🤖 AI Lead Enrichment Pipeline

Turn a list of names into decision-ready, enriched, verified and scored sales leads.

---

📋 What It Does

Upload a CSV or JSON list of leads (name + company, name + domain, or email). The pipeline runs 6 automated steps and returns decision-ready output:

INPUT (name + company)
│
├─ Step 1 — Normalize     Domain extraction, name parsing, dedup
├─ Step 2 — Contact      10-pattern email waterfall discovery
├─ Step 3 — Verify        MX lookup + SMTP handshake
├─ Step 4 — Enrich        Website scrape → company signals
├─ Step 5 — Score         5-dimension deterministic fit score (A–F)
├─ Step 6 — Decide        Send / Nurture / Skip + recovery plan
│
OUTPUT (decision-ready)

Everything is deterministic and auditable — no LLM calls, no black boxes, no surprises. Same input always produces the same output.

---

✨ Key Features

Feature	Description
📥 Flexible input	JSON array or CSV text. Auto-detects field name aliases (firstName, first_name, fname, etc.)
🔍 Email waterfall	10 common patterns tried automatically (first@domain, first.last@domain, etc.)
✅ MX + SMTP verify	Real mail exchanger lookup + lightweight SMTP handshake — no third-party API dependency
🏢 Company enrichment	Website scraping with Cheerio — extracts industry, company size, revenue signals
🎯 Fit scoring	5-dimension deterministic score (0-100) → A-F grade. Seniority detection, social presence, data completeness
📊 Send decisions	Every lead gets: SEND / NURTURE / SKIP / NEEDS_RESEARCH + recovery plan + priority score
⚡ Deterministic	Same input = same output. Fully auditable. No LLM overhead costs.
📤 CRM push	Optional HubSpot or Salesforce integration (coming: more platforms)
💰 Quality gate	minFitScoreToCharge — only pay for leads that meet your quality threshold

---

🔧 Input Parameters

leads (JSON array) or csvText (string)

Provide one or the other:

JSON example:

[
  {
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe",
    "companyName": "Acme Corp",
    "title": "VP of Sales",
    "domain": "acme.com"
  },
  {
    "email": "jane@example.com",
    "firstName": "Jane",
    "companyName": "Example Inc"
  }
]

CSV example:

firstName,lastName,companyName,title,domain
John,Doe,Acme Corp,VP of Sales,acme.com
Jane,Smith,TechStart Inc,CTO,techstart.io

Other parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
enrichmentDepth	string	standard	basic / standard / deep — controls how much data is extracted
verifyEmail	boolean	true	Run MX + SMTP verification
minFitScoreToCharge	integer	0	Only bill for leads with fit score ≥ threshold
crmPush	string	none	none / hubspot / salesforce
outputFormat	string	json	json / csv / both

---

📤 Output Example

{
  "status":           "enriched",
  "firstName":        "John",
  "lastName":         "Doe",
  "companyName":      "Acme Corp",
  "domain":           "acme.com",
  "title":            "VP of Sales",
  "email":            "john@acme.com",
  "verified":         true,
  "companySize":      "201-500",
  "industry":         "SaaS / Software",
  "revenue":          "$10M-$50M",
  "socialUrls":       ["https://linkedin.com/company/acme-corp"],
  "techStack":        [],
  "enrichmentDepth":  "deep",
  "fitScore":         87,
  "fitGrade":         "A",
  "fitLabel":         "Hot lead — contact immediately",
  "sendDecision":     "SEND",
  "recoveryPlan":     "",
  "signals":          ["HOT_LEAD"],
  "priorityScore":    100,
  "executionPlan":    {
    "channel":   "phone",
    "sequence":  ["day1:intro", "day3:value_prop", "day7:case_study"],
    "timing":    "within_24h",
    "tone":      "direct"
  },
  "freshness":        "fresh"
}

---

💰 Pricing

Pay-Per-Event (no subscription — pay only for what you use)

Tier	Price per 100 leads	What's included
Basic	$4.99	Email discovery + company name + industry detection
Standard	$1.99	Everything in Basic + MX/SMTP verification + website scrape + full firmographics
Deep	$0.50	Everything in Standard + social profiles + tech stack + fit score (A-F) + execution plan

💡 Deeper tiers are cheaper per lead because they produce more signals, making the fit score more reliable. You're paying for quality and actionability, not raw data volume.

