **News sites + press releases** — trigger event monitoring via Google Alerts
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Slower than tooled-up workflows, but produces high-quality smaller lists if the user is willing to do the work.
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---
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## Sequencing recommendations
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A typical full-stack prospecting workflow:
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1. **Define ICP** from product-marketing context (no tools needed)
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2. **Initial list** from Apollo or ZoomInfo (firmographic filter)
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3. **Enrich** with Clay (waterfall: tech stack, funding, trigger events)
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4. **Decision-maker mapping** in LinkedIn Sales Nav (manual)
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5. **Email pattern discovery** with Hunter or Apollo's built-in
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6. **Email validation** with Truelist before final list
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7. **Hand off** to cold-email skill for outreach copy
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Adapt this sequence based on which tools the user actually has.
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