💸 Cost examples

Use case	Leads	Depth	Total cost
Small team Monday outreach	50	Standard	~$1.00
Agency client campaign	500	Deep	~$2.50
CRM enrichment	5,000	Standard	~$99.50
Enterprise data refresh	50,000	Deep	~$250.00

🎯 Quality gate — only pay for good leads

Set minFitScoreToCharge: 55 and the pipeline automatically skips billing for low-quality leads. You only pay for "C grade and above" — meaning leads that have enough data to act on.

This is the only lead enrichment tool on Apify that lets you gate charges by lead quality.

---

🎯 Use Cases

Use Case	How it helps	Who needs it
Sales outreach prep	Enrich 500 leads before Monday morning — verified emails, scored by fit, ready to send	SDRs, AE, sales managers
CRM data cleanup	Run existing CRM contacts through the pipeline to verify emails and enrich missing fields	Ops teams, revenue ops
Event lead follow-up	Import conference badge scans → enrich + score → send personalized follow-up within 24h	Marketing, events
Investor targeting	Find decision-maker emails at target companies, verify deliverability	Founders, IR teams
Recruiter sourcing	Discover contacts at competitor companies with verified emails	Talent acquisition
Agency client prospecting	Bulk enrichment for client campaigns with quality gating	Agencies, consultancies

---

🔬 Enrichment Depths Explained

Basic — $4.99/100 leads

Fast, lightweight. Best for quick qualification checks.

• Email pattern discovery
• Basic company name extraction
• Industry keyword detection
• Output: email, company name, industry

Standard — $1.99/100 leads ← Recommended for most teams

Best value. Full enrichment pipeline with verification.

• Everything in Basic
• MX + SMTP email verification (real mail server check)
• Website scraping with Cheerio (about, company pages)
• Detailed firmographics: company size, industry classification, revenue signals
• Clean domain extraction
• Output: email + verified + full company profile

Deep — $0.50/100 leads

Maximum signals for critical deal research.

• Everything in Standard
• Social profile discovery (LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Crunchbase)
• Tech stack detection
• 5-dimension fit scoring (0-100 → A-F grade)
• Seniority detection with boost scoring
• Execution planning: recommended channel, sequence, timing, tone
• Deterministic send decision + priority ranking
• Output: everything + fit score + execution plan

---

⚙️ Technical Approach

Component	Technology	Why
Scraping	Crawlee CheerioCrawler	Fast, lightweight, low compute cost
Email verification	Node.js dns + net	No external API — zero per-call cost
Input parsing	csv-parse	Robust CSV handling with header auto-detection
Fit scoring	Rule-based engine (no LLM)	Deterministic, auditable, $0 inference cost
Anti-block	Polite crawling (no proxy needed for company sites)	Keeps costs low
Output	Apify Dataset + KVS	Native platform storage

Why no AI? Lead enrichment doesn't need a language model. A rule-based deterministic engine is:

1. Cheaper — zero per-call inference cost
2. Auditable — every scoring factor is logged and explainable
3. Reproducible — same input = same output, every time
4. Faster — no API latency, no token limits

---

📊 Comparison

Capability	Clay	Apollo.io	ZoomInfo	This Actor
Email enrichment	✅	✅	✅	✅
Email verification	Paid add-on ❌	Stale	Basic	✅ MX + SMTP
Company enrichment	✅	✅	✅	✅ Website scrape
Lead scoring	Opaque	Score only	Opaque	✅ Deterministic A-F
Send-or-skip decision	❌	❌	❌	✅ Stable enum
Recovery plan	❌	❌	❌	✅ Per-lead
Priority ranking	❌	❌	❌	✅ With factors
Freshness awareness	❌	❌	❌	✅ Staleness model
LLM-free / auditable	❌	❌	❌	✅ Fully deterministic
Pay-per-event	❌	Subscription	Subscription	✅ $0.50-$4.99/100
Quality gating	❌	❌	❌	✅ minFitScoreToCharge

---

🚀 Quick Start

1. Try it with the prefill data

Open the Actor in Apify Console and click "Run" — the input already contains 3 sample leads.

2. Upload your own leads

Replace the prefill JSON with your own data, or paste a CSV into the csvText field. Field names are auto-detected.

3. Set your quality gate

If you only want to pay for high-quality leads, set minFitScoreToCharge to 55 (C grade and above). Low-scoring leads are enriched for free.

4. Get your output

Results appear in the dataset as structured JSON, ready to:

• Import into your CRM
• Feed into an outreach tool
• Analyze in Google Sheets or Airtable
• Use as input for downstream automation

5. Automate it

Schedule daily/weekly runs via Apify, connect via webhook, or use the API:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/luckborn~ai-lead-enrichment-pipeline/runs" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "leads": [{ "firstName": "John", "companyName": "Acme Corp" }],
    "enrichmentDepth": "standard",
    "minFitScoreToCharge": 55
  }'

---

🧠 Tips

1. Always set minFitScoreToCharge — start at 55 (C grade) and adjust based on results. This is your quality gate.
2. Use "standard" depth for daily operations — best balance of cost and data. Save "deep" for your top 20% of prospects.
3. Run a small batch first (10-20 leads) to validate your input format and see the scoring in action.
4. Check the SUMMARY.json — saved in the key-value store after each run with aggregate stats.
5. Combine with Google Maps Scraper for local business enrichment, or Instagram Scraper for creator vetting.

---

🔒 Privacy & Compliance

• No data leaves the Apify platform — all processing happens within your run container
• No third-party APIs — email verification is local MX + SMTP, not a paid verification service
• No LLM inference — scoring is deterministic and auditable
• Compliant with GDPR data minimization principles — only extract what you need

---

🛠 Integration

Apify API (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("luckborn/ai-lead-enrichment-pipeline").call(
    run_input={
        "leads": [{"firstName": "John", "companyName": "Acme Corp"}],
        "enrichmentDepth": "standard",
    }
)
dataset = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Apify API (JavaScript/TypeScript)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'apify_api_YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('luckborn/ai-lead-enrichment-pipeline').call({
    leads: [{ firstName: 'John', companyName: 'Acme Corp' }],
    enrichmentDepth: 'standard',
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

MCP Server (AI Agents)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "type": "apify",
      "actors": ["luckborn/ai-lead-enrichment-pipeline"]
    }
  }
}

---

🐛 Known Limitations

• Email verification uses a lightweight SMTP handshake — it's fast and cheap but may produce false negatives for aggressively greylisting mail servers
• Company enrichment depends on the target website being accessible and has a meaningful about/company page
• Social profile URLs are pattern-based guesses (linkedin.com/company/{slug}) — they aren't verified independently
• CRM push requires separate API configuration (coming in v1.1)

---

📦 Changelog

v1.0 (Current)

• Initial release
• 6-step enrichment pipeline
• 3 depth levels: Basic, Standard, Deep
• Deterministic fit scoring with A-F grades
• SMTP email verification (no API needed)
• Company website enrichment with Cheerio
• Quality gate billing (minFitScoreToCharge)
• JSON + CSV output
• CRM push placeholder (HubSpot, Salesforce)

v1.1 (Planned)

• HubSpot and Salesforce API integration
• CSV output in key-value store
• Scheduling docs and templates
• Additional enrichment sources (Crunchbase API, GitHub API)

---

Built with ❤️ by luckborn on the Apify platform.